Monsoon's "Obama Bucks" Campaign Racism Update

Habari mori,

What better way to start off your Monday than with a little old-fashioned, vintage, unadulterated, and almost unbelievable conservative racism? (Big-ups to Tim for letting me know about this story!)

It comes in the form of a little cartoon that appeared in the October newsletter of the Chaffey County Republican Women, Federated (a volunteer group in San Bernardino, California that is not directly affiliated with the state Republican party). It reads “Obama Bucks” and depicts Barack Obama as a donkey on a fictional food stamp. Obama’s ass-likeness is surrounded by—I shit you not—watermelon, ribs, Kool-Aid, and a bucket of fried chicken.

Diane Fedele, President of the Chaffey County Republican Women, Federated, (you can reach her by email here) insisted that when she created the newsletter and included the picture, she was just trying to make a connection to Barack Obama’s statement that McCain’s campaign is trying to scare people away from voting for Obama because he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” Fedele insists that she just saw food arrayed around him and didn’t notice what it was, denying there was any intent to invoke longstanding African American stereotypes.

“It never connected,” she said. “It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.” As Sigmund Freud didn’t say, “Sometimes a bucket of fried chicken is just a bucket of fried chicken.” And sometimes, it’s goddamned racist.

“I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended,” she said in her non-apology apology. “That clearly wasn’t my attempt.” “Clearly”? Really??

 The whole matter is complicated by the fact that the image was evidently created by a liberal blogger to satirize the bigoted attacks on Obama by small-government hating ultraconservatives. The image was apparently taken literally—as satire too often is—and forwarded among those fine citizens in the right-wing Nobama set. Eventually, good old Diane Fedele got ahold of the picture, plopped it in her little volunteer newsletter, and the rest is pure, racist gold.

Only 15 more days until the election…it’s almost over!

Monsoon

Monsoon "The Plumber" Martin's Final Presidential Debate Analysis

As entertaining and engaging as this third and final debate was on Wednesday night, I have to admit that I was “flipping” back and forth between MSNBC’s coverage and the Phillies-Dodgers game—and “flipping out” when the Phillies won the pennant with an impressive Game 5 victory. (The last time the Phils were in the World Series, I was in college; the last time they won the World Series, I was jumping up and down in my footy pajamas on the shag carpet in my parents’ living room.)

But now that I’ve had a proper frolic with the debate transcript and watched key clips online, I feel I can present an informed bit of analysis here.

Barack Obama went into the debate with a commanding lead in national polls (and those in swing states) ranging from six to sixteen points, so he’s essentially settled on a strategy of “running out the clock” and avoiding any mistakes—heaven knows, there are segments of the electorate that are still uncomfortable with the notion of voting for a Black man and are just looking for an excuse to switch allegiances.

The most striking contrast in the Hofstra debate, once again, was demeanor—and based on polling following the debate (58% of debate watchers in one poll rated Obama the winner, compared with 31% who felt McCain had the better showing), this is what most Americans responded to. John McCain projected agitation, bitterness, sarcasm, and frustration when Barack Obama would not wallow in the smear-sty with him. His eye-rolls, mock surprise, and furious scribblings on his notepad while Obama was speaking revealed a candidate who does not seem to be in control of his impulses and emotions.

On the other hand, Barack Obama was the epitome of cool. When McCain tried to goad him into the muck, when he made sneering comments and interrupted testily, Obama’s response bespoke a level, steady, and perpetually unflustered bearing. In this frighteningly uncertain economic climate, Americans are looking for—to use John McCain’s boating cliché, which I derisively referred to as a gardening metaphor in my previous post—a steady hand on the tiller. Based upon their appearances, their personal histories, and especially the foil of barking, sputtering rage provided by John McCain in the three presidential debates, Barack Obama is that steady hand.

While John McCain rudely and impertinently interrupted either moderater Bob Schieffer or Obama no fewer than twenty times throughout the debate, Barack Obama smiled indulgently (though this smile seemed a bit strained at times) at McCain’s attacks and paroxysms, then calmly but insistently offered his rejoinders.

There were some telling statements, exchanges, and recurring themes throughout the debate that may explain why many observers lauded Barack Obama’s performance—and yet, a feistier, more aggressive performance and a few zingers also led some to claim victory of Senator McCain. Not surprisingly, I beg to differ. Lemme splain.

