The Convention

I saw Joe Biden's speech last night. I covet his teeth. Should Mitt Romney be the GOP's Vice Presidential candidate, the VP's Debate will be an overwhelming exposition of American dental power. It will be the Shock and Awe of Cosmetic Dentistry.

Watching the convention, it is easy to get excited. Forty five years after "I Have Dream" and we have a black candidate. Not only that, we have a black candidate who is the best candidate in the race. Who at least has a convincing diagnosis of the country's ills. One senses a mature country in the offing. A country at peace with its own diversity and in step the new global realities. Heady stuff.

But then you turn off the TV. And you are back in America and you must confront the lack of imagination that too often undermines our politics. There is a group of voters out there -- however large-- who say they are worried about his experience. I suspect what really worries them is the courage it takes to claim the America we want. They are looking for an old white father figure to keep them safe, and lack the imagination to envision an America whose future is not constrained by their fears.

Fear, greed, and bigotry. Once Obama gets over those... he'll be fine.

I Try, Really I Do

I try to be responsible. I try to understand. I read the right wing blogs. And I don't play that game of seeking out the most bizarre and marginal right wing opinion and pretending that it represents the consensus of the GOP. I stick close to Townhall, National Review, American Spectator, the WSJ etc.

But some times it is overwhelming. Here is one conservative commentator and radio host on taggers/graffiti artists/vandals:

Conservatives tend to regard graffiti as an assault on society, perpetrated by pathologically narcissistic lowlifes bent on undermining the foundations of higher civilization.

This came during his defense of shooting taggers to wound. "Pathologically narcissistic lowlifes?" Most of these people are like 12. "Bent on undermining the foundations of higher civilization." Somehow, I cannot attribute that kind of lofty goal to them. Maybe I can attribute that motive to Lex Luthor or Dr. No, but not a bunch of taggers.

Michelle Obama

I watched Michelle Obama's speech last night. I thought she did a fine job, but you could tell she was working. You could see her straining to convince America that her's was an American story, filled with all the talisman of America that we rely upon. It is a double edged sword I suppose. The fact that we force candidates to tag up to our common touchstones is probably beneficial. Right up to the point it becomes parochial and small minded.

The Obamas seem to have overwhelmed us a bit. A lot of America cannot process them. Their color, their ambitions, their success and their experience. So they have to do the limbo, and appeal to every white guy in Pennsylvania. That process robs them of traction, takes time, money and sometimes makes them look silly.

Each Presidential campaign seems to contain at least one man or woman who is intelligent, sophisticated, ambitious and compassionate. And they must convince a bunch of unintelligent, unsophisticated, unambitious and selfish people that they are good enough to lead. Personally, you could not pay me enough....

This Week In The News

This week, Sen. John McCain rolled out a new campaign ad in Michigan. The central message --Barak Obama will RAISE TAXES. According to a McCain spokesman, the ad was designed to transport voters back to the days of yore when there was actually someone who thought more tax cuts for the rich would make the economy a peach. McCain's campaign also announced that he will take tough stands against the crack cocaine epidemic in the inner cities, communist influence in Central America, and vile artists funded by the NEA. The McCain camp also debuted a white t-shirt that says" FRANKIE SAY VOTE FOR MCCAIN."

This week, Sen. John McCain who admitted to a reporter (from the right leaning Politico) that he doe not know how many houses he and his wife own, continued his attack on Barak Obama as a "liberal elitist." Asked to define the invective he often hurls at his opponents, Sen McCain said, "A liberal elitist is someone who I perceive to be smarter than me, who thinks that application of those smarts to current problems may do some good, who thinks other people -- who I may not like -- have the right to live their lives differently than I do and who thinks Europe is not entirely filled with cowardly homosexuals. You know the type, all those people who talk about societies 'evolving' and 'growing' and who want to 'raise the bar.' Always telling us we are not good enough.... "

This week, celebrity Reverend Rick Warren hosted both presidential candidates at his Saddleback Church for frank discussions on faith and politics. A virtual telethon of piety, the session elicited the candidates stances on issues such as abortion, war, poverty, the environment and whether homosexuals should be discriminated against a lot or just a little. The session was viewed as a success. Said one organizer, "it is important that we Christians hear the candidates views on living the gospel message before we predictably vote for someone who starts an unjustified war, cuts entitlements for the poor and middle class, endorses torture, and turns a blind eye to the victims of national disaster. I mean, it takes some work to talk like a Christian and vote like a Roman."

