Category Archives: The Nation

Do you hang with people ‘like yourself’? (column version)

Yes, you’ve read this before, if you keep up with the blog. There are some editing changes, but it’s about as close as I’ll usually come to a direct copy-and-paste from the blog to the paper. I just post it here in keeping with the theory that some folks will come here looking for the blog version of my Sunday column, and I hate to disappoint.

While this is an example of Dan Gillmors’ suggestion to "Make the printed pages the
best-of" what’s been on the Web, it’s slightly more complicated than that. I was thinking "column" as I wrote this on Wednesday, and consciously made sure it had an ending that I thought would work in a column. Unconsciously, I also wrote it to precisely the length of a column, which is remarkable — particularly since, when I’m deliberately writing a column, I always initially write it 10-20 inches too long, and have to spend as much time trimming as I did on the initial writing.

Obviously, this is a method I should employ more often — at least, I should do so when I don’t feel the duty to write something fresh, and something with added local value. I can let myself get away with musing and riffing off someone else’s column during the Dog Days, but once we pass Labor Day and start interviewing candidates and chugging toward the general election, I’ll feel obliged to do more with the columns.

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
FIRST, READ this from a column by The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson, which ran on our op-ed page last week:

People prefer to be with people like themselves. For all the celebration of “diversity,” it’s sameness that dominates. Most people favor friendships with those who share similar backgrounds, interests and values. It makes for more shared experiences, easier conversations and more comfortable silences. Despite many exceptions, the urge is nearly universal. It’s human nature.

Then ask yourself this question: Is this true for you?
What Mr. Samuelson is saying is accepted as gospel, as an “of course,” by so many people. And you can find all sorts of evidence to back it up, from whitebread suburbs to Jeremiah Wright’s church to the book that inspired the column, The Big Sort by Bill Bishop.
Here’s my problem with that: I don’t know any people “like me,” in the sense under discussion here. I don’t have a group of people who look and act and think like me with whom to identify, with the possible exception of my own close family, and in some respects that’s a stretch — we may look alike and in some cases have similar temperaments, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to being alike in, say, political views.
Oh, but you’re Catholic, you might say. Do you know what “catholic” means? It means “universal.” At the Mass I attend, we sometimes speak English, sometimes Spanish, and throw in bits of Greek and Latin here and there. The priest who often as not celebrates that Mass is from Africa. Parishioners live in something like 35 ZIP codes. There are black, white and brown people who either came from, or their parents came from, every continent and every major racial group on the planet. My impression, from casual conversations over time, is that you would find political views as varied as those in the general population. Sure, more of us are probably opposed to abortion than you generally find, but that’s not a predictor of what we think about, say, foreign policy.
I may run into someone occasionally who shares my background as a military brat. But beyond a comparison of “were you ever stationed at …,” there’s not a lot to hang a sense of identity on.
I belong to the Rotary Club, which means I have lunch with 300 or so other people once a week. I can’t think of any attitude or opinion I have as a result of being a Rotarian; nor — to turn that around — did I join Rotary because of any attitude or opinion I held previously. Wait — there’s one thing that’s different: I started giving blood as a result of being in Rotary. But I don’t feel any particular identification with other people who give blood, or any particular alienation from others who don’t give blood, the selfish cowards (just kidding).
That’s not to say anything bad about Rotary, or anything good about it. It’s just not a predictor of my attitudes. I suppose people who have an objection to singing the National Anthem and “God Bless America” every week might stay away, but that still leaves a pretty broad spectrum. Rusty DePass, who worked hard for Rudy Giuliani last year, plays piano at Rotary. Jack Van Loan, longtime comrade and supporter of John McCain, is our immediate past president. Another prominent member is Jim Leventis, who is the godfather of Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, the filmmaker Alexandra. Not one of them is any more or less a Rotarian because of his political attitudes.
Reaching for a generalization, I can point to superficial sameness at Rotary — a lot of members are among the 6 percent of American men who still wear a tie to work every day, although many are not. And the membership is notably whiter than South Carolina, but that seems to correlate demographically with the tie thing. In any case, this is a place where I spend one hour a week; it does not define me.
Bottom line: I cannot think of five people not related to me, with whom I regularly congregate, who share my “backgrounds, interests and values” to any degree that would matter to me.
This is a barrier for my understanding of people who do identify with large groups of people who look alike and/or think alike and/or have particular interests in common that bind them as a group and set them apart from others. I don’t see how they do it. If I tried to be a Democrat or a Republican, I’d quit the first day over at least a dozen policy positions that I couldn’t swallow. How do others manage this?
Maybe I’m a misfit. But the ways in which I’m a misfit helped bring me to support John McCain (fellow Navy brat) and Barack Obama (who, like me, graduated from high school in the hyperdiverse ethnic climate of Hawaii) for their respective nominations. Sen. McCain is the Republican whom the doctrinaire Republicans love to hate. Sen. Obama is the Democrat who was uninterested in continuing the partisan warfare that was so viscerally important to the Clintonistas.
Coming full circle, I guess I like these guys because they’re, well, like me. But not so most people would notice.
It’s going to be interesting, and for me often distressing, to watch what happens as the media and party structures and political elites who do think in terms of groups that look, think and act alike sweep up these two misfit individuals in the tidal rush toward November. Will either of them have the strength of mind and will to remain the remarkably unique character that he is, or will both succumb to the irresistible force of Identity Politics? I’m rooting fervently for the former, but recent history and all the infrastructure of political expression are on the side of the latter.

