monsoonmartin

My friends,

[a phrase I’m hereby retiring because it’s a gratingly ingratiating verbal tic of John McCain’s]

I haven’t written about the presidential election for some weeks (since the “Moose Shootin’ Mama” post, which just about depleted my life-force). Over all, I have to say I’m just goddamned sick of it all: the plans, the surrogates, the smears, the ads, the interviews, the debates, the pundits, the polls. What else is there really to learn about either of these candidates? I am flabbergasted at the notion that there are undecided voters left at all. I’d just like to see the election take place tomorrow and end this foolishness already.

All that said, I’ve watched all three debates thus far and will watch the fourth, as my political junkie-hood cannot remain unfed for long.

I don’t have much to say about the first two debates, especially given that so much has already been written and discussed about them. In the initial presidential debate, I thought Barack Obama acquitted himself very well, and that John McCain came off as a seething, petulant pee-pee-pants when challenged on his falsehoods; I also found it troubling that he seemed unable (or unwilling) to look his opponent in the eye when the ineffectual moderator Jim Lehrer tried to get the two to interact.

The Biden-Palin vice-presidential debate was such a farce that I can scarcely comment. It was like watching an infomercial for Mary Kay Cosmetics and C-SPAN coverage of a Senate debate on split-screen coverage. Sarah Palin’s relentlessly, manically folksy verbal tics (“bless their hearts,” “you betcha,” “Joe Six-Pack,” “shout-out,” ad nauseam) and the fact that she—brazenly, admittedly—refused to actually answer most of the questions asked of her just proved that she is incapable of leadership or nimble thought. Listening to her parrot the party line that had been drilled into her—and in that jarring, customer-service-clerk-at-a-Wasilla-Wal-Mart voice—was almost literally too much for me to stand.

I found tonight’s debate a little more interesting, though, and despite the fact that it was not all that “town-hall-y” at all, I’ll share some thoughts.

Barack Obama scored some points right away by noting that AIG executives (my former employer, again making me proud) had spent $440,000 on an extravagant junket after the company was “bailed out” by the US government, and calling for these executives to be fired. John McCain’s response was to try and ply the slimy trade of tying Obama to Fannie Mae (or was it Freddie Mac? Who can tell the difference?) in terms of fundraising and lobbying.

It was here—early on—that I feel Barack Obama asserted his control over the debate, and may have established himself as the winner. He answered the question that had been posed by an audience member, and then said, “And I’ve just got to correct Senator McCain’s history, not surprisingly.” He answered the F.M. charge (see? easier) effortlessly by alluding to McCain’s record of deregulation, then said, “But you’re not interested in hearing a couple of politicians pointing fingers at one another; you want to hear how the economic realities are going to affect your lives.”

[A note about quotations: these are based upon my fevered jottings during the debate—I haven’t examined a transcript—and are accurate in spirit if not in precise wording.]

What Barack Obama was able to do there was to make John McCain look desperate—like a candidate who would say anything to get elected, even distort the truth. Then he placed himself (but not McCain) above the political fray, positioning himself as the one candidate who wants to move beyond dirty politics and personal attacks. It was an absolute masterstroke.

The other aspect of Obama’s debating prowess I felt was especially strong tonight was his anticipation of McCain’s rebuttal arguments and casual decimation thereof.

John McCain seemed halting and awkward during the debate, and I think he continued to come off as erratic and inauthentic, which is painfully apparent to American voters. Maybe at one time, and in some situations, he was truly a “maverick”; but now, he seems unmoored and at the whim of political efficacy. As Gertrude Stein once observed about Los Angeles (but I think applies here in describing the candidate): “There’s no there there.”

McCain mentioned some sort of “pork barrel” earmark that Barack Obama apparently secured for his home district—a $3 million overhead projector for a planetarium in Chicago. I don’t know the full story here, but I think most people realize that politicians are elected to serve the best interests of their constituents—and they’ve learned not to trust McCain’s every word, so I’d wonder if this would truly fall under the umbrella of “wasteful” spending. The grizzly bear study McCain referenced in the first debate, for example, has come back to (sorry for the pun, but you’re welcome for the image) bite him in the ass: it turns out McCain voted for the study his own damn self. Finally, I just wonder if this is really going to resonate with the American people?

When asked what sacrifices each candidate would ask the American people to make in addressing the country’s problems, Barack Obama had a brilliant response: he said he wouldn’t tell the American people to “go shopping,” as GWB did after 9/11, but would instead ask the American people to look for ways to conserve energy and to seek volunteering opportunities, expanding programs like the Peace Corps.

Throughout the debate, I noticed that Obama stepped on the red lights—he exceeded time limits and the agreed-upon debate rules to get his points across. I applaud his tactics in taking control of the debate; unlike Sarah Palin, who undermined the rules and refused to respond to the questions at all, Obama used his overages to expound upon his ideas and debunk the allegations slung by McCain.

A few notes about McCain's gaffes/falsehoods: he again (falsely) claimed that he "suspended" his campaign to address the financial crisis, and referred to Barack Obama as "that one," as in, "you'd never know who voted for it--that one," about an energy bill.  "And you know he voted against it?  Me," he added with a shit-eating grin.  I'm not going to say "that one" was racist, but it at the very least revealed an irritable and dismissive temperament.