John McCain was—like his Wasilla Chatty Cathy doll running mate—a one-note Johnny in repeating ideas, even when they had been successfully rebutted, and even when he sounded ridiculous doing so. Three examples of many: he described the American people as “angry” at least five times, clearly trying to tap into a wellspring of bitterness that might be directed at Obama; he thrice described his VP mate Sarah Palin as a “reformer” despite the fact that she was just found by an independent panel to have abused her power as governor in the Troopergate scandal; and he mentioned Joe the Plumber at least 17 times (that I was able to count) in insisting that Barack Obama was going to raise taxes and effectively make it impossible for small business owners to stay afloat—continuing along this line even after Obama had debunked McCain’s tenuous claims. McCain insisted that under Obama’s plan, “we’re going to take Joe’s money, give it to Senator Obama, and let him spread the wealth around. … [it’s] class warfare.” Surely most Americans realize that it’s not “class warfare” to provide tax relief for the working and middle classes while shifting some of the tax burden to the upper classes; it’s common fairness.

Another example of McCain repeating long-since-deflated stump soundbites was when he said, “We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” In fact, according to various sources (including the excellent fackcheck.org), the U.S. spends less than half that amount importing foreign oil—the majority of it from “friendly” countries like Canada.

He also reheated that little chicken nugget about the “$3 million for an overhead projector in a planetarium in his hometown” that Obama supposedly earmarked. Never mind that it was to overhaul the digital projection system at a science museum, part of a community revitalization effort undertaken with bipartisan support; Obama didn’t even dignify it with a response (though in this case, maybe he should have set the record straight). The lies, like the universe, are inscrutable, innumerable, and infinite in their scope.

Obama actually responded to the “spending freeze” proposed by McCain, describing it as a “hatchet” when a scalpel is needed: “Now, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks. That’s one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Earmarks account for 0.5% of the total Federal budget. There’s no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it’s not going to solve the problem.”

One of Barack Obama’s best “zingers” was tucked away in his response to a question about the economy, when he said that “the fundamentals of the economy were weak even before this latest crisis.” It successfully tied John McCain to the failed economic management policies of George W. Bush, and it alluded to McCain’s ridiculous assertions that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” even as the markets began their historic collapse.

Speaking of “zingers,” John McCain seemed to get one in about a third of the way through the debate. When Obama noted that “Senator McCain voted for four out of five of President Bush’s budgets,” McCain retorted, “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I’m going to give a new direction to this economy in this country.”

True enough: he is not President Bush, and in fact engaged in a bitter primary fight against Bush in 2000. He’s clashed with the administration on torture. But facts are facts, as Barack Obama noted: “So the fact of the matter is that if I occasionally have mistaken your policies for George Bush’s policies, it’s because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people, on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities, you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.” I’d call that exchange a tie.

The real (bull)shit hit the fan, though, when Schieffer asked the candidates if they were willing “to sit at this table and say to each other’s face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?” In daring John McCain to confront Barack Obama with the most dearly-held smears involving Fannie Mae and William Ayers, Schieffer gave McCain the chance to either score significant points with his lunatic fringe base—which has been clamoring for him to do just that—or bitterly disappoint his wing-nuttiest supporters.

First, McCain blamed Obama for the skanky campaign McCain had been running: if only you had agreed to the “town hall” debates I proposed, we could have had 10 of them already, and we could have avoided all this ugliness. I would ask: who is running the negative ads, Senator McCain? You, ass.

Then he repeated a bit of outrageously manufactured outrage ( see this clip ) that he first disgorged in a television interview earlier in the week. “A man I admire and respect—I’ve written about him—Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.”

Congressman Lewis released a statement reacting to the fact that supporters of McCain and Palin were shouting such epithets as “terrorist,” “kill him!” “off with his head,” and “traitor” at rallies, and neither candidate condemned or repudiated these frothing fascists—in fact continuing to make statements that might incite such remarks. In his statement, Congressman Lewis said, in part, “What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.” Unassailably true. He went on to discuss the climate created by the likes of George Wallace—who “never threw a bomb” but nonetheless incited others to violence. Congressman Lewis later said his comments were a little over the top, and Obama’s campaign had nothing to do with the release of his original statement. It’s disingenuous and cheap for John McCain to simper with false outrage at this alleged wound.