Does Mr. Samuelson’s observation apply to you? Tell us all about it at
thestate.com/bradsblog/.

But what are Obama’s Top Five?

13 Replies

The Republican National Committee seems to think it has some sort of "gotcha" with this frivolous little item from Entertainment Weekly , apparently based upon a stunningly shallow interview with Barack Obama.

This is apparently part of a series of RNC releases that they call "Audacity Watch," which provides further proof of the lack of wit among partisans, as if any were needed.

Anyway, here’s the "article" from EW that the RNC refers to. The implication on the part of the GOPpers seems to be that Obama has been caught discussing something silly and beneath the dignity of one who would be president.

But I don’t see it that way. Unlike our pal Lee (such things are beneath him), I think a person’s cultural proclivities are indicative of character, and I do want to know about them. My complaint with EW, and the reason I call the interview "shallow," is that it doesn’t go deep enough even into this shallow end of the character pool.

They don’t even provide a Top Five list! That’s just inexcusable. So he likes "The Godfather" — big deal. That tells us nothing. Everybody (except bud) likes "The Godfather." The real clues to his character — the test as to whether he has the judgment and, dare I use the word, discrimination to be president — is in the OTHER four movies on his "Top Five" list.

And what about TV shows — assuming Obama has ever watched TV, which many Americans doubt? (And no, I don’t watch it, either, but I did when I was younger.) We are informed that he likes "The Dick Van Dyke Show" — an excellent, primo choice — but that is listed AFTER the saccharine, anachronistic, smug "M*A*S*H," one of the lamest hits in the history of the idiotic box. Where are his other picks? Does he redeem himself? We are not told.

The item does tells us that there are lists on Obama’s Facebook page, so finally we get somewhere. His Top Five movies:

Casablanca
Godfather I
Godfather II
Lawrence of Arabia
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Good. Very nice touch with "Cuckoo’s Nest" — very cool, not too obvious. But "Lawrence of Arabia?" Respect it as a David Lean masterpiece, fine. But who lists it as a favorite? Seems pretentious to me, the sort of thing that one reads that he should like it, and puts it on the list to impress people. And, given the subject matter, what does this tell us about his likely Mideast policy? Must give us pause.

And mind you, I’m not even going to get into his choosing Stevie Wonder on a list with Miles Davis (pretentious again), Coltrane and Dylan. I’ll let Jack Black’s Barry, purveyor extraordinaire of Top Five lists, pass judgment on that.

Now, does anybody know where we can find a similar list for John McCain? This could be important, people, so get on it.

60 years of an integrated military

17 Replies

Today is the 60th anniversary of the integration of the U.S. Armed Forces, a commemoration I would have missed without this release from the Pentagon:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates today celebrated the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of the armed forces and the federal civil service in a ceremony at the Pentagon.
Executive Order 9980, which President Truman signed on July 26, 1948, created a Fair Employment Board to eliminate racial discrimination in federal employment. Executive Order 9981, signed the same day, began the process of eliminating segregated units and occupational specialties from the post-World War II military.

Having grown up in the military (making it sort of like my real hometown), I’ve always taken pride in the fact that it was the first major institution in our country to integrate, far ahead of the schools and the rest of our society.

Perhaps that experience of being surrounded by a meritocracy that made a point of erasing unimportant divisions — everyone was alike, once they put on the uniform — had a lot to do with my having the attitude as an adult that the differences civilians still make so much of really don’t matter. Consequently, the way Democrats and Republicans — and all too many black people and white people — look at each other as alien seems unAmerican to me.

Do YOU hang with people “like yourself?”

22 Replies

First, read this lead paragraph from Robert Samuelson’s column today:

People prefer to be with people like themselves. For all the
celebration of “diversity,” it’s sameness that dominates. Most people
favor friendships with those who share similar backgrounds, interests
and values. It makes for more shared experiences, easier conversations
and more comfortable silences. Despite many exceptions, the urge is
nearly universal. It’s human nature.

Then share with us your answer to this question: Is this true for you?

I ask that because what Samuelson is saying is accepted as Gospel, as an "of course," by so many people. And you can find all sorts of evidence to back it up, from whitebread suburbs to Jeremiah Wright’s church to the book that inspired the column, The Big Sort by Bill Bishop.

The thing about this for me is this: I don’t know any people like me. I don’t have a group of people who look and act and think like me with whom to identify, with the possible exception of my own close family, and in some respects that’s a stretch — we may look alike and in some cases have similar temperaments, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to being alike, say, in our political views.

Oh, but you’re Catholic, you might say. Yeah, do you know what "catholic" means? It means "universal." At the Mass I attend, we sometimes speak English, sometimes Spanish, and throw in bits of Greek and Latin here and there. The priest who often as not celebrates that Mass is from Africa. We live in, I seem to recall my pastor telling me, 35 zip codes. There are black, white and brown people who either came from, or their parents came from, every continent and every major racial group on the planet. My impression, from casual conversations over time, is that you would find political views as varied as those in the general population. Sure, more of us are probably opposed to abortion than you generally find, but that’s not a predictor of what we think, say, about foreign policy.