John McCain said that trying to define Obama’s tax plan is like trying to “nail Jell-O to the wall” in that Obama’s proposals keep changing. Here we go with the charming idioms again. (Note to self: try nailing actual Jell-O to an actual wall. I don’t think it would be as impossible as the idiom suggests, particularly if it is nice and firm.) McCain keeps insisting that Obama will raise taxes on all kinds of people (including 50% of small businesses) despite the inconvenience that the facts belie this notion. It’s the politics of fear: the big government, big spending liberal will take money out of your pockets. Meanwhile, the runaway spending of the Bush administration (defense contractors, mercenaries, in Iraq, the war itself, the bailouts, and on and on) has saddled the nation with its largest-ever deficit. McCain says, “Let’s not raise anybody’s taxes,” when any sane person knows it’s just not possible to do that and pay the country’s bills. Obama’s rejoinder—“The Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one”—had me cheering. In point of fact, Barack Obama’s tax plan calls for cuts to be enacted for 95% of Americans.

In terms of rhetorical strength, Obama effectively tainted McCain with the tang of the Bush administration’s policies, successfully linking the two at least three separate times.

Let me go back to John McCain’s demeanor for a moment. While Obama is answering questions, McCain is wandering around the stage, fidgeting, and even once or twice gesturing to someone offstage, doddering around distractingly. When McCain is speaking, Obama sits quietly. The contrast is striking.

Random observation: both McCain and Obama are left-handed. (The next President would be the eighth lefty—though the number is disputed—to hold the office, and the first since Bill Clinton.) Disclosure: I am left-handed, and once owned a pin that read, “Kiss Me, I’m Left-Handed.” I wore it to school at least once when I was in elementary school. True story: no one did.

McCain just said, “our wonderful Ronald Reagan.” I find that troubling and creepy and weird.

A significant contrast between the two candidates—and one that I think needs to be examined more closely by Americans who have a knee-jerk aversion to “liberal” policies—is the role of government in our lives. It emerged during a discussion of the candidates’ health care plans. According to John McCain (and Palin, in her debate), the government is a wasteful, soul-sucking, inept behemoth that intrudes into people’s lives. Barack Obama (rightly, I think) looks at government as an instrument of the people’s will: it is set up (on the local, state, and national levels) to carry out needed projects, to protect its citizens, to assist them in myriad ways, and to expand their opportunities. It’s admittedly imperfect, and sometimes bureaucratic to the point of gridlock, but it’s necessary, it would seem. Barack Obama said, “It is important for government to crack down on insurance companies that are cheating their customers.” John McCain wants to shrink government—he even said he’d look to eliminate some agencies and initiatives when addressing his first budget.

Obama said that John McCain “believes in deregulation in every circumstance.” Well-stated, and I think it’s proving difficult for him to shake this reputation. If the polls are any indication, McCain’s bungling of the financial crisis—and his shaky record on the economy, dating back to the Keating Five scandal—has not gone unnoticed by potential voters. McCain alleged that Obama will levy fines against individuals and small businesses that do not insure their children and workers, respectively. Obama answered, but as Brokaw went on to the next question, McCain sneered, “Are we going to hear the size of the fine?” He sounded aggressive, huffy, and foolish.

On to foreign policy: McCain said that “America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world” (ask the indigenous peoples of this land, Africans, Mexicans, and the Vietnamese about this, to name just a portion of those who would dispute this claim) and “we are peacekeepers and peacemakers” (peace through war: it’s 1984) the world over. McCain snidely asserted that Obama is not ready to be commander-in-chief: “We don’t have time for on-the-job training, my friend.” He also insists that a “cool hand on the tiller” is needed in deploying troops for humanitarian purposes (and later wraps up by saying we need a “steady hand on the tiller”), using a gardening metaphor that he’s trotted out many times before. I’m left shaking my head: old temper-tantrum McCain is the steady hand on the tiller?!

Obama answered McCain’s charges of inexperience on foreign policy in a brilliant way: “Senator McCain is fond of saying that I don’t understand. It’s true. There are some things I don’t understand: I don’t understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Sen. McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment.”

Senator McCain made a reference to his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, who actually said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far,” quoting an African adage to describe his foreign policy. Tonight, McCain said, “Walk softly … talk softly and carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.” Huh? Not only did he botch the most famous quote uttered by his hero, but his assertion that Obama speaks “loudly” (Obama allegedly had announced that we were going to invade Pakistan, which he never said) is ridiculous when compared with the bellicose foreign policy of Bush (“bring it on,” anyone?) supported by McCain. Jeez.

A telling exchange: Obama said, “Just a quick follow-up…” and McCain barked, “If we’re gonna have follow-ups, then I’ve gotta have one too…” and there was crosstalk while Brokaw sought to reassure the pouty septuagenarian that he would, indeed, have his own follow-up. What a crotchety prick.

Obama used a mixed metaphor: “Senator McCain says I am green behind the ears…” It’s just “green” (inexperienced) or “wet behind the ears” (i.e., just born, with amniotic fluid still clinging to the fold between the ear and neck). “Green behind the ears” sounds like the first symptom of scurvy.

Obama called McCain on his “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” sung to the tune of “Barbara Ann,” at a rally to illustrate McCain’s “speaking loudly” about foreign policy matters. McCain responded that “I hate to get into this” at all but explained that he’d simply been “joking” with a veteran friend of his when he sang that. Joking about going to war: classy. I think on this one, he just sank himself deeper into his own pit of hawkish bullshit.

I’m losing patience and nearly consciousness by this point, given that I’ve been watching and reading their speeches, their debates, their position papers for what seems like several years now. It’s all flowing together into one great big river of red-white-and-blue verbal vomit. I’m ready for Barack Obama to stop campaigning and start governing.

Speaking of which, McCain just repeated a line from the previous debate and from countless speeches: “When I look into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, I see three letters, K, G, and B.” In answering a question about avoiding a renewed Cold War with Russia, isn’t he actually advocating a Cold War? Almost pining away for the Cold War by invoking the KGB?