This week, George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs released a study of six weeks of TV news reports on the Presidential race. They concluded that Sen. Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. John McCain's coverage was 43% positive and 53% negative. This study undermines Senator's McCain's repeated theme that his opponent is some sort of celebrity who gets a free pass from the media. Asked about the discrepancy between reality and his rhetoric,McCain flared his nostrils and screamed, "O yeah... I remember 2000. I was the media darling. I was the straight talker. I was the lovable curmudgeon whose faults could be overlooked because of my war hero past. I was the most popular boy on the bus. Everyone wanted to eat donuts with me. And now I spend all my time explaining why I am so different now. All of a sudden people notice that I make mistakes .... lots of mistakes and that I talk about war ... a lot. Like its the only thing I want to talk about. John wants his donuts back....John wants his back slappy, pie eyed press buddies back."

A Few Notes

The Tigers are now just teasing us.....

There is a special place in hell for the man who recruited baseball icon Ernie Harwell to tell us that Blue Cross is something more than a shameless rent seeker.

It appears that some pundits are quite upset that some polls show Barak Obama either tied with or losing to John McCain. How do I put this? Sen. Obama is.... black. He is also the type of politician who questions our corporate centered politics and military perogatives. And did I mention he is black? Did you think this guy was going to walk away with the election. People will make up reasons not to vote for him.

John McCain aired a new ad in Michigan this week. The gravaman is that Sen. Obama will RAISE TAXES. It was like it was 1984 all over again. I wonder if McCain staffers listen to Duran Duran while they write this stuff.

This Week in the News

This week, Jerome Corsi, author of Unfit for Command, the book that launched the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, published his second book, Obama Nation inwhich he purportedly reveals that Sen. Barak Obama is the son of an alcoholic polygamist who holds anti American beliefs. While the book was denounced by the Obama campaign and many of its chief claims have been debunked in the mainstream media, Corsi was upbeat about the impact of his tome, "Listen. Obama is a scary black man who may make scary changes to this country. There are million of voters out there who desperately need a reason not to vote for him that does not have to do with their fear or bigotry. I am the straw they are grasping at. I few well placed smears and few mixtures of fact and fiction and Joe Sixpack can confidently say,"I am not a racist but...'"

This week, the newspapers were abuzz with the latest news on the street: the GOP can no longer count on the votes of religious Americas. It seems many Christians are taking stock of their faith and finding, as one prominent evangelical put it, "When you look at the political party that has traditionally championed poverty, social justice and care for the least of these, it's not been the Republican Party." In response to this tectonic shift, both presidential candidates are revamping their efforts to attract religious voters. Ever curious, TWN ventured out into faith based America and asked some questions. Cammy McPitcher from Roanoke, VA offered the following, "Yeah. There has been a shift in my thinking. Turns out war and poverty are like.... actually talked about in the Bible. While homosexuality and abortion just get some vague references in the Old Testament...who'd a thunk we need to care for actual people...." Tyra Pulitzer of Andover, MA had a different take. "This is just a fad. The trendy thinking right now. When you get right down to it is the dirty filthy sex people are having that is at the route of any moral problem and it is our job to judge it and condemn the little tarts and hussies who partake in it. I mean, imagine the difference we can make in the world..."

Uhhh John....

Speaking to reporters about the situation in Georgia, Sen. John McCain denounced the aggressive posture of Russia by claiming that:"in the 21st century nations don't invade other nations."

Ummmm... John.... oh... forget it...

Mo Do at Her Finest

Yesterday Maureen Dowd of the Times castigated John Edwards as she does all adulterers. She noted that: "Certain men assume that power confers sexual privilege." I would only change two words. I would change "Certain" to "all" and "assume' to "know."

Seriously, is there some rich and powerful guy out there who sleeps alone. Besides Billy Joel?

John Edwards RIP

John Edwards, whom I supported in his bid for the Presidency, has admitted that he had an affair in 2006 with a staffer. That staffer now claims she is pregnant by Edwards, who denies the child is his. Another staffer has stepped forward as the father and Rielle whatever her name is has refused to take a paternity test.

I supported John Edwards because I believed he had a humane and just vision of America and because he had the most realistic vision of how that American could be achieved. I still believe this and still consider Edwards to be a fine, if flawed, man. But he is done politically and here is why.

Some people treat adultery has a pedestrian offense, the equivalent of jay walking. An oops. Other see it as a crime on par with a major felony and cannot seem to muster enough approbation about the whole thing. Others keep their feeling about adultery to themselves but think it is a private affair to best be handled out of the private spotlight and certainly not a disqualifier from high office .... given that adultery has been almost a prerequisite to the ledger of successful men in America.