McCain, for his part, insisted that he’s always repudiated inappropriate outbursts (he hasn’t), accused Obama of being permissive with similar outbursts at his appearances (he isn’t, so far as I’ve seen, sniping “we don’t need that” when his supporters began to boo at his mention of Senator McCain’s name last week), and issued the following backhanded endorsement of his own base: “Let me just say categorically I’m proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you’re going to have some fringe people. You know that. And I’ve—and we’ve always said that that’s not appropriate.”

McCain also whimpered that Obama’s campaign had been running “attack ads” on his health care plan, on his position on immigration, and on stem cell research. Senator McCain, these are not attack ads. These are issue ads. They deal with legitimate policy and platform differences, which should be the basis for the electorate’s decision-making process. “Attack ads” are personal: assailing a candidate’s morality, his or her patriotism, his or her ethics. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: those were attack ads. The pamphlets distributed by the Bush campaign in 2000 alleging that you’d fathered an illegitimate Black baby: those were attack ads. Willie Horton in 1988 was an attack ad, maybe the consummate one. And the ads seeking to connect Barack Obama with voter registration fraud in ACORN, with a domestic terrorist named William Ayers, with criminals: these are attack ads. (Obama noted that 100% of McCain’s ads were negative, which is true of the last few weeks, but a bit less so when examining the whole campaign.)

[I have to share a picture that depicts John McCain reacting in an almost unhingedly goofy way to walking the wrong direction offstage at the debate's conclusion.  I like to think he is actually retching and kecking because of the lies he's just told and the nasty, untethered turn his campaign has taken.  It has quickly become one of my favorite pictures in the whole wide world.]

Barack Obama’s response to these unsubstantiated smears and false outrage was to go on the offensive in an impressive way, seizing control of the debate’s tone. “Senator McCain’s own campaign said publicly last week that, if we keep on talking about the economic issues, we lose, so we need to change the subject.” In one sentence, he painted the McCain campaign as wildly desperate and cravenly unscrupulous. He also brought up the William Ayers issue, forcing John McCain to wield it, then masterfully and unequivocally undercut its relevance: “Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that’s Mr. Ayers.” He went on to dismiss ACORN, which “had nothing to do with us,” and which in fact is a non-story. He finished by talking about who he does associate with, insisting that these will be the people who have inspired him and who will shape his policies in the White House. When McCain interrupted, as he did often, reasserting his incorrect or incomplete information, Obama responded with a firm but unruffled “that’s absolutely not true” or “that’s just not so.” He laid the ethical smackdown: “And I think that the fact that this [Ayers issue] has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.” Boo-ya!

Obama’s most powerful statement along this line of discussion punctuated the Lewis matter and disabled McCain’s attacks: “The important point here is, though, the American people have become so cynical about our politics, because all they see is a tit-for-tat and back-and-forth. And what they want is the ability to just focus on some really big challenges that we face right now, and that’s what I have been trying to focus on this entire campaign.” He later reiterated a call to “disagree without being disagreeable,” no doubt calling many viewers’ attention to the sighing, mugging, histrionics of the disgruntled candidate to his left.

A few of John McCain’s statements went beyond mere condescension into outright belligerence, and in at least once case, racism. On NAFTA, he said, “By the way, when Senator Obama said he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Canadians said, ‘Yes, and we’ll sell our oil to China.’ You don’t tell countries you’re going to unilaterally renegotiate agreements with them.” This was punctuated by a Cheshire Cat grin and stageworthy eye roll for full effect.

Another time, when discussing the need to become independent of foreign energy sources, McCain said, “Well you know, I admire so much Senator Obama’s eloquence. And you really have to pay attention to words. He said, we will ‘look at offshore drilling.’ Did you get that? ‘Look at.’ We can offshore drill now.” First of all, whether he intended it or not—and I’m loath to give McCain the benefit of the doubt, even in this case—calling Obama “eloquent” recalls the racist, paternalistic praise historically directed toward African Americans who speak “well,” using standard English, as “articulate.” Secondly, it’s just another example of McCain’s fearmongering: this smooth-talking Black dude is using euphemistic language to bilk you all.

More fearmongering, this time turning Obama’s health care plan into a nightmare of socialized medicine, bureaucratic gridlock, and six-month waits for surgery: “Senator Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through—as he said, his object is a single-payer system.”