The final question is a great one: “What don’t you know, and how will you learn it?” apparently from some hippie in New Hampshire. The question had potential, but unfortunately each candidate dodged it (“What I do know is…”) and ended with his stump speech. McCain, after referencing his prisoner-of-war ordeal and military service, said he wants another chance to serve his country.

Over all, I don’t think McCain did anything to reverse the downward spiral of his poll numbers; Obama continued to look unflappable and “presidential.” And I am going to bed, more desperate than ever for this blasted election to happen already (27 days and counting!).

As always, I welcome your own observations and comments…

Monsoon

The latest news about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—aside from the McCain campaign’s continued refusal to make her available for press conferences, as well as her suddenly uncooperative stance regarding the Alaska attorney general’s investigation into the scandal that’s become known as Troopergate—is that she’s got a new campaign song. (It seems the 80s girl-rockers Heart nixed the McCain campaign’s use of “Barracuda”—after Sarah’s nickname—when introducing her at events.)

Palin’s people have chosen a song written by Pat Garrett, local sheepskin merchant and country-western singer/songwriter who lives in Strausstown (in northern Berks County—again, the pride I feel here is almost vomitous) called “Moose Shootin’ Mama.”

I’m going to let that song title—and the fact that it was chosen as the theme song for a major party’s Vice-Presidential candidate—sink in for a moment while before I go on, because when I first read about this, I almost felt I could not continue. You may even want to get up, take a brisk walk, have a snack (no—you might want to head into this post on an empty stomach), and prepare yourself emotionally for the details.

“Moose Shootin’ Mama” will be played at rallies and appearances (and maybe even when she takes the stage for next Thursday’s VP debate, a la the tune accompanying a boxer as he makes his way to the ring) between now and the election—when hopefully it will be consigned to the scrapheap of election-season oddities and Sarah Palin fades back into Alaskan obscurity.

Pat Garrett, who has an amphitheater in Strausstown featuring country music performances, and makes area appearances (including the Pat Garrett Country Jubilee Dinner Show at Riveredge in November, a surefire barnburner), has written “topical” songs in the past, including “The Saddam Stomp” (sample lyrics: “We’re the USA, / and we’re on the way, / it’s gonna be a romp, / you’re gonna get stomped, / a-hey-hey”) and “The Monica Lewinsky Polka” (sample lyrics: “Hey Monica! / Oh Monica! / Put on your blue dress / and get under my desk / mm-hmm!”), among other songs.

[Alright, I made up the lyrics for the Monica song; I haven’t heard it and wasn’t able to find it. But I’m guessing they’re at about that intellectual level, anyway. The Saddam lyrics are all too real, as are the ones below.]

As much as I wish I could go back to the time before I read an article about this song, before I actually heard the thing—several times, because I needed to report it to you fine people—before I heard of Pat Garrett, and indeed, before I had ever heard of Sarah Palin…sadly, it cannot be. The bell cannot be unrung. The cows are out of the barn. Whatever. It’s all over.

Here are the lyrics for “Moose Shootin’ Mama” in their entirety. I swear they are real:

Well she’s a moose shootin’ mama
And she’ll help keep our country free
She’s a moose shootin’ mama
She’ll make a great VP

When she looks you in the eye
You know that girl just don’t lie
She’s a moose shootin’ mama
Yes, Sarah is the girl for me

She’ll help the prez keep our taxes down
And clean up Washington
Get them pork-barrel boys on the run
Man, this is gonna be fun

And it’s drill, baby, drill
Cause we’re paying way too much
Maybe what this country needs is a woman’s touch

It would be almost redundant to bother with a full-on explication of these lyrics, which manage to both praise and condescend paternalistically to the first female Republican Vice-Presidential nominee in history. Equally as redundant would be a point-by-point panning of the pungent awfulness of the song, riddled as it is with tired clichés and forced rhymes. But I can’t help myself: “drill, baby, drill”?! Breathe, Monsoon, breathe.

If you’re a glutton for punishment, check out the video of Pat Garrett’s interview and performance of “Moose Shootin’ Mama” on Fox 29’s “Good Day Philadelphia” or a video which features the song playing across a backdrop of Palin photos.

In other Palin news, I wanted to direct you to a webpage called “The Truth About Sarah Palin,” which has anecdotes, some alarming (and—be warned—kind of disturbing) pictures, as well as a fully annotated list of reasons (from legitimate, reliable sources) one should think twice before voting for a McCain/Palin ticket; it includes such breathtaking revelations as “She promotes aerial hunting of wolves and bears [from airplanes]” who “offered a bounty of $150 for each front leg of freshly killed wolves,” and “As mayor of Wasilla, she made rape victims pay for their own forensic evidence kits.” Damning stuff.

Finally, I have been reading and hearing about folks across this vast country who have “fallen for” Sarah Palin—they watched her speech, they see her interviews, and they’re drawn to her in ways (and for reasons) even they can’t fully explain. They’re turning up at rallies screaming like 11-year-old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert, and putting McCain/Palin signs in their yards. Setting aside theories sexist (they quite simply think she’s hot) and conspiratorial (the Republican Party embedded digital mind-control signals in the broadcasted speech), I think it’s important for Democrats—and all of us interested in electoral politics—to find out why.

I know Sarah Palin’s popularity is waning after the “bump” of her speech (and the fact that she was a shiny new object on the national stage)—her “favorable ratings” went down 10 points net in just a few days, perhaps due to the persistent lying of the McCain campaign, and perhaps because some Americans, instead of taking the campaign’s word that she’s “good people,” have stuck their heads up the butcher’s ass and seen the real bull’s … asshole? Head? The bull’s head is a t-bone? (Damn, how does that go?) Anyway, she’s still far more popular than seems reasonable to me, and she could (in my deepest, darkest nightmares, I must admit) tip the election.