Yeah, I might run into someone occasionally who shares my background of having been a military brat. But beyond a comparison of whether you ever were stationed in the same places, there’s not a lot to hang a sense of identity on.

I belong to the Rotary Club, which means I go have lunch with 300 or so other people who also belong to that club once a week. I can’t think of any attitude or opinion I have as a result of being a Rotarian, nor — to turn that around — did I join Rotary because of any attitude or opinion I held previously. I joined Rotary because Jack Van Loan invited me to, and my boss — two publishers ago, now — said he wanted me to join. Wait — there’s one thing that’s different: I started giving blood as a result of being in Rotary. But I don’t feel any particular identification with other people who give blood, or any particular alienation from others who DON’T give blood, the selfish cowards (just kidding).

That’s not to say anything bad about Rotary, or anything good about it. It’s just not a predictor of my attitudes. I suppose people who have an objection to singing the National Anthem and "God Bless America" every week might stay away, but that still leaves a pretty broad spectrum of life here in the Columbia area. Rusty DePass, who worked hard for Rudy Giuliani last years, plays piano at Rotary. Jack, longtime comrade and supporter of John McCain, is our immediate past president. Another prominent member is Jim Leventis, who is the godfather of Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, the filmmaker Alexandra. No one of them is any more or less a Rotarian because of his political attitudes.

(I can think of one superficial way in which an outside observer might see sameness at Rotary — a lot of the men in the club are of the 6% of American men who still wear a suit to work every day, although plenty don’t. And it’s whiter than South Carolina, but that seems to go with the suit thing.)

I’m a South Carolinian, but I’m very much at home in Memphis, and have grown quite comfortable during frequent visits to central Pennsylvania, where the Civil War re-enactors wear blue uniforms.

I cannot think of five people not related to me, with whom I regularly congregate, who share my "backgrounds, interests
and values" to any degree worth noting.

Anyway, my point is that all of this is a barrier for me to understanding people who DO identify with large groups of people who look alike and/or think alike and/or have particular interests in common that bind them as a group and set them apart from others. If I tried to be a Democrat or a Republican, I’d quit the first day over at least a dozen policy positions that I couldn’t swallow. And I don’t see why others do.

Maybe I’m a misfit. But the ways in which I’m a misfit helped bring me to supporting John McCain (fellow Navy brat) and Barack Obama (who, like me, graduated from high school in the hyperdiverse ethnic climate of Hawaii). McCain is the "Republican" whom the doctrinaire Republicans love to hate. Obama is the Democrat who was uninterested in continuing the partisan warfare that was so viscerally important to the Clintonistas.

Coming full circle, I guess I like these guys because they’re, well, like me. But not so most people would notice.

It’s going to be interesting, and for me often distressing, to watch what happens as the media and party structures and political elites who DO identify themselves with groups that look, think and act alike sweep up these two misfit individuals in the tidal rush toward November. Will either of them have the strength of mind and will to remain the remarkably unique characters that they are, or will they succumb to the irresistible force of Identity Politics? I’m rooting fervently for the former, but recent history, and all the infrastructure of political expression, are on the side of the latter.

Erin Brockovich? I didn’t get into that movie, either

16 Replies

A release informs me that the S.C. Trial Lawyers are really excited about their speaker for an upcoming event:

SOUTH CAROLINA TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, August 4, 2008

ERIN BROCKOVICH NAMED 2008 SCTLA CONVENTION KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Award-Winning Environmental Advocate to Address 1000 Attendees on August 9

COLUMBIA, SC – The South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association today named award-winning Environmental Advocate Erin Brockovich the keynote speaker for its 2008 Convention at the Westin Resort in Hilton Head, SC from August 7-9. Mrs. Brockovich will address nearly 1000 of the organization’s members and their guests on Saturday morning at 10 a.m.
"Mrs. Brockovich is an internationally sought after speaker and we are honored that she has made time in her busy schedule for us," said SCTLA Executive Director Mike Hemlepp. "Given the great dedication that trial lawyers have had in bringing environmental issues to public attention, this comes at an important time in our association’s history. It will be a privilege to have her at the convention."
In 1993, Mrs. Brockovich discovered that the California utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, had been poisoning the residents of Hinkley, Calif. with the toxic chemical Chromium 6. Her tireless research resulted in the largest legal settlement in U.S. history against the company.
She has won numerous awards and has spoken with many groups dedicated to protecting the rights of consumers and citizens against environmental torts. In 2000, Universal Studios released the movie "Erin Brockovich" to tell the story of the residents of Hinkley and Julia Roberts won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the title role.
"We do our best to ensure that our members get the most from the annual convention," SCTLA President John Nichols said. "Mrs. Brockovich continues a long line of special guest speakers who raise the bar for knowledge and insight in the ever-changing field of law and justice."
Mrs. Brockovich owns Brockovich Consulting and still works closely with to Masry and Vititoe, the law firm that brought the PG&E litigation after she discovered medical records as part of a pro bono real estate matter.
The South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association was founded over 50 years ago and is the state’s leading advocate for the protection of citizens’ right to civil justice as guaranteed by the Constitution.
This event is open to members of the media possessing proper credentials. Press are asked to check in at the media registration desk and should note that neither Mrs. Brockovich nor her personnel may be recorded, broadcast, televised, filmed, photographed or webcast during the convention.
For more information, visit www.sctla.org…
###

Which reminds me, as long as I’m on a tear about such things — I didn’t really get into that movie, either.

