It Gets Better.

Bat Time... DING BATS!!

There are too many "What were they thinking?" candidates in this election. We'd have a shorter list if we named the sane ones. Did somebody put out a casting call for Women Wackos? Although there are some Democratic Ding Dongs in the mix, we must give the award for The Dingiest to the GOP--the Gals Of Palin.

Here's the thing: The earth's rotation cannot be reversed, no matter how much it's intimated, to a time where White is right... Guns are fun... Jesus is joy for every girl and boy... Business knows best... No to integration and immigration, yes to revisionist education... and, of course... We don't need no stinkin' health coverage.

Put your hand on the teevee and feel the power... plantations, Puritans, and a pistol in every purse. Praise the lord and piss on the unions. Amen.

I don't get it. Pardon me for talking like The Little Woman, but am I old-fashioned in saying that women spend much of their lives looking after their families... keeping them healthy and making sure they get a good education? Why is it unpopular to take those issues to Congress? And while we're taking things to Washington, if we teach our children to be civil and respect others, can't we expect Congress to behave similarly?

Businesses are already saying... to those lucky enough to have jobs... that employees will be paying a larger chunk for their health benefits. Millions are one pink slip away from no coverage in this shaky economy, yet you'd think that more accessible health coverage IS a disease! In Blue Cross/Blue Shield We Trust... until our COBRA expires.

Repeating the mantra, "the US has the best health care in the world" doesn't make it so. Even the WSJ couldn't figure out a way to muscle it up past No. 15 on their chart, while most studies put us around 37th. Guess what kind of coverage the 14 above us have.

If you've ever tangled over insurance approval of a medical procedure, you know that the argument about not wanting anyone between you and your doctor is a false one. The elephant in the room is exactly that and it's bloated.

CBS reports that here in NC, one man--Fred Eschelman-- has donated $3.37 million to defeat Democratic candidates. I've seen some of his group's TV ads--they're the weaselly, negative ones that whisper for you to vote against the Democratic candidate. They are targeting Democrats in other states, too. Fred is CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development. Following the money is a very short trip.

We can also repeat until we're blue in the face that we have the best education system in the world, but it still won't be true. About three years ago, The Times-UK, listed world rankings in reading, math, science. Because they showed only the top 25, we can't tell where we stand; the US didn't make the list in even one of the fields. (Our universities are, however, still highly rated, which begs the question of why we sneer at Ivy League educations even as other countries prize them.)

If you want to see us atop a short list, here's one I heard Fareed Zakaria mention recently: The United States is one of only three countries which does not use the metric system. The other two are Liberia and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma.)

When Republican politicians extol the virtues of Sarah Palin as a possible Presidential candidate, their reasons are, exactly... what? Damned if I know.

Carly Fiorina (running for Congress herself) was quoted as saying that Sarah Palin couldn't do anything as complicated as running a corporation, but that running the country was different. Not to pick on Ms. Fiorina, but she was named by Conde Nast Portfolio as one of the 20 Worst American CEOs Ever after being forced to resign as head of Hewlett-Packard.

Too many of this group of candidates have little to offer except sneers. We wonder why kids don't value learning? Because WE don't. Intelligence? Who needs it? History? Yawn. World affairs? Only if intercourse is involved.

Have we watched so many episodes of Desperate Housewives that we want to send them to Washington? The Real Housewives of the U. S. Congress? Gag me. Hell, gag them!

The word statesmen has been collecting dust on the shelf for a long time now. They have been in short supply. The word needs to be redefined to include both sexes, but we need not bring out the Endust for this group of GOPs. Michelle Bachman a stateswoman? I don't think so.

I don't know how to start a groundswell, yet I think it can and must start with us. Our better selves. Not parroting the same old slop we've been hearing.

Our children, our country, and our world deserve better.

Frankly, Rhett, we do give a damn.

Well Met

Fair Bluff, NC

Yesterday, I was cheered by contact with actual, live, intelligent, engaged humans who reside in The South. Authentic Southerners who were born in the region, were educated here, and who live here to this day because it's beautiful, it has potential, and it's home.

Take a road trip with DH and me on a zig-zagging route past beautiful farms and unique Southern eccentricities, through a charming tiny town untouched by time, to the dear, dear home of my graduate alma mater, Chapel Hill, NC, to meet an old friend and a new one.

Meeting An Old Friend

Today I had lunch with fellow blogger Nance and her husband. Up until today, Nance and I had pursued our friendship via a joint blog post, emails, comments on each other's blog posts and membership in two blog coops--Swash Zone and Hen's Teeth. Come to think of it, I actually think that I have communicated more with Nance than with some people whom I see every day.