And so I ask you this, my dear readers: Why? I’m looking for theories from Obama supporters, undecideds, and the indifferent. I’m also (and especially) looking for any Palin supporters reading this to email me with their reasons. Call up your Aunt Linda, who once supported Hillary Clinton but now supports the McCain/Palin ticket, and ask her: Why? I seriously need to know. Tell me. Make me understand. I’m not kidding. Spill it.

Thank you.

Monsoon

National polls conducted since the end of the Republican National Convention have shown John McCain with a lead over Barack Obama as high as four percentage points, but that’s not even the aspect of the poll I found most alarming. Recent polling indicates that “whites” support McCain over Obama at a rate of 55-60% to 35-40% consistently—nearly 20 percentage points in most polls.

Now, I don’t trust polls, particularly in this election that features millions of newly registered voters, comprised of Democrats over Republicans at a rate of 2 to 1; and in which (mostly) young voters who have only cell phones are not being reached by traditional polling methods. But the resurgence of the McCain campaign since adding the Barracuda to the ticket is undeniable—there are (overwhelmingly white) people across this land who have been taken in by Sarah Palin’s “jus’ folks” persona and plainspoken convictions. (I have spent more than a little time over the past two weeks dissecting and directing vitriol toward Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—some have commented that my visceral reaction to her ascendancy has been “obsessive” and even “worrisome”—so I won’t belabor that point. At least not right now. Just prior to the election, I will present my list of reasons why not to vote for John McCain, for the undecided or McCain-leaning voters in my audience.)

And finally, I’m getting a little hinked out about the potential for the so-called Wilder Effect. This refers to the 1989 gubernatorial election in Virginia in which Democrat Douglas Wilder (African American) ran against Republican Marshall Coleman (white): polling in the days before the election indicated that Wilder would win the office comfortably, by at least a 9% margin; he actually won by a half-percent, a result so close it had to be verified by recount. It seems—as the theory runs, supported by post-election polling and studies—some white folks had told pollsters they would vote for Wilder, had walked into the polling place intending to vote for Wilder, but once the curtain closed, they just could not bring themselves to pull the lever for a Black man.

The fact that racism still exists in this country in many forms is as undeniable as the fact that many white people supported and continue to support the candidacy of Barack Obama—not despite or because of his racial heritage, but with indifference to it. But consider this: while current national polling reveals 5% of whites admit they would not vote for Obama because he is Black, exit polling after the Democratic Pennsylvania primary indicated that more than one in six white voters who chose a candidate other than Obama did so because of his race.

All of these factors have me and some other progressives contemplating the unthinkable fewer than 50 days before the election: that John McCain could actually end up winning the goddamned thing. And so, I need to have a chat with the white people who will decide this election—Hispanics are supporting Obama at a rate of 66% or higher, while African-Americans are going for the Democratic ticket at greater than 90% in most polls. Yes, white folks, it wasn’t enough to colonize this land and control its inhabitants, its corporate holdings, its commerce, and its government, its judiciary, for 400 years; now you’re going to be the key factor in deciding whether this nation, whose past is so stained with the wretched heritage of bigotry, will elect its first Black president. Whites, Caucasians, ofays, crackers, honkys: I’m talking to you.

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Dear White People,

It has come to my attention that despite Barack Obama’s historic campaign, despite the millions of people from all walks of life who support him, and despite the fact that Republicans have sent this great country shimmying down the shitpipe over the past seven-plus years, a nearly two-to-one majority of you say you will not be voting for the Democratic ticket in November.

I know some of you are scared. You’ve been worked up into a lather by right-wing talk show hosts, pundits, email chains, and your screwy Uncle Jed, who have all told you of the horrors that will be visited upon the American populace if Barack Obama should be allowed to take the Oath of Office.

My melanin-challenged friends, I need you to take a long, brutally honest look inside yourselves—down “in places you don’t talk about at parties” (Col. Nathan Jessup, USMC, in A Few Good Men)—and figure out just what’s stopping you from supporting Senator Obama. I have strong doubts that it’s because you feel passionate about the candidacy of John McCain, one of the least-compelling candidates I can recall.

It’s OK. Your old pal Monsoon is here to help you deal with the fallout from this potentially unpleasant journey of soul-searching. The reason I’ve contacted you, White America, is to reassure you about some key points that may have found their way into your subconscious “Why I don’t want to vote for that Obama guy” litany—either through your email inbox, impromptu discussions at the grocery store, or even through years of internalized messages about race and racism in America.

• One of the most persistent and pervasive rumors—10% of respondents in most polls report that they believe this is true—is that Barack Hussein Obama is a radical Muslim who took his oath of office as Senator from Illinois on a Koran instead of a Bible. As President, his “geographical allegiance” would be to Mecca—where adherents of Islam direct their prayers—rather than to the country he has been elected to lead. In fact, the rumors suggest, he is only seeking the presidency in the hope of waging global jihad from inside the White House. (Pundits on Fox News and CNN have even referred to him as “Osama” in an unforgivably Freudian slip.) Not that it should really matter in a country that prides itself on being a “melting pot” of diversity, tolerance, and freedom of worship, but Barack Obama has repeatedly stated he’s a Christian, and there is no credible evidence that he attended an Indonesian madrassa (radical Muslim school) as a youth. Do any of you recall the shitstorm that rained down on him for the incendiary comments of his pastor and longtime spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright? I think that pretty much seals it.