I’m not really into spunky underdog movies unless they’re made by Frank Capra, nor do I really get into dogged muckraker movies, unless they’re All The President’s Men. I sort of liked "A Civil Action," but that took a somewhat more ironic, and less worshipful, look at trial lawyering than what the SCTLA is probably looking for in a speaker.

It’s about Obama, and rightly so

69 Replies

Republicans and fellow travelers have been griping for about a week now about the coverage of Barack Obama’s trip abroad. They see it as unfair; they see it as favoritism. This point of view can be seen reflected in Robert’s cartoon of Wednesday.

But they’re missing an important point: Obama going abroad and meeting foreign leaders is news because it’s something new. John McCain going abroad to hang with foreign leaders is old hat, dog-bites-man stuff.

My point is sort of underlined by the results of the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which finds Obama having a lead in a straight-up match, but McCain having a distinct advantage when it comes to whether voters are comfortable with the candidate’s background and values. As the WSJ reports today:

…With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn’t over any single issue being debated between the Democrats’ Sen. Obama or the Republicans’ Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama?
This dynamic is underscored in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey’s most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be.
The challenge that presents for Sen. Obama is illustrated by a second question. When voters were asked whether they could identify with the background and values of the two candidates, 58% said they could identify with Sen. McCain on that account, while 47% said the same of Sen. Obama. More than four in 10 said the Democratic contender doesn’t have values and a background they can identify with….

The bottom line is, folks are still making up their minds about Obama, so every move he makes is of high, relevant interest to voters. Both his detractors and admirers should welcome this.

I don’t know about you, but I decided what I thought about John McCain a long time ago. I thought he should have been nominated and elected in the year 2000, and I think we’d all be better off if that had happened. Yeah, I know some people have changed their minds about him since then, but I have not, nor have a lot of others.

But all of us — including those of us who like what we’ve seen so far — are still making up our minds about Obama. And I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be paying close attention to what all this intense scrutiny reveals, for good or ill, as I make up my mind for November.

DeMint right about Fannie and Freddie, too

7 Replies

Speaking of Sen. DeMint — which I just did — I meant to say something last week about his proposal that, now that we’re bailing them out, it’s a good time to ban Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from "lobbying and political activities."

I may not understand why we’re bailing out Bear Stearns, but I sorta kinda understand it with Fannie and Freddie, them being quasi-governmental. But if they ARE quasi-governmental, they shouldn’t enjoy the lobbying privileges of the private sector. As I’ve often said in the past about state agencies, taxpayers should not have to pay for gummint entities to lobby the gummint.

The advisability of what DeMint is recommending is underlined by a lengthy lament from the WSJ‘s editorial page editor today, about the network of influence Fannie already enjoys (including, interestingly according to him, Paul Krugman).

DeMint: Senate passes most bills without debate

10 Replies

Here’s an interesting fact to know and tell, compliments of Jim DeMint:

For Immediate Release: July 23, 2008
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina)

CRS Report: 94% of Senate Bills Passed in Secret
855 bills have passed the Senate with no debate, no amendments, no votes
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) released a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) finding that 94 percent of bills the Senate has passed in the 110th Congress have been without a vote, debate or a single amendment. The 855 bills that have been secretly passed spend more than $9 billion, though a final total is not available because many of the bills were rushed through before a cost analysis could be performed.

Senator DeMint: “It would surprise many Americans to learn that the ‘World’s Greatest Deliberative Body’ passes the overwhelming majority of legislation without any debate at all. Democrats think they are entitled to pass bills without debate or votes, and they’ve tried to ram them through right before recess to pressure us to give up. But, Senators shouldn’t fear debate on these important bills. It’s in the best traditions of our republic to demand the Senate actually do its job and have a public debate on bills that expand government and increase the burden on taxpayers. Senator Reid can complain all he wants, but Republicans represent millions of Americans whose voices are being silenced by Democrat strong-arm tactics.”

Dr. Coburn: “The U.S. Senate has a nine percent approval rating because the American people believe that much of our work is done in secret with no debate, no transparency and no accountability. This report shows that the reality is worse than the public’s fears. Instead of encouraging open debate, I’m disappointed that Majority Leader Reid often chooses secrecy or demagoguery. For instance, he has depicted my effort to reduce the number of bills that pass the Senate in secret by ten percent as ‘unprecedented obstruction.’ What is unprecedented and ahistorical, however, is the Majority Leader’s view that Senators should have a king-like right to pass massive spending bills in secret with no debate, no amendments and no recorded vote.”

The CRS report states, “[T]he vast majority of measures passed or agreed to by the Senate so far in the 110th Congress have not received formal parliamentary debate on the floor of the Senate.” This practice, known as “hotlining,” has traditionally been reserved for noncontroversial bills with little to no cost to the taxpayer, like the naming of post offices. However, the practice has been abused to sneak through large bills that cost the taxpayers billions of dollars and have significant policy implications.
On March 3, 2008, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin stated on the Senate Floor:
“My good friend, the late Congressman from Oklahoma, Mike Synar, used to say: If you don’t want to fight fires, don’t be a firefighter. If you don’t want to stop crime, don’t be a policeman, and if you don’t want to vote on tough issues, don’t run for Congress.”
“I agree with him. I don’t like facing tough votes, but it is a part of the job. You ought to at least have enough confidence in your beliefs to cast that vote and go home and explain it.”
Highlights from the Congressional Research Service Memorandum – “The Clearance Process in the Senate and Measures Approved in the 110th Congress through June 30, 2008”:
“Nearly every day the Senate is in session, the majority and minority leaders consult to identify bills and resolutions that have been “cleared” by the Senators in both parties. A measure is considered cleared if no Senator has informed party leadership … that he or she is opposed to passage of the measure without debate.”

