This is the John McCain that I once respected, and for whom in years past, I would have considered voting … well , except for the Sarah Palin comments in the middle of the speech. If this had been the John McCain that had been campaigning for the past several months, I feel the election would have much, much closer.
Welcome back, John.
And for those who missed President-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech last night, as I did:
Growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I never thought an African American would ever be elected to the highest office in the land. And yet, over the past year, I have been amazed at how much it appears that Americans are becoming more color-blind … and it was my honor and privilege to vote for Barack Obama.
Living in Utah, I was on the losing side in the state … our 5 Electoral College votes are going to John McCain; but the Democratic Party has made some inroads in Utah. In 2004, nearly 75% of Utahns voted to re-elect George Bush. In 2008, 62% of Utahns voted for John McCain, and 34% voted, not only for a Democrat, but an African American Democrat. Democrats changed the balance of power of the Salt Lake County Council. A Democrat unseated the sitting Republican Speaker of the House in the State Legislature.
A shift is coming, and one can only hope and pray that it is, and continues to be, for the better.
Now that the election is over, I have to figure out what I’m going to do to occupy my geek time and come up with new blog topics.
Maybe I’ll start writing about cycling and skiing again … wouldn’t that be an interesting twist?
Sometimes, I really wish I didn’t have to turn to the foreign media to get the best news from an unbiased and objective perspective. The Economist has long been one of those foreign sources of news to which I have turned to get a broader perspective of world events.
The Economist generally has a center-right leaning … it is a British magazine concerned with world events and the economy, after all … and yet, like so many other media outlets, it is giving its endorsement to Barack Obama.
If there is anyone out there reading this blog that is still undecided about whom to vote for, please read this article … for once, I’ve quoted the entire article, rather than just an excerpt. Hopefully The Economist won’t come after me for copyright violation.
Read the article, and then go vote. Cast your ballot for whomever you think will better lead the United States over the next four years. I feel that man will be Barack Obama, which is how I cast my ballot in early voting. Even if you vote for the other guy, please make sure you get out today, brave the lines and the weather and exercise your right, your privilege … and as far as I’m concerned, your duty to vote.
IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.
For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
Thinking about 2009 and 2017
The immediate focus, which has dominated the campaign, looks daunting enough: repairing America’s economy and its international reputation. The financial crisis is far from finished. The United States is at the start of a painful recession. Some form of further fiscal stimulus is needed (see article), though estimates of the budget deficit next year already spiral above $1 trillion. Some 50m Americans have negligible health-care cover. Abroad, even though troops are dying in two countries, the cack-handed way in which George Bush has prosecuted his war on terror has left America less feared by its enemies and less admired by its friends than it once was.
Yet there are also longer-term challenges, worth stressing if only because they have been so ignored on the campaign. Jump forward to 2017, when the next president will hope to relinquish office. A combination of demography and the rising costs of America’s huge entitlement programmes—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—will be starting to bankrupt the country (see article). Abroad a greater task is already evident: welding the new emerging powers to the West. That is not just a matter of handling the rise of India and China, drawing them into global efforts, such as curbs on climate change; it means reselling economic and political freedom to a world that too quickly associates American capitalism with Lehman Brothers and American justice with Guantánamo Bay. This will take patience, fortitude, salesmanship and strategy.
At the beginning of this election year, there were strong arguments against putting another Republican in the White House. A spell in opposition seemed apt punishment for the incompetence, cronyism and extremism of the Bush presidency. Conservative America also needs to recover its vim. Somehow Ronald Reagan’s party of western individualism and limited government has ended up not just increasing the size of the state but turning it into a tool of southern-fried moralism.
The selection of Mr McCain as the Republicans’ candidate was a powerful reason to reconsider. Mr McCain has his faults: he is an instinctive politician, quick to judge and with a sharp temper. And his age has long been a concern (how many global companies in distress would bring in a new 72-year-old boss?). Yet he has bravely taken unpopular positions—for free trade, immigration reform, the surge in Iraq, tackling climate change and campaign-finance reform. A western Republican in the Reagan mould, he has a long record of working with both Democrats and America’s allies.
If only the real John McCain had been running
That, however, was Senator McCain; the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as “agents of intolerance” now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.
Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut reaction over Georgia—to warn Russia off immediately—was the right one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama, he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers (Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).
The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her just twice.
Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.
Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America’s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.
So Mr Obama’s star quality will be useful to him as president. But that alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves: his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far to the left.
There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obama’s résumé is thin for the world’s biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and out-fought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right.
Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.
It is hard too nowadays to depict him as soft when it comes to dealing with America’s enemies. Part of Mr Obama’s original appeal to the Democratic left was his keenness to get American troops out of Iraq; but since the primaries he has moved to the centre, pragmatically saying the troops will leave only when the conditions are right. His determination to focus American power on Afghanistan, Pakistan and proliferation was prescient. He is keener to talk to Iran than Mr McCain is— but that makes sense, providing certain conditions are met.
Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.
He has earned it
So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.
Fruit flies or Sarah Palin … I know which way I’d vote. Fruit flies have done far more good for the American people than has the Alaskan Governor.