• Another tack in the “smearing” of Obama’s spiritual values goes something like this: Actually, he’s not a Muslim or a Christian; he’s an atheist who will infest the world with his godlessness and trample on the rights of Christians. Well, now this is damning, quite literally. In a country where 85%-90% of its citizens believe in God—and 60%-70% believe in angels—it is understandable that folks would want a President who shares their religious values. But it’s a crying shame, too, that Americans can’t look beyond this sort of thing and realize that a lack of religious conviction does not necessarily preclude an individual from exhibiting values like charity, empathy, and fairness. In fact, look at the example of born-again Christian George W. Bush, who has said repeatedly that God “speaks through” him and directs his decisions, particularly those that shore up U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Anyhoo, Barack Obama is an avowed Christian. End of story.

• Barack Obama, according to some widely distributed email chains, is the antichrist. He is the “King of South” (referencing Daniel)—since he is “from” Kenya, which is south of Jerusalem—who shall “shall do as he pleases, exalting himself and making himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of gods.” The antichrist is described in John as a man who will have incredible charisma, who will gain the backing of millions of followers through his promises of bringing peace and instilling hope, and who will ultimately establish dominion over the entire world, turning God’s creation into a reeking hell, according to the emails. The Book of Revelation describes the fact that the antichrist will be a Muslim man in his 40s who will rule for 42 months (almost a full Presidential term). He will come mounted on a white female horse (and Obama’s mother had six African husbands—nice misogynistic conflation of a female horse with Obama’s mama, Ann Dunham, who seems to have actually been married just twice, and only once to an African man). Obama “hails from” Chicago, whose zip code is 60606 (see those three sixes?).  In point of fact, the book of Revelation does mention a beast, “[a]nd there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” But there’s nothing about the “beast” (no mention of antichrist in the New Testament) being and in his 40s of Muslim descent, and nothing about a horse. In addition—oh, screw it. If you truly believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist, then you need more help than I can give you, or indeed than the finest psychiatric facilities can provide. Besides, everyone knows that the real antichrist is the incomparable überstar of stage, screen, and song, David Hasselhoff.

• Another popular argument insists that Barack Obama will favor Blacks over whites in his policy-making. (He’s even been “endorsed” by Louis Farrakhan, for god’s sakes.) If this were true, couldn’t it also be said that a white President, simply by virtue of his skin color, would ignore Black issues? (Kanye West’s observation that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” after the criminally negligent Katrina response notwithstanding, you see the point I’m trying to make.) In point of fact, Barack Obama has been assailed by many in his own community for failing to address issues like civil rights and poverty aggressively enough. The Rev. Jesse Jackson even commented into a “hot mike” that he’d like to “cut [Obama’s] nuts off” for making speeches insisting that Black fathers take responsibility for their children, a fairly conservative viewpoint. To be sure, Barack Obama’s diverse racial heritage makes him uniquely attuned to issues of race—his platform includes promises to strengthen civil rights laws and end racial profiling—but he’s not going to establish a D.C. (“Dark Country,” as Richard Pryor memorably fantasized about the District of Columbia) once elected. Barack Obama has been described as the first “postracial” candidate: he has garnered support for his policies and his abilities, not typically because of, or in spite of, his race. (Even his “race speech” in Philadelphia, perhaps his most famous address, focused on transcending rather than celebrating racial differences.) So: he’s not going to institute mandatory break-dancing lessons on the South Lawn or commission Ludacris to write a new hip-hop National Song "Starz and Stripez (Fo' Yo' Ass)" to replace “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Play dates, scrapbooking bees, and Mary Kay cosmetics demonstrations will continue unabated. Banana Republic will remain open for business and fully stocked with khaki. John Tesh concerts will, unfathomably, go on as scheduled. Your Netflix queue will not be disrupted. Take a deeeeeep breath. There.

• In a related line of thinking, sky-is-falling types suggest that Michelle Obama hates her country, will wield too much power in influencing her husband, flaunts her support of terrorism by fist-bumping her husband, and will invite militant Black Power groups like the Panthers to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. It has been alleged (in footnoted diatribes, increasing their apparent legitimacy) that in her Princeton thesis she wrote that America was founded on “crime and hatred” and that white people are “ineradicably racist.” But thorough checks of her thesis have revealed that neither of these phrases appear anywhere in the thesis. Some think that, like her husband, she will “elevate black over white,” but no evidence exists to suggest this would come to pass. Surely, as I said above, she will advocate for some of the issues—welfare reform, poverty, affordable housing, crime—that disproportionately affect the Black community. But as she would be the first African American First Lady, it would be a squandered opportunity not to address these problems. Finally, regarding Michelle Obama, there’s the matter of her comment in February that “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.” Okay, bad choice of words there, admittedly. But she was celebrating the fact that people of all races had come together behind her husband, a step many would have deemed highly unlikely prior to this historic election season.

• Some pundits and even ordinary folks like to paint Obama as an ivory-tower elitist because of his Harvard Education and the fact that his manner seems erudite and even aloof at times. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, the argument goes, and he has trouble relating to ordinary folks. (Some of you call him “arrogant” or “uppity,” an observation that has its roots in a time of more overt and limiting racism when Blacks had to stay “in their place.” Surely his affect is not more arrogant than that of Bill Clinton, yet few people have dwelt on his “uppity” manner.) First, to address the elitism: one does not work successfully as a community organizer in the most impoverished sections of Chicago, as Obama did, by being an out-of-touch elitist. Second, Barack Obama will not make you feel stupid—unless you are. Has it occurred to you that our President should be smarter than we are? He’s faced with entrenched, complex problems in every area of his governance—foreign policy, the domestic economy, healthcare, environmental stewardship, and more—so I’d just as soon see a guy with an egghead in the White House. (Not to beat a lame duck, but we’ve just suffered through seven and a half years of being led by a guy who graduated Yale with a C average, with seemingly no natural curiosity, who has led more with his “gut” than with his brain. And look how well that’s turned out.) Finally: the very notion that John McCain, who owns nine houses (so many that he’s lost count) and whose wife, Cindy, is worth at least $100 million, would call Barack Obama an elitist is absurd on its face.