We met in Chapel Hill, a town that I lived in for 25 years. I currently live about 35 miles away in Raleigh. I suggested that we have lunch at a popular Chapel Hill Restaurant, Breadman's--not my best idea. Breadman's is a fixture in Chapel Hill; it was in existence when I came to town in 1973. It has a large menu but it seems that they don't serve all of the menu all the time. For some reason, there is nothing on their menu to indicate that certain items are not available except a few asterisks next to a list of vegetables. Neither Nance, nor I, nor her better half read asteriks (clearly a dead language) so when we innocently attempted to get cornbread and fried chicken we were told, "Sorry, but we don't serve either for lunch on the weekend but it's available after 5:00 o'clock." As you may have noted, neither cornbread nor fried chicken is a vegetable so we didn't even have the benefit of an asterisk to clue us in as to the unavailbility of these items. Nonetherless, we were able to find some tasty items on the menu that were being served for lunch.

There was so much conversation that I can no longer recall all the particulars of what we discussed, just that it was lively, and entertaining, and a totally delightful 2+ hours. I did share my fascination with the television show 24, a violent spy drama starring Kiefer Sutherland; however, I thought it best to save discussion of my other favorite shows for our next visit: Criminal Minds (about the FBI Behavorial Analysis Unit that profiles serial killers), and Dexter (about a serial killer who works for a police department but he only kills people who deserve it). Did I mention that I'm a pacifist; I just like to watch make-believe violence.

Just in case you're curious, Nance is a beautiful woman; her outside reflects her inner beauty. She is as interesting to chat with as her post are interesting to read. Her husband is also a charming conversationlist. I can't recall if Nance refers to him in her blog as DT, DH, or DJ. With my bad memory, the answer is probably none of the above.

P.S. Nance took pictures; I forgot my camera!

Chasing Bubbles With A Butterfly Net

For someone like me with a well-developed startle response and a self-imposed posting deadline, the last few days in the news have been exhausting. It's the silly season in America, of course, with just days to go until the mid-term elections and the culmination of all our anxious imaginings, regardless of our political starting points. But it isn't just any election and it isn't just an America in isolation; it's a globe in transition 'midst an era of revving change. Back peddle? Plunge forward? Stand up on the brake peddle or accelerate--with or without a prayer? Shit or go blind? (Do NOT fuss at me; that's a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon term with a rich, fertile history.)

The week's been either a blogger's dream or her worst nightmare: more material than I could ever want, flitting past me far too fast, and me with only a sieving mind to capture it. I wake up every morning to chase the tantalizing NYTimes headlines, browse among the big, syndicated blogs, and find it impossible to choose a spot on which to land--a hummingbird on a sugar high.

Should I go with the eerie tolling in my brain from Angela Merkel's "Multikulti has utterly failed" statement? No matter how the Germans are spinning that one today, my head still rings. I've finally gotten so old that a first-hand knowledge of history is more than just a Trivial Pursuit advantage. Swell.

The Tea Party: Full of Insignificant Sound and Fury

I find myself again needing to wash my mouth out with soap, having engaged in another round of WTF with no expletives deleted. When I was a child my mother temporarily banned me from watching Lassie. I would cry so hard every time Timmy got lost, fell down an abandoned mine shaft, or was otherwise in peril (pretty much a weekly occurrence) that my mother was concerned about my emotional well being. I'm thinking that maybe I should ban myself from watching or reading any news; my vocabulary is in danger of becoming that of an old sailor.

My latest round of profanity was in response to Tuesday's debate between Christine O'Donnell (R) and Chris Coons (D), both candidates for Delaware's U.S. Senate seat. Although nominally a Republican, O'Donnell has aligned herself with the Tea Party platform. During the debate, held at Widener University Law School, the subject of religion and the law arose. Coons asserted that the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution prohibits teaching Creationism in public schools (O'Donnell prefers the term Intelligent Design). O'Donnell countered with, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?"

The audience, consisting mostly of law students gasped in horror but before you join them, take a gander at O'Donnell's follow-up observation to Coons assertion that the First Amendment establishes a separation of church and state, "The First Amendment does? ... So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?" (emphasis added)

Technically, O'Donnell is correct. The text of the first amendment does not include the phrase "separation of church and state." The phrase is not found in the U.S. Constitution at all. The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

O'Donnell is a nut job but already the conservative media has put a different spin on her remarks, declaring that O'Donnell was pointing out the lack of any specific phrase in the Constitution proclaiming that there is to be a separation of church and state. I doubt that O'Donnell was really parsing out the language of the Constitution but was instead clueless as to the consistent interpretation of the 1st amendment. Technically, the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear at all in the Constitution. The concept of separation of church and state is derived from the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment. I wish that Coons had countered with that observation rather than sparring with O'Donnell as to whether the First Amendment literally contained the words separation of church and state; it doesn't.