Only 56 bills (6%) were passed by vote (53 by roll call vote, 3 by voice vote)

855 bills (94%) were passed by Unanimous Consent (no debate, no vote)

388 were passed by UC on the same day they were introduced

381 were passed by UC without debate

88 were passed by UC with some debate

9 were passed by UC without debate after debate on a Senate companion bill

35% of the bills passed by UC were agreed to in the week before a recess

52% of the bills passed by UC were agreed to during the two weeks before a recess

###

Here’s a PDF of the CRS report, and here’s another PDF of graphics that go with it.

Hey, I could relate better to the $16

3 Replies

Just got this e-mail from Amanda Belcher with musicFIRST:

Although $16 would be bad enough, it’s actually $16 billion a year that
the radio industry makes on advertising revenue while paying performers zero.
Apologies for the typo in my previous email.

Actually, I could relate better to losing the $16. That’s an amount I might actually have in my wallet sometimes, so I can imagine having it taken from me. Billions are an abstraction, as Uncle Joe might have said…

Aw, let ’em have the 16 lousy bucks

We may have an Energy Party candidate in Texas

4 Replies

You know how I’m always getting stuff about politics in other parts of the country that, in order to get through the day and pay attention to the stuff I need to pay attention to, I just automatically delete, by the gross?

Well, I stopped and backed up and undeleted one today because something caught my eye just as it was going away. It said, in part:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Noriega Charts Course for Texas, U.S. Energy Self-Sufficiency
U.S. Senate Candidate Calls Current Energy Situation Both a Short-Term Crisis and Long-Term Opportunity for Texas
Dallas – Calling our current energy situation both a “crisis and an opportunity,” U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega unveiled his energy plan at a press conference at Dallas City Hall this morning. Entitled “Bold Solutions for a Better Future: Energy Self-Sufficiency Now,” the Noriega energy plan is designed to provide immediate relief for Texas families; build the road to energy self-sufficiency; and develop a sustainable energy and economic future for Texas and the U.S.
The Noriega energy plan is centered on the belief that by becoming a world leader in renewable energy, Texas will create jobs, strengthen the state’s economic base, provide a more sustainable future for state natural resources, and strengthen our national security. At the heart of the plan is the ambitious 100% in 10 effort – the goal to use entirely renewable sources for Texas household electricity needs by 2019….

This Noriega guy is apparently a Democrat, although he doesn’t go on an on about it. You mostly have to pick up on that from the use of key code phrases, such as "Take Texas Back," yadda-yadda.

But hey, with an agenda like that, he might want to think about joining us in the Energy Party. Around here, the politicians of both parties just pander to our anger over gasoline prices, without proposing to do much that is substantive.

So I don’t know much about this Noriega guy, but at least on this point, he’s capable of thinking roughly in the right direction.

Yeah, he’s real skimpy on the details — where is this plan, by the way? — but at least, as I say, he starts in the right direction.

What did you think of Al Gore’s speech?

47 Replies

On tomorrow’s page we’ll be running a Tom Friedman piece that holds up Al Gore’s speech as the kind that the actual current president of the United States ought to be making — and the kind that an Energy Party president would certainly make. Here’s how Friedman described it:

… If you want to know what an alternative strategy might look like, read the speech that Al Gore delivered on Thursday to the bipartisan Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore, the alliance’s chairman, called for a 10-year plan — the same amount of time John F. Kennedy set for getting us to the moon — to shift the entire country to “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” to power our homes, factories and even transportation.
Mr. Gore proposed dramatically improving our national electricity grid and energy efficiency, while investing massively in clean solar, wind, geothermal and carbon-sequestered coal technologies that we know can work but just need to scale. To make the shift, he called for taxing carbon and offsetting that by reducing payroll taxes: Let’s “tax what we burn, not what we earn,” he said.
Whether you agree or not with Gore’s plan, at least he has a plan for dealing with the real problem we face — a multifaceted, multigenerational energy/environment/geopolitical problem…

Me, I’m really busy trying to get pages out without Mike, which is not easy, let me tell you. But maybe y’all can go read Al’s speech and tell me what you think. All I know is that what I’ve heard about it — from Friedman and others who have filtered and condensed its points — sounds good. But maybe the devil’s in the details.

What do y’all think?

Would Obama victory be ‘bad for black folks’?

31 Replies

My attention was just drawn to this item by Lawrence Bobo on TheRoot.com, headlined, "President Obama: Monumental Success or Secret Setback?" An excerpt:

To hear some barbershop talk, it is as if the racial progress in
America that Obama’s success has helped to crystallize also brings with
it a death knell for true racial justice. If Obama becomes the
president, every remaining, powerfully felt black grievance and every
still deeply etched injustice will be cast out of the realm of polite
discourse. White folks will just stop listening.