Senator McCain also spent some time hammering away at base-pleasing ideas like curtailing government intrusion: “Hey, Joe, you’re rich, congratulations. Because what Joe wanted to do way buy the business that he’s been working for 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week, and you said that you wanted to spread the wealth, but—in other words, take Joe’s money and then you decide what to do with it,” he sputtered. “Now, Joe, you’re rich, congratulations,” he repeated inanely.

When Bob Schieffer brought up Roe v. Wade and the abortion issue, I was disappointed because I see this as a “wedge” culture war issue that has—at least in the past 25 years or so—been a distraction from more pressing national affairs in politics. But their exchanges revealed a whole lot about each candidate.

Obama hewed to his platform in declaring, “But what I ultimately believe is that women in consultation with their families, their doctors, their religious advisers, are in the best position to make this decision.” McCain, likewise, spoke of a “culture of life” and declared himself “proudly pro-life.” After McCain tried to stymie Obama by bringing up a couple of “present” votes in the Illinois legislature, Obama explained them away easily.

“With respect to partial-birth abortion, I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there’s an exception for the mother’s health and life, and this [bill for which Obama voted ‘present’] did not contain that exception.” He went on to say that he hopes the divergent viewpoints on abortion can be “reconciled.”

Senator McCain, rather than joining his opponent in exploring this spirit of reconciliation, attacked Obama for being well-spoken: “Just again, the example of the eloquence of Senator Obama. He’s health for the mother. You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That’s the extreme pro-abortion position: quote, ‘health.’” John McCain’s statement is breathtaking in its utter disregard for women’s health and right to choose. That’s right, Senator McCain, when you start guaranteeing exceptions for the “health” or “safety” of the mother, who knows what kind of guaranteed rights these women will want next.

The final topic of the night was education: Obama is for early childhood education initiatives like Head Start, offer teachers “higher pay” and “give them more professional development and support in exchange for higher standards and accountability.” I find this a little alarming because it seems to open the door for merit pay and testing, but he’s spoken against these two trends in the past, so I remain hopeful that Barack Obama will be an education-friendly President.

But McCain is even more alarming in his educational priorities (he’s for vouchers, hard) and his disdain for Head Start: “By the third grade many times children who were in the Head Start program aren’t any better off than the others.” In fact, a number of studies have been done over the past 40 years or so since Head Start was introduced, and the results have been mixed: in some cases, little discernible benefit can be found when comparing students who attended Head Start with those who did not. But: these studies are notoriously difficult to place methodological controls on, making their results less valid in measuring benefits and less reliable in predicting future benefits. In addition, there have been more than a few studies that suggest the benefits of Head Start participation are very real, in both the short- and long-term: vocabulary, phonemic awareness, self-esteem, healthful living, community awareness, and critical thinking have been shown to benefit in many children from Head Start programs. With a cavalier wave of the hand, John McCain made the chronically underfunded and underappreciated program seem like an utter failure and complete waste of resources.

It was in Barack Obama’s closing statement that I think he connected best with the independent and moderate Democrat voters he needs to win this election: “We need fundamental change in this country, and that’s what I’d like to bring. … But it’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be quick. It is going to be requiring all of us—Democrats, Republicans, independents—to come together and to renew a spirit of sacrifice and service and responsibility. I’m absolutely convinced we can do it. I would ask for your vote, and I promise you that if you give me the extraordinary honor of serving as your President, I will work every single day, tirelessly, on your behalf and on the behalf of the future of our children.”

In eighteen days, we’ll see if the electorate will give him that chance.

Monsoon

Monsoon Martin's "Town Hall" Presidential Debate Analysis for 7 October 2008

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

Monsoon Martin's Sarah "Moose Shootin' Mama" Palin Election Update

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

Monsoon Martin's Open Letter to White People re: Barack Obama

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

Update

on 2008-09-22 03:18 by Monsoon Martin

An AP/Yahoo! poll suggests that Obama's ofay problem may be even more significant than I posited above.  Though I disagree with the methodology of the study and therefore question both the reliability and validity of its findings, there are some potentially alarming indications here.  One such finding was, "Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice," which could be a game-changer if the election is anywhere near as close as polls suggest.

Monsoon

Monsoon Martin: I Was Wrong About Sarah Palin; She is Magnificent

... 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

Update

on 2008-09-09 11:10 by Monsoon Martin

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

Thus ran Sarah Palin’s almost impossibly racist and sexist appraisal of the 2008 Democratic primary battle between Sentator Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to a source quoted by veteran journalist Charlie James in his article on the LA Progressive website.