I'm not just nitpicking. I've been thinking about how the far right has commandeered this election year and determined the parameters of the issues up for debate. I think that we have to reframe the argument. We can't afford to be sloppy with language.

O'Donnell didn't lose any votes because of her gaffe. If Coons had acknowledged that the precise phrase is not in the Constitution but that the language that is there was interpreted in the writings of no less than Thomas Jefferson to mean that there is a wall of separation between government and religion, then he would have deflated O'Donnell's argument and her ego. Many historians and students of the law trace the phrase "separation of church and state" to a letter written in 1802 by Thomas Jefferson in which he observed that the First Amendment built "a wall of separation between Church and State." There is also a couple of hundred years of jurisprudence that has consistenly interpreted the language of the First Amendment regarding religion, aka the Establishment Clause, as calling for the government to refrain from being in the business of promoting or censoring religious belief or lack thereof. In spite of O'Donnell's protestations to the contrary, separation of church and state has long been established as a valid Constutional interpretation solidly grounded in the First Amendment.

Of course the audience of law students scoffed because they understood the jurisprudence interpreting and applying the 1st amendment, but has the average American even read the Constitution outside of a cursory reading in some middle or high school civics class, let alone studied it? Even if they have read the Constitution, it's likely that they will agree with O'Donnell that there is no mention of separation of church and state in the Constitution. To understand the meaning of the U.S. Constitution takes more than simply reading the words.

Die hard Tea Party members are not likely to be persuaded to change their beliefs no matter how succinct and valid the argument. However, there are a lot of people who are angry with the status quo and bewildered by all the voices claiming to offer solutions. They need clear, straightforward information that they can use to make jugments as to which voices speak with truth and honesty. O'Donnell speaks as if she's their friend and there are a lot of disenchanted people who are anxious to believe that she has their best interests at heart.

The left needs to take a lesson from Toto and pull back the curtain to reveal that O'Donnell is just a bad magic act, hiding behind a curtain, pretending that she's the Wizard of the Right. To do that we have to stop merely shaking our heads in laughter and declaring O'Donnell and her political cohorts to be appropriate objects of ridicule. We need to offer people another reality by exposing that the Tea Party rhetoric is filled with sound and fury but signifies absolutely nothing.

Eugenics Redux: Sloppy Research Again Masquerading As Significant

I just read the following headline which made me go, "WTF!" followed by additional expletives: Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids. Walter Schumm, a family studies professor at Kansas State University, has released a study proclaiming that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. His study appears to support the theory of right wing zealots that people can be taught to be gay.

I've done a great deal of research in my professional career, and I can tell you this, the questions that you ask have a direct correlation to the answers that you find. According to Schumm, he was looking for a connection between parenting and sexual orientation, "His study on sexual orientation, out next month, says that gay and lesbian parents are far more likely to have children who become gay. 'I'm trying to prove that it's not 100 percent genetic,' Schumm tells AOL News."

Schumm's research methodolgy consisted of reviewing other people's studies on gay parenting. In his meta-analysis of 10 such studies, Schumm extrapolated data that adult children of gay men and/or lesbians are statistically more likely to identify themselves as gay.

Whoop-di-do! This anecdotal evidence proves nothing except that children who grow up in a straight household may be far more reticent to self-identify as gay. In other words, a child who grows up in a home with two loving parents who are gay may feel more comfortable in acknowledging their own orientation. This so-called lighting bolt of insight is nothing more than the logical result of growing up in homes where sexual orientation is not a basis for disowning or ostracizing one's children.

Think about the number of people who are gay and stay in the closet for years, afraid of the reaction from their parents and other family members. That the adult children of gay parents are more likely to identify themselves as gay is not an indicator that sexual identity is determined by parenting; growing up in an accepting environment just means that you don't spend part of your life denying your authentic self.

I might actually read Schumm's study when it's released. I'd like to know if he addresses the conundrum that there have always been gay people. Who taught them how to be gay? What about gay children with straight parents? Did the straight indoctrination just not take?

This isn't research. This is a man who read a lot of books on gay parenting and then drew conclusions based on the answers collected by a variety of other studies. There is no control group, no methodology for isolating relevant data, or to account for variables because Schumm didn't interview any of the people on whose responses he bases his conclusions. Were the respondents in each of the ten different studies asked the identical questions, phrased in the same exact language, and under the same conditions? I doubt it; each of these studies produced its own independent report. Schumm just read them all.