A
black president means that America no longer has any race problem to
talk about! It would mean there is no longer any special debt to
African Americans to be repaid! Kiss that 40 acres and a mule goodbye,
my friends (or that BMer and a Rolex in modern reparations exchange
units)….

I have two thoughts about this piece, if it’s OK for a white guy to weigh in on this:

Talk about what the election of Barack Obama as a black man means misses the point, since — as a lot of black folks asserted last year leading up to the primaries — Obama simply is not a "black man" in the sense that the phrase has meaning in American history, sociology and politics. I’ve got a column I’m planning on writing about that, after I read his autobiography on the subject. It will be headlined "Barack Like Me," and it will be rooted in the experiences he and I share spending part of our formative years in Hawaii (where race simply did not mean what it means here) and outside the United States — both in the Third World, in fact. None of these experiences are common to the sort of guy we describe when we say "black American." I hope to write that one before the summer is over.
Because the popular narrative of this is that Obama IS a black man (despite all the evidence I see to the contrary), that’s the way an Obama victory will play in the public imagination. And that WILL be a death knell to the kind of black politics of resentment and grievance practiced by Jesse Jackson and (even more so by) Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright and to some extent by black politicos here in SC (such as Leon Howard, who said the former superintendent of Richland 1 had to go because "He catered to white folks").

Mr. Bobo agrees with me on the latter point, by the way:

"The politics of the perpetual outsiders demanding inclusion will finally end (read: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will get less face time). And good riddance (perhaps). We’ve come too far over too many years for shrill protest to still be our main political posture today, no matter how necessary and relevant in the past…."

Wrightetal

Oh, yeah — Obama’s a senator, isn’t he?

21 Replies

Yesterday, when I got the release from Jim DeMint about his request to Barack Obama for hearings on Afghanistan, my first thought had nothing to do with the substance of what DeMint was saying.

My first thought was, "Why’s he asking Obama that?"

And then it hit me: Obama is a United States senator. Not only that, he’s the chairman of a subcommittee on European affairs. I had momentarily forgotten the first fact, and I don’t think I ever even knew the second one.

Set aside for a moment the fact that it’s still a bit of a political stretch for DeMint to try to hold Obama, as European affairs chair, somehow accountable for some of our NATO allies not pulling their weight in Afghanistan — which, politically speaking, is what this challenge is about.

I’m still left marveling that it took me by surprise that someone was asking Obama to do some actual Senate work. We all have a bit of a tendency, don’t we, to think of Obama as this presidential candidate who’s more or less always (as far as we’re concerned) been a presidential candidate, rather than, say, a lawmaker.

Sanford and McCain: How many times must a horse be beaten to death?

20 Replies

Since yesterday, I’ve seen the question posed several different ways, both mockingly and in dead seriousness: Does Mark Sanford’s blank-out on CNN (now being compared unfavorably to the Miss Teen USA contestant from SC), hurt his chances to be John McCain’s running mate?

Let me pause now and count to ten before answering that. In fact, let’s discuss an unrelated point, which is that I wouldn’t be able to answer the question either. It’s not the sort of question I think about. If you asked me to say what was different in the economic policies of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, or John Kerry, or Alfred E. Neuman, I wouldn’t be able to answer you on the spur of the moment, and in fact would probably spurn the question as unimportant to me. Sanford’s problem is that he lacked the cool or presence of mind to do that. Perhaps he didn’t think he could get away with it. That’s too bad for him, because insouciance is what he does best, and once you take it off the table, he’s got a problem.

Now, as to our main point? Who out there still thinks Mark Sanford’s got a snowball’s chance on a Columbia sidewalk of being asked to carry John McCain’s freaking luggage, much less be his running mate? Didn’t we beat this horse to death some time back? And then beat it again? And again? What’s it doing clop-clopping down the street in the middle of summer?

I’m beginning to lose patience on this point, the whole concept is so offensively stupid.

Here’s a corollary to that: The presumption in Wolf Blitzer’s question is that Mark Sanford is somehow well situated to speak as an apologist for Sen. McCain. This is almost, but not quite, as idiotic as the idea of his being a running mate. There is probably no Republican in South Carolina LESS invested in the McCain campaign than Mark Sanford. This is the guy who expressed his "support" in the most insulting way possible, AFTER it no longer mattered — and after the other two most prominent Republican officeholders in the state had put their reps on the line for their chosen candidates.

I wouldn’t ask Mr. Sanford if he knew how to SPELL "McCain," much less ask him to defend his policy positions. Maybe that’s why I’m not in TV news…

The vanity of John Adams

1 Reply

As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite Founder was John Adams. This attachment on my part dates from my college days in the early 70s, when I more or less inadvertently earned a second major in history (I had not planned it thus; I suddenly realized, with one semester to go, that I was within six credit hours of such a major, so I took two more courses. Up until then, I had merely taken as many history courses as I could as electives.)

The last week or two, I’ve been watching — gradually — the HBO series based on the Pulitzer-winning McCullough book. I was reminded by the book, and am reminded again by the excellent series, that one of the things that endeared Mr. Adams to me was his all-too-human frailty. It brings him down to a level where I am able to identify with him. The airy aloofness of Jefferson is not my way; nor is the lofty unattainability of Washington, with his natural leadership ability.

But almost every time I read of, or see portrayed so well by Paul Giamatti, the crabby vanity of Adams, I have to laugh, because I see myself. Tonight, my wife and eldest daughter joined me in recognizing his touchiness as he complained mightily of having come in second to Washington in the first presidential election.