(Granted, James’ contention is based upon an interview with a waitress named Lucille at the restaurant where Palin allegedly uttered this bon mot to staffers—and anyone else within earshot. Her anonymous, not-for-attribution testimony must be independently verified by either another reporter or by other diners stepping forward to corroborate her story. In terms of strict journalistic ethics, releasing this nugget with thin confirmation was premature. But given what I’ve heard and read of the political and social culture in Alaska and around Palin, it doesn’t seem far-fetched—nor does it seem likely to have been fabricated for the purposes of a political smear.)

My friends, I am something of a connoisseur of unadulterated racism. These days, people’s racism is so often buried under layers of subterfuge and misdirection, or so blunted by political correctness, that a pure morsel of naked bigotry is increasingly rare. Apparently, according to various sources, the casual usage of these kinds of slurs—along with freewheelingly brainless references to the so-called Eskimo people as “Arctic Arabs”—is just a part of the unique cultural landscape of Alaska. (I don’t know about the rest of you, but the more I hear about Alaska through this whole Sarah Palin debacle, the less I want to ever visit there.)

To give you some background on the term “Sambo”: it’s really, really racist. The term has its origins in the slavery era, but the stereotypical “Sambo” archetype didn’t fully crystallize until the late 1800s. I have scanned in a detail from a stereoview (a double image that could be viewed in three dimensions through a stereopticon, or stereo viewer) published in 1901 by C.H. Graves. It’s part of a genre of “comic” stereoviews that featured inept, thieving, or ravenous, watermelon-eating “darkies” and “coons” along with mischievous “pickaninnies” (a slur for Black children). Many such views featured the exaggerated speech patterns, lazy shiftlessness, and inclination to be easily frightened that formed the basis of the minstrel personae and endured well into the 20th century as “entertainment” icons.

Sambo is a “Dixie”-whistling, childlike jester, a cheerful grin perpetually plastered on his face. It pervaded as a stereotype through the golden age of cartoons (more than a few Warner Brothers cartoons featured Sambo-like characters or “savages”), radio programs, vaudeville performances, and other popular media, well into the 1960s.

In that carnival of tuneless drunken buffoonery known as the Mummers Parade, most brigades wore blackface well into the 1970s—and some still do, though it was banned in 1964; the musical selections have historically been (and largely, still are) dominated by minstrel songs; and many of the comic brigades continue to revel in the loutish, thunderheaded racism of their “themes” (like Mexican Fiesta with revelers dressed up as tacos and burritos, Indian Pow-Wow with participants dressed in long headdresses and ululating like “Injuns,” and an Egyptian Pharaohs tribute with the members in the less-offensive brownface, all from the 2008 installment).

And let’s not forget the enduringly popular children’s book Little Black Sambo about an Indian boy with an epithet for a name who outsmarts some tigers. Whatever.

In resurrecting a shameful vestige of America’s openly racist past, Sarah Palin (allegedly) revealed that we, as a nation, may not be quite as enlightened as we’d like to believe (nothing in the waitress’s eyewitness account mentioned a disapproving comment from any other patron in the restaurant). And if there’s any credence to this claim—right-wingers dismiss this as yet another baseless attack on poor Sarah by the so-called liberal media elite, but clearly it bears further scrutiny—we can safely add “racist” to the already-evident (but helpfully, confirmed) sexism she’s shown in verifiable instances.

Monsoon

... and many thanks to Steph G. for her tip on this story!

Conservative Columnist Peggy Noonan on Palin's Choice as VP: "It's Over"

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

Monsoon's Presidential Election Comment for Labor Day 2008

It’s been a long time since I’ve weighed in on the presidential race—mainly because I have become rather bored of it all since the intense, protracted primary battle concluded with an Obama victory.

I am still a strong supporter or Barack Obama for President—and I loved the pick of Joe Biden for Vice-President, despite Biden’s ties to the Washington establishment. And I, along with more than 38 million others, watched his incisive, forthright, and sometimes inspiring acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night. There is much about Obama and his campaign to admire, and during the speech I even felt something like optimism and hope thaw away the edges of my cynical heart. Before I heard a word of his “American Promise,” he had me with the U2 song “City of Blinding Lights” that accompanied his entrance—though he almost lost me when Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America” twanged obnoxiously from the stadium’s sound system immediately following his speech. (And yet, it didn’t nearly match the race speech in either the breadth or the erudition of its message.)