Studies like this grab headlines. I find such studies to be the height of irresponsibility, feeding into the prejudice and hysteria of homophobia. Ultimately they are shown to be meaningless but the harm has already been done.

In the late 1960s and well into the 1970s, well credentialed researchers such as Arthur Jensen and William Shockley produced studies that proclaimed that intelligence was predetermined by genetics and that Black people were intellectually inferior to Whites. However, Jensen also concluded that Asians were intellectually superior to Whites. Although these studies were later largely discredited they still influenced policy makers in making decisions regarding public education.

Jensen and Shockley were not a one time anomaly. In 1994, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published a book in 1994 clearly directed at policy, just as Jensen and others had in the 1960s and 1970s,The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Herrnstein and Murray posited among many theories about IQ that Blacks were genetically inclined to have lower IQs than Whites. They also advised that the government "stop encouraging" poor women to have babies and contaminating the gene pool. In 2007, James D. Watson, 79, co-discoverer of the DNA helix and winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine, told the Sunday Times of London that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

Research can be used to support any position and its validity is only as good as the methodology of the researcher. The harm done by pseudo sociological research is like a tsunami; it hits the shore destroying everything in its path and then recedes but the damage it leaves behind is catastrophic. WTF were you thinking Mr. Schumm?

Cool, Cooler, Coolest

My sanity is being restored! I want to thank Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert from a full heart. You know how bummed we liberal elitists have been prone to get in recent months; well, I've not been immune to that dysthymia, but I suddenly realized today that I'm feeling jazzed. Juiced! Excited for the first time in way too long. Two very smart and clever comedians have somehow managed to make gloomy, pessimistic, dour ol' me kind of tickled with life! Nothing has changed politically, meteorologically, personally...but I'm going to DC on October 30th to see massive, vital evidence of intelligent life on the planet. How cool is that?

If you've thought about going and aren't jazzed yet, please go to Terry Gross's interview with Stewart at the 92nd Street Y, available on Fresh Air at NPR.org. After listening to it, I was as impressed with Jon Stewart, the man, as I am with Jon Stewart, comedian. A couple of snippets from that interview:

And its very easy to dehumanize, and I will say in this room: I would imagine, you know, Beck and Palin are easier punching bags, and we can think of it as, oh my God, I'm so scared if they take over. And you know what? We'll be fine. You know, we had a civil war. Just - we're not that fragile, and I think we always have to remember that people can be opponents, but not enemies. And there are enemies in the world. We just need the news media to help us delineate. And I think that's where the failing is, that the culture of corruption that exists in the media doesn't allow us to delineate between enemies and opponents. And that's where we sort of fall into trouble.

***********************

The [more] you spend time with the political [world] and media, the less political you become and the more viscerally upset you become at corruption. I don't consider it political, because 'political' I always sort of note as a partisan endeavor. But I have become increasingly unnerved by the depth of corruption that exists at many different levels. I'm less upset with politicians than [with] the media. I feel like politicians — the way I explain it, is when you go to a zoo and a monkey throws feces, it's a monkey. But when the zookeeper is standing right there and he doesn't say, 'Bad monkey' — somebody's gotta be the zookeeper.

I feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media than by political advocates. They're representing a constituency. Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we're in a battle between tyranny and freedom — it's a series of pendulum swings. And the swings have become less drastic over time.

That's why I feel, not sanguine but at least a little bit less frightful, in that our pendulum swings have become less and less. But what has changed is the media's sense of their ability to be responsible arbiters. I think they feel fearful. I think there's this whole idea now that there's a liberal media conspiracy, and I think they feel if they express any authority or judgment, which is what I imagine is editorial control, they will be vilified. 

 I can't wait. There are going to be "special guests" and I'll wager one of them will be Rachel Maddow. I hope Oprah won't be there; I'm miffed 'cause she forgot to send me my plane ticket and because I'd really like to see America do something big that doesn't require Oprah to give it her blessing.

Obama responds to DADT question at Town Hall Meeting

Cooler: I love it that the Prez is a Harvard Law School graduate and a professor of constitutional law at University of Chicago. How else would he be able to thread his way through the Don't Ask, Don't Tell maze? While the right vilifies him and the left stamps its foot with impatience (which I share!), Mr. Obama is parsing the law and navigating the political waters like the pro he is. If anyone can successfully make that stupid, cruel policy go away, I believe he can. A misstep will leave gay and lesbians who serve or who want to serve vulnerable to indefinite continuation of DADT, and that would be an additional show of disrespect to the over 13,000 men and women who have found their military careers destroyed by Pub. L 103-160 since 1993.