Adams was of course right to feel that he had done much — perhaps more than any man — to earn the affection and electoral support of his countrymen. After all, HE had put Washington’s name forward to become commander of the Continental Army so that he could rise to greatness, and HE was the one who insisted that Jefferson write the Declaration, after HE, Adams, had nagged and argued and fought independence into being adopted by Congress. And then there was the matter of being the first ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, etc….

But even the lamest modern political consultant could have explained how much more attractive as a candidate Washington was. And Adams’ protests that he should have done better in the election, when you see them portrayed by the brilliant Mr. Giamatti, are comically unbecoming. He was SO vain, so quick to be affronted. And when I noted I would have been the same, my wife and daughter nodded. (You know, they COULD have argued with me just a little, but they didn’t.)

As explained in the series (by way of Abigail reading a letter aloud), Washington got 69 electoral votes, and Mr. Adams only 34, which wounded him deeply. But the guy who came in third (John Jay, no slouch himself) received only nine. Adams received as many as all the rest put together (a field of 8 or 10), and yet he is so put out at getting fewer than half as many as Washington that he pouts to Abigail, "I consider such a showing a stain upon my character!"

This is why I could never offer for public office — I’d be just as petulant, were I to lose, which I probably would, being the way I am.

Far better to suffer such mortification vicariously, through studying (and seeing portrayals of) the life of Adams — and joining Laura Linney’s Abigail in being affectionately amused at his humanity. Far less painful than living it.

Of course, Abigail gets him over his tantrum by calling him "Mr. Vice President," thereby puffing him up a bit. The office had not yet been compared unfavorably to "A warm bucket of spit."

And yes, I realize that seeing myself in John Adams, a great man, is also very vain. See what I mean?

Do YOU feel sufficiently stimulated? ’Cause I don’t…

17 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
WHAT DID you do with your “economic stimulus” check from the government? Did you spend it in a suitably patriotic manner, doing your bit to kick-start the good ol’ U.S. economy?
You did? Are you sure? I just ask because, as a member of the U.S. economy, I’m feeling a little understimulated.
But then, I always had doubts about the whole scheme.
Sort of like with the government’s bailout of Bear Stearns. I’m not a libertarian, not by a long shot, but sometimes I break out with little itchy spots of libertarianism, and one of those itchy spots causes me to ask, Why am I, as a taxpaying member of the U.S. economy, bailing out something called Bear Stearns? I didn’t even know what it was. Even after I’d read about it in The Wall Street Journal, I still could not answer the fundamental question, “If you work at Bear Stearns, what is it that you do all day?” I understand what a fireman does, and if the fire department were about to go under, I’d be one of the first to step forward and say let’s bail it out. Of course, if the fire department wanted me to lend it $29 billion, with a “B,” I might have further questions. Yet that’s what we’ve done for Bear Stearns.
Apparently Bear Stearns is a financial institution that the federal government considers “too big to fail,” which makes me wonder, if it’s too big to fail, then why does it need to be bailed out?
But things like this always perplex me. I am not an economist, nor a financial expert, which I’m told is different. Nor am I any kind of a businessman. At my house, I am not allowed to try to balance the checkbook.
Anyway, while I’m still pondering why you and I and the guy down the street lent $29 billion to bail out this Bear Stearns, along comes Congress and the president wanting to send somewhat more modest checks to you and me and that same guy.
I’m all for Democrats and Republicans setting aside pointless bickering to do something for the good of the country, but when the economy’s going into the tank, and the Democratic Congress and the Republican president are racing to see which of them can send us the biggest check, sort of like the Three Stooges all trying to get through a door at the same time, I begin to have doubts.
I start to think, “With the national debt at — wait a sec while I go check the Internet — 9 trillion dollars, and climbing at a rate of more than a Bear Stearns bailout every month, the government is going to send several hundred dollars to every household in the country?”
It seems that everybody in Washington was acting along the same lines of reasoning as when, in response to attacks upon this country more deadly than Pearl Harbor, we were told to go out and shop, instead of buying bonds or rationing gas or something that would have made sense to an earlier generation. And now, six-and a half years into the War on Terror, some of us weren’t shopping hard enough. So to help us get back into the fight, the government decided to send us all some more ammunition.
As it got closer to time for me to get my ammo, my martial spirits rose, and I started thinking this was a better and better idea. If my country needed me to shop, I was going to make sure every shot counted. So I did some research.
Finally, a suitable target presented itself. Week before last, we all went to Memphis for a wedding. The wife and I stayed with Mary, one of her best friends from high school.
My wife has always held Mary up as one of the smartest in her class — not only a scholar, but a woman of great good sense and practicality. Mary had recently earned some extra money, and had spent it on a 42-inch, 1080-resolution flat-panel HDTV set. It had cost her $800 at Sam’s Club. I studied this item very closely while we were there, flicking back and forth between ball games on the HD channels and the same ball games on mere mortal channels, and came to the inescapable conclusion that Mary was indeed the smartest in her class, and had made an excellent investment — way better than the Bear Stearns thing.
So by the time we got back from Memphis, I was all in a sweat to get that stimulus check, which would amount to $1,200.
But when it came, do you know what we spent it on? A hospital bill. Not a hospital bill for major surgery or life-saving emergency treatment, because none of us had needed that, thank God. No, this was for a few X-rays for my daughter’s sprained ankle — for my baby, who was temporarily off my insurance but was covered by a separate policy that we were paying $117 a month for, which seemed like a really good deal until she needed some actual routine medical care.
When you have five kids between the ages of 19 and 31 in the United States of America, you spend a lot of time holding your breath until they get safe jobs with their own group medical insurance. Two of mine have achieved that status, and both know they’d better not try to actually stimulate the economy by starting their own businesses or anything, because their Dad would have a stroke.
All of this gets me to thinking… If Congress really and truly wants to help the U.S. economy, maybe, just maybe, it should pass a National Health Plan along the lines of practically every other developed nation on the planet, instead of sending me a check that would barely cover two months worth of premiums on health insurance for my wife and me and only one of my children.
So Congress, I appreciate the thought, but I’ve got to tell you: Sending me $1,200 to throw into a debt hole that I wouldn’t have if I lived in any other industrialized country just doesn’t cut it.