But damn it all, there have been times since he wrapped up the nomination in June that I’ve been disillusioned and even sick to watch the turn his campaign has taken. It’s called the “run to the center,” and it’s nothing new: a Democratic candidate runs on a progressive platform to appeal to the party’s liberal base, then when he (or she) has the nomination wrapped up, all of those progressive ideals fall prey to equivocation, obfuscation—and sometimes just plain contradiction.

Friends, I had no illusions that Barack Obama was the uncompromisingly liberal candidate this country really needs—and indeed, he bears little resemblance to the liberal bogeyman that has been conjured from the lousiest tax-and-spend, immigrants-run-amok, gay-agenda fears of conservatives. The positions he’s taken on gay marriage (he opposes it, but supports civil unions) and capital punishment (he wants to reform it, but he supports its use in limited cases), for example, have been disappointing in their apparent desire to have it both ways: embracing all positions so as to alienate no one.

But Barack Obama talked an awful lot—and still does—about being a different kind of candidate. He wants to change the way things are done in Washington. He wants to do away with “politics as usual” and govern in a new way: with the full support and participation of ordinary citizens moved to action by his campaign. I believed him, but the “run to the center” got so out of hand at a few points this summer than I almost took down my Obama yard sign:

• He voted—against most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate—to support warrantless wiretapping, all but ceding Americans’ fourth-amendment rights.

• He expressed enthusiastic support for President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives, and promised he would expand these programs. These funding schemes for social services provided by religious organizations were a blown kiss by Bush to the evangelicals who helped elect him twice. Under the program, religious-based programs—which are already tax-exempt—can now conduct their proselytizing and their hiring discrimination with the full support of the Federal government. Obama’s pandering here is useless, since most of the evangelicals who would get all hot and bothered over such an announcement have already written the candidate off for his support—albeit tepid—for civil unions and abortion rights.

• Speaking before AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) in June, Obama said, “We will never compromise when it comes to Israel’s security. … Those who threaten Israel, threaten us.” His even-handed stances of the past, in which he took appropriately nuanced views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even engaged in a frankly critical assessment of Israel’s behavior in the region, are long gone.

• Seeking to reassure jingoists and warmongers across the nation that he would not be hesitant to use America’s military might, he outlined a plan to deploy as many as 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and to attack Iran if the country threatened the U.S. or its interests. He also backed off his earlier statement in a debate that he would meet with foreign leaders with no preconditions, lest it make him seem like too much of a diplomat and not enough of an ass-kicking hawk.

• Finally (but there was probably more that I missed), he supported the Supreme Court’s reversal of a long-standing gun ban in Washington, D.C., tarnishing his encouraging gun control credentials.

There are four main schools of thought when it comes to Barack Obama, I’ve come to realize:

• From the far right, the racist, and the insane (often, all three defects reside in the same individual), there is the cry that Obama is either a Muslim terrorist who will lead jihad against the U.S. from inside the White House, or an unpatriotic, anti-white atheist who will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance or wear a flag pin and will turn the country into a socialist state. There are also the softer objections to his lack of experience; his “arrogance” and his wife’s “uppity” attitude (thanks to Monsoon's mom for this insight); his effete, seemingly detached manner; and so on. And finally, in the “No-Bama’ category, there are the Hillaryites: mostly middle-aged women who are certain that sexism—not a superior message—was the sole factor in keeping Hillary Clinton from being nominated as either President or Vice-President; despite the fact that their values are represented by Barack Obama, most polls indicate that some 20% of these Hillary supporters are actually considering voting for John McCain.

• From the center and moderate Republicans and Democrats, the feeling that Obama is a gifted orator with sensible ideas who has quite correctly moved his policies to more reasonable positions; he will make necessary changes to address problems with America’s economic woes and foreign-policy challenges without questioning the fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism and corporate hegemony that underlie them. And these folks tend to look down their noses at those on the left who would criticize Obama for his shortcomings as a progressive candidate, preferring to present a united front of support. In short: he’s a swell guy.