• It has also been circulated that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance and won’t wear a flag pin, and is therefore unpatriotic. He’s in the “blame America first” crowd and will not exhibit the love of country needed to govern correctly. Oh, here we go again with the slippery definitions. Specifically, what is patriotism? If wrapping yourself in the flag and a horrific national tragedy as you send thousands of inadequately equipped young people to die in (and mercilessly bomb) a sovereign nation, then cut veterans’ benefits, is patriotic, then President Bush surely is. If patriotism is standing by idly as more than 2,000 citizens on the Gulf Coast perish due to the ineptness of a grossly underfunded agency headed by one of your cronies, then let’s have a big “God Bless America” for W. again. If it’s patriotic to offer your buddies in big business tax breaks for outsourcing American jobs, moving plants abroad, and polluting the environment, then by all means, let’s hear it for G-Dub. I, on the other hand, prefer to define patriotism in the following way: a true patriot will be eternally vigilant in evaluating and criticizing his government; a true patriot loves his country too much to see it hijacked by the religious right and neo-conservative war-hawks. And finally: the pictures that purport to show Obama refusing to put his hand on his heart during the Pledge were actually snapped during the Anthem, and he’s singing. As for the flag pin, I can’t fathom a more trivial matter with which to concern ourselves during this dire time in America.

• I have heard that his tax plan will raise taxes on all of us to pay for his social programs, driving us into a recession; his economic plan will harm American businesses, hamstring the free market, and cost American jobs. Hello? The economic climate now—under a Republican administration—is not looking too rosy. For a supposed “conservative,” G.W. Bush has played fast and loose with the national treasury in funding a war of aggression against a nation that posed no threat to the United States, subsidized companies doing business in Iraq, bailed out two mortgage giants and now the world’s largest insurer (AIG), etc. Obama’s tax plan would actually provide tax relief for 150 million working families and shift the burden onto the super-rich. He would also seek to hold companies accountable for unethical practices, tax windfall profits, protect workers’ rights to organize, raise the minimum wage, crack down on predatory lending (including credit cards), reform bankruptcy laws to favor consumers, and seek to maintain and create jobs in the U.S. by eliminating tax breaks for companies that shift their operations overseas or outsource. And he’d introduce much-needed regulatory controls to curb speculation in the market.

• According to critics, Barack Obama is a peacenik who wants to talk to our enemies without preconditions and will be hesitant to use military force. First of all, listen to the man’s speeches: to my personal dismay, he has said that he actually wants to increase troop levels in Afghanistan while leaving Iraq; would attack Iran if necessary; and would consider any unilateral act of aggression against Israel an act against the United States, potentially answering that violence with military might. So while he’s certainly not in the category of a Richard Perle in terms of his hawkishness, he’s not nearly the effete, slow-to-act caricature that’s been painted in some quarters. And finally, just what in happy hell is wrong with talking to our “enemies”—I mean, really giving diplomacy a shot, unlike the charade that ensued in the first months of 2003 before the U.S. invasion of Iraq—before things get really out of hand? It’s not as if sitting and talking is going to make the U.S. look weak; it’s going to make us look prudent and deliberate, two qualities that have been sorely lacking in this country’s foreign policy.

• On a related note, some folks are bothered by the fact that Barack Obama’s candidacy has been embraced by people of all backgrounds living around the world. If people in the Middle East and throughout Europe love him, the “thinking” goes, that means he is going to collude with them in taking down the American system and way of life. Oh, here’s a doozy. His popularity is now a liability? In a recent television ad, John McCain’s campaign even tried to link Obama’s popularity in the U.S. and abroad to “famous just for being famous” figures like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. (How would McCain now explain the crowds who have been flocking to see—and have been forming a cult of personality around—his running mate, Sarah Palin?) You see, I thought it was good to be popular, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Barack Obama’s popularity stems, it seems to me, from a few key characteristics: his elocution, his relative youth, his promise of change, and the fact that his candidacy represents promise and possibility to those, here and abroad, who viewed America as hopelessly racist in its domestic policies and determinedly exceptionalist in its foreign policies.

• Speaking of his youth, many worry that he lacks adequate experience to be Commander-in-Chief; he’s only worked as a community organizer, taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago law school, was elected state senator, and now U.S. Senator. Well—and forgive me from dwelling on the current administration, but I’ve got some emotional brush to clear in purging myself of accumulated anger—we had an experienced guy and he didn’t work out too well. George W. Bush skirted Vietnam, ran some oil companies and then a baseball team into the ground, helped his daddy get elected, spent about five years as Governor of Texas, and then was appointed President of the United States by the Supreme Court in 2000. And what “experience” can really prepare one to be President? It’s the qualities of judgment and wisdom and a sensible, far-sighted approach to governance we can use to ascertain if a person will make a good leader. Barack Obama, in my view, has these qualities.

• While we’re on the subject: some denigrate his speeches as too “smooth” and polished. My friends, I think we could stand a President who is thoughtful and articulate after seven and a half years of cringing at the non-sequiturs of a nannering ninny. We’ve had a President for two terms now who reminded us of a guy we’d like to go bowling with. Now we need somebody who can actually process thoughts into intelligible words and sentences—never mind that he can’t bowl to save his life (rolling a 37 in Altoona back in a March campaign stop). Heck, maybe he’ll even tear out the White House’s bowling alley and install a basketball court when he wins. (Oh—sorry, white folks. Didn’t mean to scare you there.)