Not that she would tackle this issue, but can you imagine Sarah Palin as President tackling something this legally and politically complex? She'd be a puppet and a dupe, unable to add one thing of substance to the machinations of her handlers. Keep the faith, my brothers and sisters; the right man is on the job.


Cooler Still: Returned the other day from a West Coast trip to visit my daughter's family. And, just to prove that I didn't spend all my time there holed up in The Bed Bug Inn writing incisive, illustrated, impressively researched, and obviously astute political and policy blogs, I'll share a few shots from an afternoon at the The New Children's Museum in San Diego.

A 3-storey space worm made entirely of...

...balloons!

A Walk-in Trojan Horse

Daughter looks lovely even in Try-On-A-
Wacky-Animal gear.

By Far The Coolest: We've been back on the East Coast for a couple of days, missing little High And Exalted (3.5 years old) terribly. When we left him and his ever-expanding verbal and mental prowess, he was communicating very complex abstract notions, but still having a little trouble with the k and hard g sounds. He still rode in a tar or on a tricytle. It was so adorable, we were all really otay with it, but he was aware that he was making those sounds imperfectly, because, while we never told him he was pronouncing something wrong, we sometimes offered, "Let's try saying kuh-kuh-kuh." He'd try, to no avail, and we'd just hug him and say,"Good job!"


My daughter called us yesterday, saying that H&G had waltzed into the den and surprised her with something he had to say and, now, he had wanted her to call us so he could tell us the same thing. She handed him the phone and he said, 

Hey! What's going on there? Cool! Cat! Trashcan!

He'd gotten it. He'd been practicing quietly in his room and he'd come out for a marathon session of hard C's, ready to wow the world. How could I ever have have feared that humans just suck. Politics just sucks; humans vary; H&G soars. And, you know, it's almost impossible to be gloomy or down in a world that contains Jon Stewart, balloon space worms, my kids and my grandkids.

The High and Exalted Grandson and I cruise intergalactic
space as Funny Face Superhero Space Creatures. Cool!

Now, That's Scary!

Cartoon by Ima June Pullet (aka TexasTrailerParkTrash)

Bad Banks and Buttheads

The sad and sorry events that conglomerate to make up The Great Recession are not remote or removed from us. They are not hypothetical or academic. They are happening to me, to you, to people we love and know and meet. This is--ultimate irony-- an illiberal and unprejudiced set of setbacks; open to all comers, the just and the unjust alike. Doesn't that make it just so impossible to grasp the rationale behind policies and pronouncements from the reactionary right?! I'm almost speechless, but only almost. A couple of personal stories and a well-earned award--just got to get these off my chest.

The first thing a young man of my distant acquaintance found in his brand new mailbox during his first orientation week at college in late '90's was an application for a credit card--Holy Magic Crap, free money! The Grail. College definitely had the shit beat out of high school. He hid the application away in a drawer under his new Abercrombie  boxer shorts for a few days, pondering whether to ask his parents about it or even whether it was safe to handle.  He took it out once and filled in the information blanks, then put it away. He took it out again and signed on the bottom line; the card company only asked for his signature--could that be right?--and hid it away again. There was the fine print, the interest rate, but those numbers had no meaning yet. Finally, he queried some of the less obviously insane freshmen on his dorm hall, and heard, "Dude, you haven't sent yours in yet?! Mine's already come. My roommate got an application at a booth at orientation. Check it out!"

Fast forward about twelve years. Whizz right on past the day the collection agency reached his family and the panicked pay-off they were forced to negotiate--shudder; faster, please. Past graduation, a special technical training program, a year of internship, a job search, and three years on the job. Past an engagement, the purchase of a first home, the trade-in of an old car for a less-old car. Past the day the market tanked, taking our futures with it. Past the anticipated, dreaded demise of  his job when his employer just closed up shop. Slow down for the birth of his own eponymous LLC, and over a year of highly successful service to old clients who were happy to sign on and to spread the word. To the day in 2010 when he applied for a business credit card to make some minor equipment upgrades. And applied. And applied. To his own old bank. To the big ones and the small, local ones. To no avail.

Now, imagine another family and a retail specialty business that had abundantly supported two generations who worked there for over twenty years. Imagine that the business wanted to relocate and considered a For Sale listing with a business broker, but a buyer miraculously turned up, cash in hand. Imagine that a great new location was found, the new features and fixtures provided by family talent, hard work, and capital supplied by the sale of the old location. Now, imagine that the new, improved, larger shop was within weeks of readiness, its experienced owners and employees eager to get back to work, and a bank loan requested to complete preparation. A proven business, a flawless record of profit, and a fool-proof business plan. Plus valuable real estate offered as additional collateral. Turned down. At every bank, including the one that had financed the original shop all those years ago and had been repaid impeccably. No. Loan. Period.