• From the progressive and “liberal” Democrats, there is much of the admiration for Obama as stated immediately above, tempered with some grumblings about his “all-things-to-all-people” tendencies” and his run to the center—but folks in this cohort remain cautiously optimistic that when he reaches the White House, he will listen to the voices of those whose hard work propelled him there and reflect his more firmly progressive stances when he governs.

• From the far left wing—Communists, socialists, anarchists, conspiracy theorists, inveterate cynics, and I’d say the insane probably factor in here as well—we hear that there is very little substantive difference between Obama and McCain: both are agents of the ruling parties, neither of whom will really challenge corporate dominion over our lives, the collusion of government in such dominion, or the war machine. For these angry curmudgeons, the political process is an intractable parade of capitalist dirty tricks that will not be addressed in any meaningful way unless and until there is full revolution, or until a Noam Chomsky-Angela Davis ticket sails into the White House and fires the other two branches of government.

I fall in the third group, with some admitted sympathies toward the fourth. Let’s see how this works out.

A final few comments, if you’ll indulge me, about John McCain and his just-announced Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin, Governor of Alaska.

First, I want to direct you to an interesting article from AlterNet that reviews Michael Moore’s new book (Mike’s Election Guide) and takes note of his provocative discussion of John McCain’s “war hero” status.

Second, regarding his Vice-Presidential pick: I’ve never seen a more cravenly desperate, insulting, ill-advised, and cynical appointment in my life. John McCain met Sarah Palin exactly once at a meeting before he rang her up last week and asked her to join his fledgling ticket.

The Religious Right is over the moon about this pick, so it stands to reason that I’d be disgruntled. Let me outline a few reasons I find Sarah Palin objectionable:

• She has very little political experience, as has been noted; the little experience she does have has been marred by scandal—her office is being investigated for improprieties stemming from the firing of a state trooper.

• She is a lifetime member of the NRA who likes to shoot animals and pose with their carcasses, which I find to be vile (see the photo below, in which she and one of her kids celebrate the killing of a caribou; I’ve cropped it to spare you all the graphic details).

• Her children’s names are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. I mean…really? Really, times five??

• Palin is a devout, born-again evangelical who opposes abortion without reservation—even in cases of rape or incest. What a gal.

• She believes Creationism should be taught alongside the “theory” of evolution in public schools to encourage “healthy debate.”

• She strongly encourages and has worked toward oil and natural gas drilling in pristine areas in Alaska and other sites.

• She opposes same-sex marriages and supported a referendum for an amendment to Alaska’s constitution that would deny health benefits to same-sex couples.

• She supports capital punishment without reservation.

An odd realization struck me as I began researching Sarah Palin after the announcement was made: I hated her before I even knew she existed.

I mean, she’s the embodiment of every single thing I reject, and she’s wrapped up in a seemingly unthreatening package. (If I hear one more pundit describe her as “hot” or “cute” I am going to seriously lose it.)

And finally, speaking of colossally insulting, McCain’s choice is so nakedly designed to woo disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters that it should be seen not as a final “shattering” of the glass ceiling, as Palin said in her introductory speech, but as one of the true mileposts in 21st-century sexism. (I can’t imagine Hillary supporters suddenly deciding to vote for Sarah Palin just because she’s the first woman to receive a Republican Vice-Presidential nomination. The only things Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have in common are two X chromosomes.)

The good aspect of all this for us Obama supporters is that her inexperience and notorious bluntness is bound to lead to gaffes, and her utter lack of foreign policy chops means Biden is going to chew her up in the Vice-Presidential debate. I think ultimately the choice, though bold, will backfire wildly on McCain and Barack Obama will comfortably be elected the 44th President of the United States.

I’ll leave you with two outstanding columns about Palin from the Sunday papers:

Maureen Dowd’s column from the August 31stNew York Times.

Chris Satullo’s column from the August 31stPhiladelphia Inquirer.

As always, I welcome your comments and criticisms. I’m up for a lively political debate on here, if anyone’s game.

Monsoon

Update

on 2008-09-02 17:00 by Monsoon Martin

Breaking news from the McCain-Palin campaign that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant sent me into paroxysms of glee—for how often do irony and hypocrisy coalesce into such a thick and satisfying stew? There’s nothing like seeing a paster who’s fought against gay rights and preached about the sin of homosexuality getting busted for trolling the men’s room for anonymous sex (Ted Haggard); the family-values politician who reportedly cheats on his wife repeatedly and actually presents his wife with divorce papers while she’s hospitalized, recovering from surgery (Newt Gingrich). I could go on.