• To some, his lack of bowling prowess—his style was derided in some quarters as “dainty”—proves that he’s out of touch with the common man. Seriously? To me it just proves that he’s fallible. And do you really want a guy to be hitting the lanes for two, three hours each night to hone his skills? Shouldn’t he be reading, studying policy memos, deciding the fate of the free world—shit like that?

• He’s not going to take your guns, as NRA alarmists posit—you’ll still be able to shoot animals and intruders to your heart’s content. But he may take steps that will eventually remove some handguns and assault weapons off the streets of our most dangerous cities and towns—and that’s incontestably a good thing.

• He admitted to using cocaine, marijuana, and drinking alcohol to excess while in high school. Well, la-de-freakin-da. You just described more than half of teenagers nationwide, according to polls, at least with the weed and booze. And at least he admitted it. Jeez. And another thing: Barack Obama is a longtime smoker who has reportedly kicked the habit while on the campaign trail. Now that’s impressive self-discipline.

• It is often alleged that Obama is the “most liberal congressman in the entire U.S. Senate” – according to a study done by the National Review – but (again, to my dismay) this is patently false. His support for the Bush wiretapping bill and his unequivocal support for Israel are just two of many examples that bear this out. And since his days as a community organizer and perhaps even before, Barack Obama has displayed an almost obsessive commitment to building consensus. Indeed, his campaign has drawn record numbers of independents and even Republicans to support him, and there is little reason to speculate that he’ll morph into the spineless, godless liberal bogeyman of Ann Coulter’s worst nightmares.

• And finally, rest easy: Barack Obama will not use his gigantic lips to transport half of the citizens of Cuba to the United States to be granted political asylum. What—what??! Yes, my friends, according to an article in the Reading Eagle that was picked up by some national outlets, this was the brilliant statement made by Adam LaDuca, a senior at Kutztown University—ah, I fairly swell with pride that it’s in Berks County—on his weblog: he has “a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would).” In his defense, LaDuca insulated himself from charges of bigotry with the following caveat: “And man, if sayin’ someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we’re ALL in trouble.” (As we all know, prefacing an utterance with a clarification of its intent is always the most effective way to deflect the truth, a la: “I don’t mean to be racist, but why do Black people talk so damned funny?” or “I’m not a sexist or anything, but why doesn’t Hillary Clinton just go home, put on an apron, and bake me some cookies?”) Anyhoo, LaDuca—who, by the way, in a delicious bit of synergy, was the executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans—was forced to resign his post. LaDuca, you may remember, held an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” when he was president of the College Republicans at Kutztown—at which whites were charged more for cookies than Blacks. What. A. Guy.

Well, white people, I hope you’ve found this a worthwhile enterprise, and that I’ve succeeded in helping you purge some of the ugly misconceptions surrounding the candidacy of the next President of the United States, Barack Obama. (If you felt calm or even inspired when you read that last bit, or even peed a little with joy, then our exercise here has worked. If you felt panic or loathing, or even threw up a little in your mouth, then we’ve still got work to do.) Feel free to send this to your fellow Caucasians across the political spectrum if you think my message will help in their decision-making processes.

Please contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Monsoon

... NOT!!!

After reading even more about her background, and hearing her convention speech, I find her to be more objectionable and vile than ever before.

I feel like I’m beating a dead pit-bull here with this Sarah Palin nonsense, but she makes it so damned easy to discredit her that I cannot stop.

First of all, if you didn’t see her sneering, Karl Rove-produced speech at the Republican National Convention, or at least read a transcript of it (also available at above link), let me hit the lowlights.

First of all, while watching (and more directly, listening to her grating, flatlining, upper-Midwest voice) I kept being reminded of someone, but I couldn’t place it. Then it hit me like the onset of projectile vomiting brought on by shellfish-related food poisoning at the Minnesota state Sarah Rose Cosmetics American Teen Princess Pageant (“ Don’t ever eat nothin’ that can carry its house around with it. Who knows the last time it’s been cleaned,” according to Annette Atkins).

Sarah Palin is Gladys Leeman, played by Kirstie Alley, in the criminally underrated pageant mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous. (If you’ve never seen the film, come on. Do it.) It’s all there: the rounded O’s suggesting a plainspoken innocence that mask the cold, cynical ambition lurking within; the minor beauty queen background (Palin was Miss Wasilla 1984, while Leeman was a former winner of the Mount Rose pageant); their obsessive plans for their daughters’ stardom thwarted by unforeseen and freakishly delicious ironies (Becky Leeman is incinerated when a Mexican-made swan float procured by her cheap, racist dad catches fire—“The swan ate my baby!”; Bristol Palin is either the mother of four-month-old Trig or is currently five months pregnant with an out-of-wedlock offspring, depending which swirling rumors one chooses to believe).

Hell, they even look alike. (Stay with me on this one: Slather a few more coats of makeup on the Kirstie Alley pic, put some glasses on her, and tame the mane a bit, and you’ve got Sarah Palin.)

But the accent and the Drop Dead Gorgeous connection aside, the classlessness, baselessness and irrelevance of what Palin said in her speech would have shocked me if the past eight years of Bush-Cheney and company had not already rendered me incapable of being surprised by the soulless filth of which the far right has become adept.

Palin spent much of her speech talking about her favorite senior citizen, John McCain, and what a swell President he’d make. She also touched on her own background, focusing primarily on her family (and trumpeting the fact that her son and nephew—they’re two different people; the Palins aren’t that backward—are being deployed to Iraq this fall) rather than on her tissue-thin and ethically challenged political experience. When the TelePrompTer lagged a bit, she ad-libbed a lame, sexist joke about the fact that she’s a self-described “hockey mom”: “You know they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull? Lipstick.”