Imagine.

These are two of the stories I've heard, two of the REAL AMERICAN SMALL BUSINESSES denied what they need to operate, expand, provide for their families and HIRE!! While large corporations borrow at  ridiculously low interest rates, sit on the money, refuse to hire, and generate virtually nothing in the way of interest for the huge cohort of Boomers who are retiring or trying to recoup their devastated retirement savings.


I've read that banks are waiting for Republicans to return to power in Congress, which is a brand of hostage-taking that cannot be too despised. I've heard it said that businesses aren't hiring because they are leary of what "Obamacare" will wind up costing them. A bank is not a bank that isn't moving money, so it cannot refuse to operate as a bank indefinitely and hope to survive. A corporation is not really in business if it does not invest and hire. If everybody is waiting for first quarter, 2011, but banks and corporations are cash flush, what kind of recession do you call that?  I call that bullshit and politics. I call it wrong any way you look at it. I call on you to send a message to the financial world and large corporations, to those politicians who've been bought by them and do their bidding. I call on you to vote.

And, finally, I have waited a little too long to bestow a well-earned accolade, the Coveted General Wade Hampton I Asshat Award. You might remember it from my post SC's Slur-Slinging Crapfest. General Wade Hampton I was an embarrassment to the South who made a travesty of his part in The Revolutionary War and The War of 1812, led his soldiers into the woods and got them lost, owned over 3000 slaves, and lived in luxury despite the damage he'd done. He was so fond of power and the limelight, he designed an elaborate chapeau to reflect his rank and privilege. Wade was an asshat.

Gen'l Wade Hampton I
Both Stupid and Energetic

In light of recent news about his desire to fire from the state's public schools all LGBT teachers and all single female teachers who are sexually active, I hereby bestow the coveted Second General Wade Hampton I Asshat Award to....

SC Republican Senator Jim DeMint

References:
H/T to Private Buffoon . Thanks, Russ!
New York Times, October 3, 2010, "Cheap Debt for Corporations Fails to Spur Economy"
New York Times, September 8, 2010, "Falling Rates Aid Debtors But Hamper Savers." 

"An Investigation Into Credit Card Debt In College Students," Williams, Waterwall, and Giardelli, Contemporary Issues in Education Research, Fourth Quarter, 2008, Volume 1, Number 4.

Medicare Rocks

(With a big Hat Tip to humorlessbitch), Steve Miller is 65 this month. Get yer Mitts off his benefits!

An Instability of Ideas

Notions on the war in Afghanistan are tumbling through my mind and tugging on my emotions, demanding to be processed, refusing to coalesce, and threatening me with the dreaded bugaboo, cognitive dissonance. Don't want to write about them; can't stop thinking about them; let's see what happens when I throw them into the blog blender.

[But, first, the disclaimer: I support Democratic candidates, except where they are obviously unqualified, in which case I support the Green candidate (think SC, where they let me vote). I think Obama has done an heroic job. I think it's time for liberals and progressives to pull together. Having said that much, perhaps I should just stifle my issues with the war. Robert McNamara once said, when he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't on Vietnam, "And I would rather be damned if I don't," meaning that he'd finally decided it was time to STFU. Because, of course, he'ds actually been damned for what he did. So, should I bring this controversial topic up at a time when we need to pull together? Damned if I won't.]

Charles Krauthammer's Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Monday, Oct 4, 2010: "Has Obama Abandoned The Troops He Sent To War?"

"What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal? One who doesn't have his heart in it. One who doesn't really want to win but is making some kind of political gesture."

Krauthammer goes on to Bob Woodward's book, O'bama's Wars, and the quotation by the CinC that can be spun so many ways: "I can't lose the whole Democratic party." Krauthammer's spin is:

First, isn't this the party that in two consecutive presidential campaigns--John Kerry's and then Obama's--argued vociferously that Afghanistan is the good war, the right war, the war of necessity, the central front in the war on terror? [....]

Did he suddenly develop a faint heart? Or was the party disingenuous about the Afghan War all along, using it as a convenient club with which to attack Geroge W. Bush over Iraq, while protecting the Democrats from the charge of being reflexively anti-war? [....]

One can only conclude that Obama now thinks Afghanistan is a mistake. Maybe he thought so from the very beginning.

Krauthammer is shrewd. He's given the "weak president" spin to what had to have been and continues to be the toughest decisions a president is called on to make. That spin is predictable, despicable, typical of the right at the moment.

What I recall is that in the first days the new president was under enormous pressure from top military advisors to go all out in Afghanistan, to throw everything we had at a war he had doubts about. What I recall is that the surge and withdrawal target date announcement struck me as compromise, forcing me to trust that the President knew things I didn't...had come to know things he hadn't known during his campaign.

I continue to believe that the compromise was not politically based, but was chosen because Mr. Obama saw some possibility that a troop increase could further the goals of our war with Al Qaeda, but wanted to see smaller scale results before committing all our treasure and all our soldiers to the effort.

As to the effects of Bob Woodward's "revelations," I haven't yet read the book, but I have read more articles and blogs on the book than I can count. I've assumed that pundits like Krauthammer have culled what they consider to be the most damning quotations and I think they fail to damn. What I find damning is Krauthammer's conclusion in this piece:

"Sen. Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, once asked many years ago: 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?' Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.

"'He is out of Afghanistan psychologically,' says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.

Some will not come home."

I had my doubts about the surge then and I have them now. I wanted the soldiers home then and I want them home now. And I wish the President had worked harder to communicate with us about his decisions. But I find Krauthammer's conclusion to be a cheap shot in a profoundly significant discussion.

I believe these statements by the President, also quoted in Woodward's book and reported in the NYTimes and Washington Post, depict a leader wrestling with the best information and advice he could get his hands on, including interviews with former Sec'y of State Colin Powell, who advised, “don’t get pushed by the left to do nothing. Don’t get pushed by the right to do everything.”

 “I’m not signing on to a failure,” President Obama is quoted saying near the end of this book. “If what I proposed is not working, I’m not going to be like these other presidents and stick to it based upon my ego or my politics — my political security.”

************ 

“Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room,” 

***********

 “In 2010, we will not be having a conversation about how to do more. I will not want to hear, ‘We’re doing fine, Mr. President, but we’d be better if we just do more.’ We’re not going to be having a conversation about how to change [the mission] ... unless we’re talking about how to draw down faster than anticipated in 2011.”  

What I want to know is, what's the Right's position on Afghanistan? Are they still sorting that out? Michael Steele was roundly condemned for calling Afghanistan "a war of Obama's choosing," and, "not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in," (July, 2010). For once, Lindsey Graham said something I value in response to Steele's idiocy: "It was an uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely comment. This is not President Obama's war, this is America's war. We need to stand behind the president."


The Republican Pledge To America acknowledges that we are a nation at war and makes not one statement on how it intends to deal with the war in Afghanistan other than that tired old phrase about supporting our troops, as if only Republicans fight. As if only Republicans care or worry for those who fight.

Last night, I watched "The Fog of War," a documentary based on a long interview with Robert McNamara on the Vietnam War. Certain quotations haunt me:

On the workings of President Johnson's mind, "People did not understand there were recommendations and pressures that could carry the risk of war with China and of nuclear war."

On allies, "If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better re-examine our reasoning."

On escalation, "This has gone from being a nasty little war to a nasty middle-sized war."

"How much evil must we do in order to do good." 

 Quoting LBJ for a memorandum on the war, "This morning, Senator Scott said, 'The war which we can neither win, lose, nor drop is evidence of an instability of ideas.'" (my emphasis) 

 I cannot sort out the jumble. I am relieved that Obama set a date to begin withdrawal, pending conditions (which ones?!). Must we maintain another presence in the region to contain Iran? Is Afghanistan our only door to terrorist training camps? Does the warrior nation mentality, which Obama opposes, demand that we keep an active front somewhere, always, and--if not in Iraq--well, then we never should have lost our focus in Afghanistan? That may well be the mindset of what Andrew Bacevich calls the Washington rules, but that is not, to my understanding, the mindset of Barack Obama.

Bob Woodward on Sept. 28th, to George Stephanopoulos:

He is an intellectual, as we know. He's the law professor...And so, intellectually, he realizes [that the situation is] real, real, hard. He knows as commander in chief, he has to do something.

And for the first time, you can see his internal struggle, his intellectual struggle. His dealing with the military. He's dealing with his political advisers.

I see a country, its political advisors, its military advisors, and its President struggling hard to do the right thing in Afghanistan--right for the Afghans, right for the Americans, right for the soldiers. There is another total review of the war scheduled for December. That process will be exhaustive, of that I am sure, because that is this President's way.

Charles Krauthammer turned this agonizing national decision into political fodder by exploiting our pain and our anguish about the human costs of war. Those costs are too real to be politicized. To imply, as Krauthammer does, that President Obama has lost interest in Afghanistan, that he doesn't care about the soldiers he's committed to that war, is the ultimate in irresponsible partisanship. Mr. Krauthammer would have been better off following McNamara's STFU motto, "I'd rather be damned if I don't."

P.S. For an excellent review of the President's decision process on the surge and withdrawal date, go to the Washington Post's Interactive Timeline for the period of September through December of 2009.