The announcement also sent me to the internet to seek out reactions and opinions as to how this might affect the election, and I stumbled upon some of the most fevered conspiracy theory chatter since the work of the “9/11 was an inside job” crew.

My friends, if the swirling online rumors are to be believed—and that’s a big if—this pregnancy is actually Bristol’s second one. According to wanton online speculation, at age 16 she became pregnant and explained her 4- to 5-month absence from school as an extended bout of mononucleosis. To save the family embarrassment, the theories offer, Sarah Palin pretended to be pregnant—announcing her “pregnancy” only at seven months and seldom “showing” at all, or wearing maternity padding to fool onlookers—and when Bristol delivered Trig in April of this year, the child was claimed to be the offspring of Sarah Palin and her husband.

There’s another, seedier level of internet gossip hell (it’s not pretty, folks) where it is being alleged that not only is Bristol Trig’s mother rather than his sister, but that Trig’s father is actually Sarah’s husband Todd. The result of this Springeresque state of affairs would be, quite incestuously, that Bristol is both Trig’s mother and his half-sister.

To support these conspiracy theories, photos of both Sarah and her daughter Bristol are being scrutinized for “baby bumps” and photoshopping, and DNA tests are being suggested, but no real evidence has yet emerged to support these wild and whirling words.

And so as a result, I will—for the time being—assume that everything is as has been reported in the topsy-turvy McCain-Palin: Trip, son of Sarah and her husband Todd, was born on April 18, 2008; Bristol is now five months into her first-ever pregnancy, and the father of this child is her boyfriend, whom she intends to marry.

Really, that’s juicy enough. Consider:

1. It exposes the fact that John McCain, despite his staff’s protests to the contrary, did not adequately “vet” his Vice-Presidential choice, and given that Palin’s pregnancy and state-trooper scandals are already distracting the public’s attention from the GOP’s convention, he’s lost the gamble. Reportedly, McCain knew about Bristol’s pregnancy when he selected Palin—which means that he’s either lying (in which case he’s dishonest and sloppy) or he’s telling the truth (in which case he’s clueless). Neither scenario is looking particularly rosy for the GOP at the moment.

2. It underscores the ineffectuality of Sarah Palin’s own steely moral convictions, which guide her leadership: she is a strong advocate of abstinence-only education in public schools, and yet her own daughter’s condition as an unwed, teenage mother-to-be stands as a counterpoint to this approach. Abstinence-only education gives teenagers “The only truly safe sex is no sex” without then following it up with “…but if you do engage in sex, be aware of contraception, etc.” There’s no direct indication that Bristol Palin received abstinence-only sex education in her schooling, but the irony is irresistible.  Actually, according to a Chicago Tribune article, "The high school that Bristol Palin attended for part of last year, Wasilla High School, teaches abstinence in health class, its principal said."  Nice!

3. It calls into question the impetus behind Bristol’s decision to carry the child to full term, given her mother’s right-wing Feminists for Life stance that abortion must not even be an option in cases of incest or rape. Again, there’s no direct evidence of this, but the possibility exists that when Bristol brought this news to her parents, Sarah brought pressure to bear on her daughter to keep the child because of her own political stakes.

4. Bristol Palin is, according to her family’s September 1st statement, five months pregnant, meaning that she conceived sometime around the beginning of April. Sarah Palin delivered Trip, Bristol’s brother, on April 18th, which means that for a few weeks, Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol were both pregnant. Jeez. Now we’re getting into some “Maury”-type shit here.

5. If the McCain-Palin ticket wins the election, moving in to Number One Observatory Circle (the Vice-President’s residence) will be Sarah and her husband Todd; children Bristol, Willow, and Piper; and two infants, nine-month-old Trig and Bristol’s newborn. And maybe even Bristol’s boyfriend. Quite a clan. (For those curious, Track, who has enlisted in the Army, is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq sometime this month.)

Some evangelicals have come out in support of Sarah Palin and her family as this scandal emerges, but it’s not difficult to imagine that her inexperience, her scandals, and—let’s face it—her gender will discourage some Republicans and conservatives in general from voting for a McCain-Palin ticket.

Barack Obama, for his part, went classy all the way, reacting the only way he really could to this news: “People’s families are off-limits and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.”

Stay tuned…

Monsoon