The trouble is, these groups obviously disagree. And every time Mr. Edwards opens his mouth they will have an argument. The ruckus they raise will drown out anything Mr. Edwards says about the indefensible treatment of the weak in our society, about the shame of our foreign policy, or the two Americas. Every speech, every idea and any initiative will be drowned as Americans fascinate themselves with the where and hows, and little men will bask in a large man's downfall, using the hatchet of adultery to cut down the tree of the man's life.

Do not get me wrong. I am angry at Mr. Edwards. He knew full well the depth of American hypocrisy, prurience and puritanism on all things sexual. He knew full well there were those who would jump at the chance to muddy him either for money or for political advantage. But like another Southern Democrat, he could not keep eros (or his ego) at bay. He took a silly risk, and while judgment and forgivness belong to Mrs. Edwards, I am still pissed.

Mr. Edwards' Affair does not change the plight of the growing number of Americans who now fall "below the line." It does not unite the two Americas. It doesn't make the moral and political problems John Edwards addressed go away. But it may as well have, because we will not talk about them anymore. And that is a shame.

This Week In The News

This week, David Gergen, the right hand man to three presidents and virtual symbol of the Washington establishment called John McCain's campaign racist. According to Gergen, Mccain uses code words to identify his opponent as an uppity black man: "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about." This week the McCain campaign has been atacked by two of his former advisors, uber operator Gergen, McCain's own mother, and Kathy Hilton (a GOP donor whose duaghter Paris was featured in McCain ad). McCain responded tersely, "Racist? Pshaww. Like many in my generation, I know that you cannot be racist unless you say n--ger, pickaninny, porch monkey, coon, or jigaboo. Anyhthing else you can just write off as a genral comment about a specific person. Otherwise, I mean c'mon, all sorts of white people would be racists."


This week, in a story widely reported in the alternative media, the Republican Party scrapped its plan to use the phrase, "The Change You Deserve" at its Minneapolis convention. It seems the GOP found out that phrase was already trademarked by the makers of the anti depressant/anti anxiety medication, Effexor. According to sources contacted by TWN, GOP operatives tried to bargain with the drug maker, arguing that being a Republican and taking Effexor have some similar effects: both make the world a very simple place that revolves around you, both lead you to think everything is just fine, and both can lead to completely unwarranted arrogance. In response the drug maker refused the GOP's offer, stating that unlike Republicanism, Effexor does, "not make you shoot up the world like you are in Rambo II, choose myth over fact, and there is no link between Effexor and an insatiable urge to enrich yourself at the expense of others."

Iraqi News

This week, Iraq'a parliament adjourned without acting on a critical piece of election law. This has apparently p-ssed of the Awakening Movement -- that merry band of heavily armed citizens that the US has been arming and paying for the last year. I quote the dire prediction of the informative Abu Aardvark site which is a great source for news from Iraq:

We are potentially approaching a moment of truth. The consequences of building up these forces outside of the structures of the Iraqi state, while stringing them along with promises that require Iraqi government acquiesence to deliver may be coming due. I know well that US military commanders have been far more attentive to these issues than have the cheerleaders, and MNF-I and Ambassador Crocker have been working as hard as they can to resolve them. Their failure to deliver a compromise on the provincial elections law and their failure to deliver meaningful progress on SOI integration both suggest the limits of American influence in Iraq - a lesson which the advocates of "strategic patience", who continue to view American decisions as the only ones which really matter, never seem to digest.

What a Week

Paris Hilton, tire gauges, drill now pay later, this week, the GOP was surging ahead in the race to the bottom. It is so depressing I do not want to write about it. Paul Krugman sums it up best with his summary of GOP electoral strategy:

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.

The sad thing is, I can see this plan totally working. Americans love leaders who absolve them of the heavy lifting.

Do We Get it Yet?

I just read the WSJ article describing Wal Mart's attempt to influence its employees' vote. It seems Wal Mart has been holding meetings with its people inwhich they warn them that a Democratic win could mean the Employee Free Choice Act will become law thus making it easier for workers to unionize, which is bad news for Wal Mart as they rely on low wages to feed their business model. (Employers hate the Free Choice Act because it will basically thwart the effectiveness of anti union campaigns.)

Two things. First, this is just an ugly and heavy handed move by Wal Mart. Second, does it strike anyone else as perverse that one of the world largest and most profitable companies would claim that it cannot afford to pay its employees better? Shouldn't we be questioning any economic system that seems to require workers to be paid less, not more? Is that the future we want for America?

An interesting side note, the NLRB just ruled that Wal Mart engaged in unfair labor practices by firing a pro union employee and threatening to withhold merit pay. Luckily for Wal Mart, the ruling comes two years after Wal Mart won the union election, so their tactics paid off. It is situations like this that reflect the need for the EFCA.