It's Time for Liberals to Get Their Groove Back

Liberals used to be exciting; we tended to think outside of the box and we believed in the power of advocacy. We championed peace; fought for justice; attacked racism and sexism with gusto. But not any more, here lately we whine a lot about what President Obama has not accomplished and insist that he needs to be more aggressive.

I think phrases like "be more aggressive" are meaningless. Be more agressive in what way? What would you have Obama do that he has not done on those issues? He has no authority to compel Congress to do anything. To get the cooperation of Congress is a process of negotiation; there is no presidential authority to push any legislation through Congress.

What would you have him do? I want to know precisely what it is any of the folks who keep saying that the president should be more aggressive on progressive issues want him to do? I don't mean some nebulous concept such as act tough, I mean what specific actions do you think that he should take that he has not taken? He supports repealing DADT and has said as much to Congress; he even got the military leadership to state that it favored repealing DADT. What now, pimp slap John McCain and the other recalcitrant senators?

Some assert that this administration should prosecute the former administration for its use of torture. The actions of the previous administration were immoral but they were argubably within the parameters of executive authority and not, therefore, prosecutable. As for the Patriot Act, bad law but once again it is not within the authority of the president to simply declare that it no longer exists. Guess who? Congress. Instead of undermining the president, how about we direct our resources towards holding Congress accountable and insisting on changes.

Some of my friends insist that the president's efforts at bipartisanship are a demonstration of weakness. They think that we need to be tougher, adapt the tactics of the right for our own use. I reject that notion, not because I'm interested in making nice; I'm interested in accomplishing our goals. How does stooping to the same level of deception, rudeness, and unethical standards as the right, move forward a progressive agenda?

The one thing upon which liberals appear to agree is that the left is more intellectually astute than the right. Frankly, I don't believe that this is an absolute, but liberals pride themselves on being thinkers. Exactly to whom does a policy that adapts the approach of the right appeal? It doesn't appear likely that the intelligent minded folks on the left will be influenced by negative strategies; besides, they are already on our side. So who are we trying to influence?

As for the Tea Party, it is a lost cause and there is nothing that the left can say that will sway them to change their position. Calling the right on the lies that it perpetrates may provide some personal satisfaction but it will not change their minds. You can't show them that they are wrong. It's a waste of effort. Their beliefs aren't based on logic; no matter how many facts you present to the Tea Party faithful they will continue to believe what they want to believe. For heaven's sakes, these people believe that Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, and a supporter of the terrorists in spite of there being nothing to support these allegations and everything to contradict them!

The progresive left needs to focus on the independents and young people who played a key role in winning the presidential election in 2008. Is the dumbed down, angry attack mode of the right really going to be an effective tool in persuading the disenchangted progresives who were so enthused in 2008 to rally? Is engaging in a shouting match with the right to assign blame really an effective strategy for influencing these intelligent, undecided people?

We don't need the Tea Party in order to win in November but we do need those disillusioned independents and young people who put Obama over the finish line in 2008. Those are the people who are threatening not to vote; those are the people who feel betrayed. They are disillusioned and tired.

Long time liberals will snarl and complain but we will still vote, but without these disillusioned folks, our votes won't be enough and the TP will triumph. So how do we rev up the independents, the "this is the first time I've ever voted in 30 years crowd," the idealistic young, how do we get them to replicate the dedication that they displayed in 2008? Somehow, I don't think that a lot of whining and complaining because unrealistic expectations have not been met will get them to come back to the fold.

All of this leftist carping isn't a minor thing. We have to get these people back. We can't afford for them to sit out the upcoming elections. We have to help them see a reason to have hope. 2008 was alll about hope; now progressives have turned into a whining, bitter bunch out for blood. I don't object to this solely because I personally find such behavior childish but because it is not only useless, it's counterproductive. It only confirms for the disillusioned that there's nothing worth fighting for because hope is a myth and change is impossible. If I believed that, I'd stay home on election day too.

We cannot afford to suck the life out of the progressive movement with sour attitudes and a sullen sense of defeat before the battle is even fought. The next time that someone challenges Obama's effectiveness in his less than two years as president, give them this link to 244 things that Obama has accomplished thus far. Then direct them over to his recent interview in Rolling Stone Magazine. If you need a fact sheet explaining why the repeal of DADT is not within the president's power, let me know. I've generated one and will be happy to send it to you. Don't waste your efforts on TP members but do remind those who voted for Obama in 2008 that change has always been incremental and that the president is moving us in the right direction. Most of all, pick yourself up, stop whining, and remember that at the bottom of Pandora's box, when all the evils of the world had been released was a bright and shining creature called "Hope."