But apparently, Ms. Palin feels that if she doesn’t understand a program, then it’s not worth spending money on … and since her understanding of pretty much everything (except how to field-dress a moose and seduce a redneck) ranks on the low-end of the “slim-to-none” scale, recent comments are not a surprise.
But perhaps we should educate ourselves on the amazing things the humble fruit fly has done … the following video was prepared by Harvard Ph.D. (and ski bunny extraordinaire) Wendy Chao.
Wendy is also Chairman Meow’s personal assistant and caregiver … so as long as we’re going socialist, let’s go full RED!
Don’t vote … unless you care about your future, your children’s future, your grandchildren’s future, the economy, civil rights, human rights, women’s rights or gay rights, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to worship (or not to worship) how you choose, education, defense, the arts, the environment, alternative energy, renewable energy, oil prices, gas prices, healthcare, welfare, social security, veteran’s affairs … if you care about any of these things, then perhaps you might want to consider voting.
Vote your heart. Vote for the person who you feel best represents your values. Vote for the person who you think will do the best job.
A repost from March, prompted by various Twitter and other assertions that the United States was founded on “Christian principles” … nothing could be further from the truth.
The only part of became the United States that was founded on “Christian” principles was the original Plymouth colony in Massachusetts, by the Puritans who were escaping religious persecution in England … and of course, they promptly started inflicting their own warped sense of Christian values on the Native Americans and amongst themselves (Salem Witch Trials, anyone?).
In any case, back in March mother sent me more mom-spam, this one being a purported re-write of the Preamble of the Constitution, accompanied by a series of articles. Some of the articles are basic pleas to common sense. But one in particular really got my goat.
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country’s history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!! GET OVER IT!!!
The problem is that this nation was NOT founded on the belief in one true God. Far from it; when asked about it, Alexander Hamilton once flippantly responded that the United States was not in need of “foreign aid.”
Please show me, in the original Constitution, where it makes mention of God. Please!
Unfortunately, you can’t, because the word does not appear once in the entire document.
The word God did not appear on US money until the Civil War, and did not appear in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, as a reaction to the McCarthy-driven anti-Communist hysteria.
Oh, sure, there are two brief mentions in the Declaration of Independence (cf. the phrases, “Laws of Nature, and Nature’s God” and “endowed by their Creator”), but the Declaration of Independence is not the document on which our nation is based … the Constitution, which was drafted 11 years later, holds that estimable position.
Heck … most people think that George Washington was the first President, too … but he wasn’t.
There were several Presidents of the United States prior to George Washington. Under the Articles of Confederation (drafted in 1777 and ratified in 1781), the following men served as President of the United States in Congress Assembled:
Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781 – July 9, 1781)
Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781 – November 4, 1781)
John Hanson (November 5, 1781 – November 3, 1782) — the first to serve a full one-year term, and the first selected after the surrender of the British Army … but not the first.
Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782 – November 2, 1783)
Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783 – October 31, 1784)
Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784 – November 6, 1785)
John Hancock (November 23, 1785 – June 5, 1786)
Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786 – November 5, 1786)
Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787 – November 4, 1787)
Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788 – March 4, 1789)
By the way … the word “God” isn’t mentioned in the Articles of Confederation, either.
And because some people weren’t clear on the concept, the first 10 words of the First Amendment to the Constitution specifically state: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
If God isn’t an establishment of religion, I don’t know what is.
Furthermore, in the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified in 1797 in one of the Senate’s only unanimous votes, Article 11 famously states:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
Note that Jefferson did not even capitalize the name of God in his letter. He, along with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were not Christian, although they were Deists … they believed in one Supreme Being, however, but rejected many elements of the Christian church. James Madison, primary author of the Constitution once wrote on Christianity:
What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
For what it’s worth, I do believe in God, or rather that there is a higher power within all of us, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist alike … even in the fuckwit currently inhabiting the White House. I guess that makes me a Deist, like Jefferson, et al.
But God, in whatever form, has NO place in official government, by design. Please try to remember that when you cast your ballot over the next 6 days.
On the bike, however, is a different story all together … when I’m on the bike, I’m constantly praying … if only to make it to the top of the next rise without my lungs exploding. And I wear my Madonna del Ghisallo … now without a rash, since I finally got a nickel-free chain. And as a legally-ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (and member of The Church of the Big Ring), I feel like that’s acceptable.
» by flahute in: Word Play on October 21st, 2008 at 05:44:46 UTC |
Having a migraine is something I would never wish upon any other person … but when you get them as often as I do, you know that often the only thing that can be done is to write-off the day, pop a couple Maxalt or Relpax, crawl into bed and sleep.
After taking off from work early, that’s exactly what I did, and a good thing too, since as previously mentioned I had tickets to see David Sedaris tonight at Abravavel Hall. Got home about 11:00 am, slept until about 5:00 pm and was good to go.
I was joined at the show by Marit, Matt, and yoga instructor Scott. Sedaris was brilliantly funny, as expected.
One of the pieces he read tonight, about undecided voters, is in the current issue of the New Yorker. Go read it. Now imagine it being read aloud by bitchy middle-aged gay man.
For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
Having a migraine is something I would never wish upon any other person … but when you get them as often as I do, you know that often the only thing that can be done is to write-off the day, pop a couple Maxalt or Relpax, crawl into bed and sleep.