[Some of you may be thinking: Did he just call a woman “sexist”? Yes, he did. I define sexism as any statement, policy or action that implicitly or explicitly prevents women from receiving equitable consideration in all spheres. Palin’s statement—like many of her policies—qualifies as sexist. I am utterly comfortable calling Clarence Thomas a racist for his views about African Americans, even though he is African American himself. This is, substantively, no different.]

Speaking of pit-bulls in lipstick, on to the real reason Palin was summoned by the McCain campaign, the reason she’d been groomed by the Club for Growth and conservative think tanks as the right’s answer to Hillary Clinton: to mercilessly attack Barack Obama like he was an eight-point caribou.

The segment of her speech played most often is actually the most offensive, so let’s talk about it here. Beyond the fact that it was delivered with a derisive condescension Barack Obama has studiously avoided in his speeches, the substance of her remarks would be dismissed as ridiculous on their face if she were not the Vice-Presidential candidate of the Republican Party, and if so many at the convention and watching on television had not swooned so enthusiastically on cue when she spewed her vitriol. Here’s the passage:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

She maligned community organizers—those who marshal support for candidates; those who enlist workers in labor unions to ensure protection under the law; those who establish after-school programs, spearhead community policing efforts, develop innovative solutions to generations-old social problems; those who round up sorely needed volunteers to participate in cancer walks, work at soup kitchens, check on the elderly, tend to the infirm. Are these the community organizers on whom she looks with such disdain, such smirking dismissal? Surely the central figure in the religion that informs her policy decisions—initials, J.C.—would have looked far more kindly on the long-suffering, hardworking community organizers than he would on a former beauty queen who ran for mayor of a small Alaskan city to advance her political ambitions.

And the second part of her attack focuses on a comment made by Obama at a fundraiser five months ago and dissected from every possible angle since. I happen to believe that Barack Obama’s comments were misunderstood: folks who are hurting economically will “cling to” those bulwarks in their lives that provide them with stability. For many in rural or small-town America, they turn to the traditions that sustain them and their communities—like religion, like hunting, etc.—to get them through. But for the sake of argument let’s say he said the wrong thing; he clarified his remarks and it seems to be a non-issue at this point.

Bottom line: get some new material. The man just gave a historic speech filled with direct challenges to John McCain and the Republican Party on the issues, and Palin’s speech neither touched on the important issues raised in Obama’s acceptance speech nor provided any concrete plans to deal with America’s problems.

Sarah Palin’s speech does not deserve to be called a “huge success,” as so many have been quick to label it; the fact that she can play the political game simply makes her speech a cynical failure.

Just in case you’re still undecided about the quality of McCain’s Vice-Presidential pick, I have just a few other delightful nuggets of information that have emerged about Sarah Palin’s background to leave you with:

• When exhorting her fellow worshippers to pray for U.S. servicemembers currently deployed to the Middle East, she said, “Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God” and commented on the war being part of “God’s plan.” First of all, I thought it was Rumsfeld’s crummy plan. Second—and I hate to be a stickler with this religious conviction of hers, but she was speaking in a church—I could not fathom a God in any religion that would orchestrate (remember, it’s His “plan”) and oversee (he’s sent them on a “task”) the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, according to most estimates. It’s just unfathomable to me.

• She attempted to pander to the religious right with this statement during her acceptance speech at the convention: “But we are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and ... a servant's heart.”

• Palin raised funds for Pat Buchanan’s Presidential campaign in 1996 and 2000, when she worked for the campaign of this racist, sexist, anti-UN kook.

• In a 2006 questionnaire, she was asked, “Are you offended by the phrase ‘Under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?” Her response: “Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its [sic] good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.” Two things here: first, the Pledge of Allegiance was not written by George Washington, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, or even Benjamin Franklin. It was written in 1892 by a socialist (!) named Francis Bellamy. Second, the phrase “under God” was not in the original formulation of the pledge, but was added in 1954 during the Red Scare by Eisenhower administration at the urging of the right-wing Catholic organization Knights of Columbus. (Look it up.) So…wrong, wrong, and you missed an apostrophe.

• According to moveon.org, “As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, ‘news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving full support to the mayor.’”

• And finally, Palin has such close ties to the oil cartels, her inauguration was sponsored by BP, the conglomerate for which her husband works.

As always, I welcome points and counterpoints to my little screed!

Monsoon

My friends,

You think I'm a raging, soulless liberal fiend for attacking the nomination of Sarah Palin in this space earlier in the week?  Even the Republicans are admitting that the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate is "gimmicky" and "cynical."  A "hot mike" at MSNBC picked up conservative columnist Peggy Noonan and former McCain campaign manager Michael Murphy discussing Governor Palin in what sounded like a postmortem for the Republicans' presidential hopes.

Check out the video here (the juicy parts are audio only); includes a short piece with transcripted selections from the piece.  Unless Palin performs a miracle live onstage during her speech, I'm afraid it's not going to be enough to--sorry to extend the metaphor--resurrect this fledgling campaign.

And here's Peggy Noonan's column at the Wall Street Journal, in which she simultaneously backtracks about what she said on the hot mike (Did I say "over"?  I didn't mean "over" as in over-over, like he can't win now.  I was paraphrasing what party leaders mistakenly think.  Seriously!  It was taken out of context!!  Hello?) and praises Palin as a "real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy" (I thought she was a "cynical" choice, Peg.  Now she's a revelation?).  She also dwells on her use of a "barnyard epithet" (she said, "bullshit" into the hot mike, and even apologized right before she did so), when that's the least of her problems.

Enjoy!

Monsoon