Get stimulated at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

If you’re one of Howie Rich’s GOP targets, how do you feel about Katon Dawson right about now?

28 Replies

For a very short news item in today’s paper, this one raised more than its share of questions and observations:

The New Yorker pouring money into South Carolina’s political races in a
push for school choice says he won’t give up anytime soon.

“I
am not going away, and my groups are not going away,” real estate
investor Howard Rich says in a video released Thursday by South
Carolinians for Responsible Government.

The Rich-funded school
choice group taped the conversation at the Columbia home of state
Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson on Monday. The GOP has written
into its platform support for school choice, vouchers and tax credits.

Of course, we all knew about what the first sentence says — this is one New Yorker who doesn’t give a flying flip what people in South Carolina think or want; he’s determined to make us do what he wants. His way of doing that is to finance misleading campaigns ostensibly based on other issues, since his issue doesn’t sell with the voters, until he gets enough people in the Legislature to back his boy Mark Sanford, and he can remake South Carolina to his liking.

As for the other two grafs:

Does this sort of behavior remind you of anybody? You know, a guy with deep pockets, an extreme vision of how the world ought to be, and the willingness to go to extreme lengths to make it so? A guy you never see, except that periodically he puts out these videos through his faithful followers, and the message in the videos is along the lines of "I’m still alive, and still committed to the cause, and I’m not going away?" Isn’t there somebody this reminds you of? Sheesh. Some of y’all were so sensitive about the link I put on that last sentence, that I cut it out, even though it was simply a straightforward link to what this video reminded me of. So I’ll try the subtle approach, and ask YOU again: What does the above description remind YOU of? (Man — if a guy can’t do free-association type HTML links, what’s the point in blogging?)
This was taped at Katon Dawson‘s house, and with his willing participation? Katon, the chairman of the same party that most of Howard Rich’s targets are in — the very lawmakers he wants to take out — is part of the Howard Rich conspiracy? If I’m one of a number of GOP officeholders this guy has paid for lying ads about, I’ve got a lot of questions to ask Katon right about now. I don’t have a lot of respect for political parties anyway, but even I thought they didn’t do stuff like this to each other. If you’re chairman of a party that is split between Mark Sanford and Jim DeMint on one side, and Lindsey Graham and the majority of legislative incumbents on the other, in what way is it considered kosher to do something like this?
Howard Rich was in town, and he didn’t drop by to see me or even call? Kidding aside, there are a lot more straightforward ways to get your message out than funneling money through surrogate entities and taping subterranean videos. That is, if you are at all interested in open, honest political debate. Which some people aren’t.
How come I can’t find the video on the SCRG Web site? Am I looking in the wrong places?

The Three Amigos in Colombia

2 Replies

Having read that John McCain was in-country at the time of the Colombian rescue, or just before it, I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn, from the Greenville paper, that Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman were there, too. An excerpt:

The setting seemed appropriate for conspiratorial murmurings, a sort of New World "Casablanca," in a Spanish colonial era seaside fortress inside a 475-year-old city that long ago outgrew its old walls.
"Right before we went into dinner, President Uribe grabbed me and said he had something to tell me and Sen. McCain and Sen. Lieberman, so I went and got John and Joe," Graham told The Greenville News.
Graham said that Uribe and Colombia’s defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, eased them away from the dining area into a quiet corner. It was around 8 p.m. when Santos briefed the trio, saying, "We’re going to initiate a hostage rescue tonight," and went on to describe how government agents had infiltrated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Graham recalled…

Yet another adventure of the Three Amigos, last seen hanging with Gordon at No. 10.

Obama’s cutting out some nuts, all right…

14 Replies

You’ve heard what Jesse Jackson said about Barack Obama (video above). But whether he said "out" or "off," it’s clear that Obama is cutting out (or off) the nuts who would drag his campaign down.

If Jesse Jackson wants to be counted in that number, along with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that’s up to him.

Jesse pere should take the advice of Jesse fils on this point:

“Reverend Jackson is my dad, and I’ll always love him,” the congressman said Wednesday evening in a statement. He added, “I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself.”

Such old party (and race) warriors as the Rev. Jackson and Bob Herbert of The New York Times need to realize that Barack Obama is not running to please them. He’s running to win, and to become the president of all Americans, not just of some political clique to which they believe he should be loyal and obedient.

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits