Thoughts from Purple Land
Rosa Sat (A Song for This Day)
Jan/19/2009 08:01 AM | Permalink
Are you surprised that on MLK Day, and the day before
Obama's inauguration, I would be drawn to folk music?
Hope not.
Because there are a couple of folk songs that seem to frame my feelings on this day.
The first is called "Rosa Sat," and it's written and performed by Chicago singersongwriter, Amy Dixon-Kolar.
(Click here if you can't see the media player...)
I'm glad that some one wrote a song (there may be more than one) based on this great quote, because it's the quote that gave me chills just after the election:
I love how the song is written the style of an old spiritual, and I love the message of this quote. Amy says on her website that the quote stayed with her and she knew she'd write a song using it. I'm grateful she did.
I've long been a big fan of the King Holiday, and write something about it almost every year. Last year, I mostly quoted a great piece by my friend, Larry James, who questioned the idea of doing works of "service" on this day.
Larry's writing was called "Missing the Mark on the MLK Holiday," and you can read my blog about it here.
I suppose I mostly feel the same way I felt last year. It would be a tragic reduction of King's legacy for his memory to only be given to acts of charity. King was far more interested in acts of justice. Which is, lest we forget, what led him to opposed the Vietnam War and led him to support the rights of the poor.
OTOH, on this MLK Day, our President-Elect himself is strongly pushing that the day be honored as a "day of service," and in this he is joined by other respected members of congress. And, locally, Larry James' own agency is leading the way with a house building project!! So, go figure.
It's especially gratifying to see a President-Elect issue the call, and see a nation respond. And perhaps one could argue that this year, the sense of justice that is such a necessary component of the King Holiday is, in fact, simply and powerfully incarnated in Obama's victory itself.
But there was another song sung during yesterday's concert on the Mall in Washington. (Which was, btw, an amazing event...) The show ended with Bruce Springsteen and none other than Pete Seeger singing "This Land is Your Land."
(Click here if you can't see the media player...)
Note George Lucas singing along in a quick crowd shot! That's certainly a "throwback" song in many ways. But it's also a folk song, deep in our American tradition, written by an iconic writer. Bruce introduced it as the greatest song ever written about our country.
And perhaps this song, and the verses they sang, were more appropriate than many realized at the time. One commentator noted almost immediately that Bruce and Pete included one verse that often gets left out when the song gets sung at schools and in other settings:
Mike Kazan, the guy who first noted this, goes on to say, "I bet Pete was thinking, “This is the way Woody wrote it and so I’m going to make sure the whole country hears it.”
Maybe so.
Certainly gave me a smile. Given all the crap he's had to put up with in his life, I would dearly love to know what Pete Seeger is thinking about all of this.
And so, when taken together, perhaps the verse from Amy's song and the verse from this classic Woody Guthrie standard provide the appropriate sense of both historical optimism and the call to continue the journey of justice?
Yes, on this day we should remember all those who could only sit or walk, in the hopes that one day others could run and fly.
But in these challenging economic times, we must not forget that many are still "wondrin' if this land's still made for you and me."
Optimism and Hope.
A call for continuing justice and change.
Not a bad message on this particular MLK Day.
Leave it to folk music to frame it for us.
Hope not.
Because there are a couple of folk songs that seem to frame my feelings on this day.
The first is called "Rosa Sat," and it's written and performed by Chicago singersongwriter, Amy Dixon-Kolar.
(Click here if you can't see the media player...)
I'm glad that some one wrote a song (there may be more than one) based on this great quote, because it's the quote that gave me chills just after the election:
"Rosa sat so Martin could walk.
Martin walked so Barack could run.
Barack ran, that our children could fly"
I love how the song is written the style of an old spiritual, and I love the message of this quote. Amy says on her website that the quote stayed with her and she knew she'd write a song using it. I'm grateful she did.
I've long been a big fan of the King Holiday, and write something about it almost every year. Last year, I mostly quoted a great piece by my friend, Larry James, who questioned the idea of doing works of "service" on this day.
Larry's writing was called "Missing the Mark on the MLK Holiday," and you can read my blog about it here.
I suppose I mostly feel the same way I felt last year. It would be a tragic reduction of King's legacy for his memory to only be given to acts of charity. King was far more interested in acts of justice. Which is, lest we forget, what led him to opposed the Vietnam War and led him to support the rights of the poor.
OTOH, on this MLK Day, our President-Elect himself is strongly pushing that the day be honored as a "day of service," and in this he is joined by other respected members of congress. And, locally, Larry James' own agency is leading the way with a house building project!! So, go figure.
It's especially gratifying to see a President-Elect issue the call, and see a nation respond. And perhaps one could argue that this year, the sense of justice that is such a necessary component of the King Holiday is, in fact, simply and powerfully incarnated in Obama's victory itself.
But there was another song sung during yesterday's concert on the Mall in Washington. (Which was, btw, an amazing event...) The show ended with Bruce Springsteen and none other than Pete Seeger singing "This Land is Your Land."
(Click here if you can't see the media player...)
Note George Lucas singing along in a quick crowd shot! That's certainly a "throwback" song in many ways. But it's also a folk song, deep in our American tradition, written by an iconic writer. Bruce introduced it as the greatest song ever written about our country.
And perhaps this song, and the verses they sang, were more appropriate than many realized at the time. One commentator noted almost immediately that Bruce and Pete included one verse that often gets left out when the song gets sung at schools and in other settings:
"In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me."
Mike Kazan, the guy who first noted this, goes on to say, "I bet Pete was thinking, “This is the way Woody wrote it and so I’m going to make sure the whole country hears it.”
Maybe so.
Certainly gave me a smile. Given all the crap he's had to put up with in his life, I would dearly love to know what Pete Seeger is thinking about all of this.
And so, when taken together, perhaps the verse from Amy's song and the verse from this classic Woody Guthrie standard provide the appropriate sense of both historical optimism and the call to continue the journey of justice?
Yes, on this day we should remember all those who could only sit or walk, in the hopes that one day others could run and fly.
But in these challenging economic times, we must not forget that many are still "wondrin' if this land's still made for you and me."
Optimism and Hope.
A call for continuing justice and change.
Not a bad message on this particular MLK Day.
Leave it to folk music to frame it for us.
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Yes We Can
Nov/05/2008 07:48 AM | Permalink
(link)
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes, we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes, we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes, we can.
It was the call of workers who organized;
women who reached for the ballots;
a President who chose the moon as our new frontier;
and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes, we can.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes, we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
(We Want Change!)
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant....
We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA;
we will remember that there is something happening in America;
that we are not as divided as our politics suggests;
that we are one people; we are one nation;
and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story
with three words that will ring from coast to coast;
from sea to shining sea:
Yes, We Can.
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What We Need to Hear After the Election
Nov/04/2008 08:27 AM | Permalink
Just dropped my daughter off at school. And there I
took a brief peek at the election underway. The front
sidewalk has sprouted dozens of signs for local
candidates. There were even a few workers out for the
two statehouse candidates from our district.
The school is clearly braced for a huge turnout. They moved voting to the gym this year, and seem to have doubled the number of voting machines and volunteers. The PTA is having a bake sale (we contributed banana bread) and there are even volunteers helping people navigate the parking lots. But, thus far, turnout seems to be fairly LIGHT. At least, that's what my pollworker friend told me just now...and it seemed to be the truth from my observation. Perhaps with the increased number of machines and manpower, it just seems smoother? Time will tell...
This election been the longest and most expensive presidential campaign in history. Today, the voters are speaking. Tonight, barring the reappearance of the "hanging chad" or equivalent spoiler, we should have a result.
Whether your favorite candidate wins or loses, it seems to me there are words we all should expect from the mouths of both candidates.
Below, I take my best shot at presidential speechwriting, and suggest some things we Americans most need to hear.
First, let me start with an assumption: George W. Bush failed to say what we most needed to hear in the year 2000, and that failure led to an increasingly polarized electorate and nation. You can't put all of the difficulties of this administration on that one failure. But, to my mind, it set a horrible path with completely predictable results.
George W. Bush campaigned to be a "uniter, not a divider." Many people, including me, truly believed that this was the way he would govern, because this was the way he had governed in Texas.
For myriad reasons, he did not. One good reason was the hotly contested, and seriously contentious, election itself. More than 50 percent of the nation did not vote for him. Many of those persons, to this day, refuse to believe that he won. (I am noting the fact, not editorializing)
Given that climate, we needed him to be the president he promised he would be. We needed a "uniter." I personally believe his own advisors --specifically Rove and Cheney-- steered him away from that path, and convinced him it was unnecessary to go that direction. He apparently agreed.
That mistake, IMHO, was the single biggest mistake of his presidency. Because it pitted 50.5 percent of the electorate against him from the start.
"But Eric," you say, "surely you're not suggesting that all Democrats would have fallen in line behind him!"
Not all, to be sure. But some would have, and probably enough to allow for an impressive "bipartisan" ruling coalition for most of his first term, specially if Bush had taken their advice and counsel as seriously as he always took the advice of those closest to him.
I believe the American people are always looking for a leader who will represent them ALL, no matter which direction they personally "lean." But that "first step," the first indication that it will happen, has to come from the president...not from the people, or even the political opposition. And, BTW, had Bush been able to do it? Had he listened consistently to voices from the other side --found his own "Bob Bullock"-- on the national stage? His whole presidency might have been different. (Emphasis on "might.")
It is a step of great political courage, to lead from the center, and to welcome in the opposition. It sets our government apart from so many others. We fight like hell during campaigns, and then we should (but don't always) put aside those differences, learn from each other, and move forward as one nation.
It strikes me that BOTH the candidates this year are uniquely qualified to do this. McCain calls himself a "Maverick" (btw, did you know the actual Mavericks are not too keen on this?) which I take to mean that he would be willing to stand up to his own party, and reach across the aisle to the other one. Obama's political writings, campaign, and political career, indicate that he also values making this move.
So, with the strong belief that it's necessary, and that either of these two guys could theoretically do it, here is what I think should be said after the election.
The loser should say:
The winner should say:
Can either of them pull off a speech of such political courage?
I don't know for sure. But I know that more than most candidates, they have the personalities for it.
And I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it's what we most need to hear from them.
The school is clearly braced for a huge turnout. They moved voting to the gym this year, and seem to have doubled the number of voting machines and volunteers. The PTA is having a bake sale (we contributed banana bread) and there are even volunteers helping people navigate the parking lots. But, thus far, turnout seems to be fairly LIGHT. At least, that's what my pollworker friend told me just now...and it seemed to be the truth from my observation. Perhaps with the increased number of machines and manpower, it just seems smoother? Time will tell...
This election been the longest and most expensive presidential campaign in history. Today, the voters are speaking. Tonight, barring the reappearance of the "hanging chad" or equivalent spoiler, we should have a result.
Whether your favorite candidate wins or loses, it seems to me there are words we all should expect from the mouths of both candidates.
Below, I take my best shot at presidential speechwriting, and suggest some things we Americans most need to hear.
First, let me start with an assumption: George W. Bush failed to say what we most needed to hear in the year 2000, and that failure led to an increasingly polarized electorate and nation. You can't put all of the difficulties of this administration on that one failure. But, to my mind, it set a horrible path with completely predictable results.
George W. Bush campaigned to be a "uniter, not a divider." Many people, including me, truly believed that this was the way he would govern, because this was the way he had governed in Texas.
For myriad reasons, he did not. One good reason was the hotly contested, and seriously contentious, election itself. More than 50 percent of the nation did not vote for him. Many of those persons, to this day, refuse to believe that he won. (I am noting the fact, not editorializing)
Given that climate, we needed him to be the president he promised he would be. We needed a "uniter." I personally believe his own advisors --specifically Rove and Cheney-- steered him away from that path, and convinced him it was unnecessary to go that direction. He apparently agreed.
That mistake, IMHO, was the single biggest mistake of his presidency. Because it pitted 50.5 percent of the electorate against him from the start.
"But Eric," you say, "surely you're not suggesting that all Democrats would have fallen in line behind him!"
Not all, to be sure. But some would have, and probably enough to allow for an impressive "bipartisan" ruling coalition for most of his first term, specially if Bush had taken their advice and counsel as seriously as he always took the advice of those closest to him.
I believe the American people are always looking for a leader who will represent them ALL, no matter which direction they personally "lean." But that "first step," the first indication that it will happen, has to come from the president...not from the people, or even the political opposition. And, BTW, had Bush been able to do it? Had he listened consistently to voices from the other side --found his own "Bob Bullock"-- on the national stage? His whole presidency might have been different. (Emphasis on "might.")
It is a step of great political courage, to lead from the center, and to welcome in the opposition. It sets our government apart from so many others. We fight like hell during campaigns, and then we should (but don't always) put aside those differences, learn from each other, and move forward as one nation.
It strikes me that BOTH the candidates this year are uniquely qualified to do this. McCain calls himself a "Maverick" (btw, did you know the actual Mavericks are not too keen on this?) which I take to mean that he would be willing to stand up to his own party, and reach across the aisle to the other one. Obama's political writings, campaign, and political career, indicate that he also values making this move.
So, with the strong belief that it's necessary, and that either of these two guys could theoretically do it, here is what I think should be said after the election.
The loser should say:
"I congratulate Senator (Blank) on a hard fought campaign. We did not always see eye-to-eye, nor do we now. But for the good of the nation, I call upon all of my supporters to acknowledge and support Senator (Blank) and their administration. The stakes for our nation's future are too high to allow the petty rhetoric of a political campaign to infuse our national discourse. I pledge to support a President (Blank) administration, and I ask all of my supporters to do the same."
The winner should say:
"I congratulate Senator (Blank) on a hard fought campaign. We did not always see eye-to-eye, nor do we now. To all of those who opposed my candidacy, I promise you have nothing to fear. I pledge to be YOUR president too. I pledge to work hard to win your trust and support, and I ask you to work with me. I take seriously the idea that we are ONE nation, and I pledge to do all in my power to not pursue policy in a way that will intentionally drive us apart. The stakes for our nation are too hight to allow the petty rhetoric of a political campaign to infuse our national discourse. I will endeavor to work with and for you, and I ask you do work with and for my administration, so that we might truly be ONE nation."
Can either of them pull off a speech of such political courage?
I don't know for sure. But I know that more than most candidates, they have the personalities for it.
And I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it's what we most need to hear from them.
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Why Did McCain Pick Palin?
Aug/30/2008 11:44 AM | Permalink
I mean the above question this way:
What does this pick say about his
judgement?
It's an important question, because for months McCain's been crowing about how judgment and experience are important. So, given what we know --or rather, what we don't know-- about Sarah Palin, why this person? why this woman? and why right now?
The reason I ask is that the more I learn about her, the less I understand the answers.
First, why her, given her relative lack of experience?
Seriously. As Paul Begala said yesterday, "She comes from a state with more reindeer than people...and she'll have to put on a few pounds to be considered a lightweight."
I understand (but don't agree with) the critique of Obama as inexperienced. But doesn't she make him look like an elder statesman?
She was the mayor of a town of 6,000 people.
He was elected to the state legislature in one of our most populous states.
She was elected governor in a state that only has 700,000 people.
I haven't looked it up, but I'll bet you a million bucks more people voted for Obama for US Senate just in the City of Chicago than live in Palin's whole state.
That doesn't automatically mean she's not a good candidate. But what does it say about McCain that he picked her?
BTW, an Alaskan blogger fills in some gaps about Wasilla, where Palin was Mayor, and offers this shot of "downtown," with prominently features "The Mug Shot Saloon."
I am not making this up.
The same Alaska blogger has this to say about Palin's "executive experience."
I love salt of the earth people too. I love small town America. I really do. Some of the best times in my life have been spent in Texas small towns.
But just how wise is making the jump from Wasilla to Vice-President of the United States?
As someone else here in Dallas noted today: Dallas has more population than the entire State of Alaska, but nobody's calling for Tom Leppert to be Vice President.
A sub-question to these questions about Palin's experience has to do with the obvious choices of other, more qualified women out there right now. If McCain believes he needed a woman Veep, then why not a more qualified woman from a more populous state?
Why not:
Kay Bailey Hutchison?
Cristi Todd Whitman?
Elizabeth Dole?
Olympia Snow?
Susan Collins?
Lisa Murkowski? (A US Senator from...wait for it...Alaska!!!)
The Republican Party has many women who have become stars in their own right, with decades of experience between them. Here is one list of thirty-two potential Republican women with more experience than Palin.
Why, with all of them out there, did he pick Palin?
One of his own advisors actually said yesterday,“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced...’”
Yeah, no kidding.
Questions about her qualifications are not just coming from hardcore Democrats. They're coming from some Alaska Republicans who know her best. These quotes are from a story in the Anchorage Daily News titles "Choice Stuns State Politicians."
Speaking of vetting his choice, as this story from the Associated Press points out, McCain himself had promised to nominate someone far more substantial. The last time we had a Veep candidate who was this little known, with such a skimpy resume, it was Dan Quayle. And McCain himself promised he would NOT make a pick like that...
Wow....
To top it off, the two of them have only met once in their entire life.
Seriously. I'm not kidding.
Politico.com has the story:
Now, obviously, John McCain can pick anyone he likes for his Veep selection. But I will point out that when we last hired a part time youth director at our church, I had more face-to-face meetings with him than John McCain did with the woman he now wants to be second in command of our nation!!!
Doesn't that seem a little strange?
I mean, this isn't someone he's held as a trusted and close confidant. It's not someone he's even worked alongside, legislatively, as partners in government. It's not someone he's spent family time with. As the story makes clear, he and Cindy met Sarah's spouse Scott last Thursday.
Sarah Palin is a conservative hardliner too. is staunchly anti-abortion. She is a leader in a group called "Feminists for Life."
So, to review....
He's picked a woman almost nobody knows, with very little experience....
He's pick this woman, when far more experienced women were available...
He's picked a running-mate even HE even doesn't know, when far closer confidants and colleagues were available...
So, I ask again....what does this say about his judgement?
Moving on.
The most incredulous part of this pick to me is the following: Sarah Palin is under investigation in the State of Alaska. This is not old news. This is breaking news. There are stories about it on YouTube from less than two weeks ago. (Does anybody in the McCain campaign watch YouTube?!!!)
The investigators involved have determined that there is enough credible evidence to depose Sarah Palin. ABC is reporting that she is likely to be deposed any day now.
And the final report on the matter? It's due to be released sometime during the first few days of November!!!
Now, so far, I have yet to mention any specific allegations against Sarah Palin. And, in some sense, the allegations are not germane to the point I want to make right here.
The point for me here is this: why, why, why...pick a politician in the midst of an ongoing state investigation?!!!
Don't you want somebody who's squeaky clean?
Don't you want somebody where all that's going to come out has already come out?
Why would McCain pick Palin right now, and what does that say about his political judgment?
Wow....
It gets more interesting when you peel back the onion of this state investigation.Talking Points Memo is doing some great investigation of the scandal, and has this helpful timeline. The story is that Sarah Palin had a brother-in-law (husband to her sister) who was a state trooper. He doesn't sound like he was a very nice person, and may have even been abusive to Palin's sister.
Here's a video of local news coverage.
What is now known is that Palin and her executive staff in the governor's office contacted the head of the state troopers (Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan) for Alaska two dozen times with "information" about Palin's ex-brother-in-law.
Two dozen times!
Eventually, Palin fired Commission Walt Monegan from his job as head of the Alaska State Troopers. And from that very moment, Monegan has consistently claimed he was fired, in part, because he would not fire Sarah Palin's ex-brother-in-law... because he did not act on the two dozen contacts he had from Sarah Palin, her staff...and even her husband.
Wow!
She, as you might imagine, denied any involvement for weeks, and said that nobody from her staff was involved either.
But! Just two weeks ago, she flip-flopped. She has now admitted that members of her staff DID contact Commissioner Monegan, and that she understands such contact could be seen as inappropriate. BTW...she flip flopped because a tape has surfaced of one of her staff actually placing an actual phone call, inquiring about getting the bro-in-law fired...ooops!
So, now she's switched her story to a denial that she "coordinated" the twenty-four contacts. But, given what else she's denied, it sure doesn't look good for her, does it?
Now, again, I'm certainly not defending the ex-brother-in-law, or Commissioner Monegan. And there may have been other reasons to fire him.
But twenty-four contacts with Comissioner Monegan about an ex-brother-in-law?
That's twenty-three more than she's ever had with John McCain!!!
Then, to deny it profusely, only to later admit part of the story IS true?
Ouch.
BTW, the man she choose to replace Commissioner Monegan with as head of the Alaska State Troopers? He lasted all but two weeks on the job. He was forced to resign after allegations of sexual harrassment that Sarah Palin later admitted that she knew.
This story is hardly over. And given that fact, I just have to ask: Why pick her?
Politico.com suggests some answers. They suggest six reasons why McCain made this pick. You can read the whole thing here. Here's the highlights of their top two reasons:
So, to sum up: There seem to be a lot of questions about McCain's judgment in picking Palin.
I am sure more of these will get played out in the coming weeks. But it sure has me scratching my head this morning.
The Daily Show --ever the repository of its own biting, twisted, yet often dead-on versions of the truth-- asked the same questions I ask here in a piece last night. While I would never say it quite the way they do, I'll let the court jesters have the last word as to why McCain picked Palin. And we'll let the next few weeks see if anybody else agrees with them.
It's an important question, because for months McCain's been crowing about how judgment and experience are important. So, given what we know --or rather, what we don't know-- about Sarah Palin, why this person? why this woman? and why right now?
The reason I ask is that the more I learn about her, the less I understand the answers.
First, why her, given her relative lack of experience?
Seriously. As Paul Begala said yesterday, "She comes from a state with more reindeer than people...and she'll have to put on a few pounds to be considered a lightweight."
I understand (but don't agree with) the critique of Obama as inexperienced. But doesn't she make him look like an elder statesman?
She was the mayor of a town of 6,000 people.
He was elected to the state legislature in one of our most populous states.
She was elected governor in a state that only has 700,000 people.
I haven't looked it up, but I'll bet you a million bucks more people voted for Obama for US Senate just in the City of Chicago than live in Palin's whole state.
That doesn't automatically mean she's not a good candidate. But what does it say about McCain that he picked her?
BTW, an Alaskan blogger fills in some gaps about Wasilla, where Palin was Mayor, and offers this shot of "downtown," with prominently features "The Mug Shot Saloon."
I am not making this up.
The same Alaska blogger has this to say about Palin's "executive experience."
"Before her meteoric rise to political success as governor, just two short years ago Sarah Palin was the mayor of Wasilla. I had a good chuckle at MSN.com’s claim that she had been the mayor of “Wasilla City”. It is not a city. Just Wasilla. Wasilla is the heart of the Alaska “Bible belt” and Sarah was raised amongst the tribe that believes creationism should be taught in our public schools, homosexuality is a sin, and life begins at conception. She’s a gun-toting, hang ‘em high conservative. Remember…this is where her approval ratings come from. There is no doubt that McCain again is making a strategic choice to appeal to a particular demographic - fundamentalist right-wing gun-owning Christians. And Republican bloggers are already gushing about how she has ‘more executive experience’ than Obama does! Above is a picture of lovely downtown Wasilla, for those of you unfamiliar with the area. Behind the Mug-Shot Saloon (the first bar I visited when I moved to Alaska long ago) is a little strip mall. There are street signs in Wasilla with bullet holes in them. Wasilla has a population of about 5500 people, and 1979 occupied housing units. This is where your potential Vice President was two short years ago. Can you imagine her negotiating a nuclear non-proliferation treaty? Discussing foreign policy? Understanding non-Alaskan issues? Frankly, I don’t even know if she’s ever been out of the country. She may ‘get’ Alaska, but there are only a half a million people here. Don’t get me wrong….I love Alaska with all my heart. I’m just saying."
I love salt of the earth people too. I love small town America. I really do. Some of the best times in my life have been spent in Texas small towns.
But just how wise is making the jump from Wasilla to Vice-President of the United States?
As someone else here in Dallas noted today: Dallas has more population than the entire State of Alaska, but nobody's calling for Tom Leppert to be Vice President.
A sub-question to these questions about Palin's experience has to do with the obvious choices of other, more qualified women out there right now. If McCain believes he needed a woman Veep, then why not a more qualified woman from a more populous state?
Why not:
Kay Bailey Hutchison?
Cristi Todd Whitman?
Elizabeth Dole?
Olympia Snow?
Susan Collins?
Lisa Murkowski? (A US Senator from...wait for it...Alaska!!!)
The Republican Party has many women who have become stars in their own right, with decades of experience between them. Here is one list of thirty-two potential Republican women with more experience than Palin.
Why, with all of them out there, did he pick Palin?
One of his own advisors actually said yesterday,“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced...’”
Yeah, no kidding.
Questions about her qualifications are not just coming from hardcore Democrats. They're coming from some Alaska Republicans who know her best. These quotes are from a story in the Anchorage Daily News titles "Choice Stuns State Politicians."
"State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to give her the news.
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
---------
"State House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez, was astonished at the news. He didn't want to get into the issue of her qualifications.
"She's old enough," Harris said. "She's a U.S. citizen."
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"Former House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican political leader who has clashed with Palin in the past, was shocked when she heard the news Friday morning with her husband, Walt.
"I said to Walt, 'This can't be happening, because his advance team didn't come to Alaska to check her out," Phillips said."
Speaking of vetting his choice, as this story from the Associated Press points out, McCain himself had promised to nominate someone far more substantial. The last time we had a Veep candidate who was this little known, with such a skimpy resume, it was Dan Quayle. And McCain himself promised he would NOT make a pick like that...
"McCain said in April that he was determined to avoid a pick like Dan Quayle, the little-known Indiana senator whom George H.W. Bush put on his ticket in 1988. The choice proved embarrassing.
Quayle "had not been briefed and prepared for some of the questions," McCain said while discussing his vice presidential search. He was clearly aware that, as a septuagenarian, the decision he made about a running mate would be "of enhanced importance."
Four months and one birthday later, McCain's announcement of Palin made clear the paucity of her experience."
Wow....
To top it off, the two of them have only met once in their entire life.
Seriously. I'm not kidding.
Politico.com has the story:
"John McCain on Friday announced a running mate whom he met only six months ago and with whom he spoke just once on the phone about the position before offering it in person earlier this week.
McCain’s first encounter with Sarah Palin came at a Washington meeting of the National Governors Association in February, according to a campaign-provided reconstruction of how the little-known Alaska governor was thrust into the national spotlight. The two discussed the position by phone on Sunday before McCain invited Palin and her husband to Arizona to formally make the offer. McCain, joined by his wife, Cindy, did just that Thursday morning at their home near Sedona, Ariz."
Now, obviously, John McCain can pick anyone he likes for his Veep selection. But I will point out that when we last hired a part time youth director at our church, I had more face-to-face meetings with him than John McCain did with the woman he now wants to be second in command of our nation!!!
Doesn't that seem a little strange?
I mean, this isn't someone he's held as a trusted and close confidant. It's not someone he's even worked alongside, legislatively, as partners in government. It's not someone he's spent family time with. As the story makes clear, he and Cindy met Sarah's spouse Scott last Thursday.
Sarah Palin is a conservative hardliner too. is staunchly anti-abortion. She is a leader in a group called "Feminists for Life."
So, to review....
He's picked a woman almost nobody knows, with very little experience....
He's pick this woman, when far more experienced women were available...
He's picked a running-mate even HE even doesn't know, when far closer confidants and colleagues were available...
So, I ask again....what does this say about his judgement?
Moving on.
The most incredulous part of this pick to me is the following: Sarah Palin is under investigation in the State of Alaska. This is not old news. This is breaking news. There are stories about it on YouTube from less than two weeks ago. (Does anybody in the McCain campaign watch YouTube?!!!)
The investigators involved have determined that there is enough credible evidence to depose Sarah Palin. ABC is reporting that she is likely to be deposed any day now.
And the final report on the matter? It's due to be released sometime during the first few days of November!!!
Now, so far, I have yet to mention any specific allegations against Sarah Palin. And, in some sense, the allegations are not germane to the point I want to make right here.
The point for me here is this: why, why, why...pick a politician in the midst of an ongoing state investigation?!!!
Don't you want somebody who's squeaky clean?
Don't you want somebody where all that's going to come out has already come out?
Why would McCain pick Palin right now, and what does that say about his political judgment?
Wow....
It gets more interesting when you peel back the onion of this state investigation.Talking Points Memo is doing some great investigation of the scandal, and has this helpful timeline. The story is that Sarah Palin had a brother-in-law (husband to her sister) who was a state trooper. He doesn't sound like he was a very nice person, and may have even been abusive to Palin's sister.
Here's a video of local news coverage.
What is now known is that Palin and her executive staff in the governor's office contacted the head of the state troopers (Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan) for Alaska two dozen times with "information" about Palin's ex-brother-in-law.
Two dozen times!
Eventually, Palin fired Commission Walt Monegan from his job as head of the Alaska State Troopers. And from that very moment, Monegan has consistently claimed he was fired, in part, because he would not fire Sarah Palin's ex-brother-in-law... because he did not act on the two dozen contacts he had from Sarah Palin, her staff...and even her husband.
Wow!
She, as you might imagine, denied any involvement for weeks, and said that nobody from her staff was involved either.
But! Just two weeks ago, she flip-flopped. She has now admitted that members of her staff DID contact Commissioner Monegan, and that she understands such contact could be seen as inappropriate. BTW...she flip flopped because a tape has surfaced of one of her staff actually placing an actual phone call, inquiring about getting the bro-in-law fired...ooops!
So, now she's switched her story to a denial that she "coordinated" the twenty-four contacts. But, given what else she's denied, it sure doesn't look good for her, does it?
Now, again, I'm certainly not defending the ex-brother-in-law, or Commissioner Monegan. And there may have been other reasons to fire him.
But twenty-four contacts with Comissioner Monegan about an ex-brother-in-law?
That's twenty-three more than she's ever had with John McCain!!!
Then, to deny it profusely, only to later admit part of the story IS true?
Ouch.
BTW, the man she choose to replace Commissioner Monegan with as head of the Alaska State Troopers? He lasted all but two weeks on the job. He was forced to resign after allegations of sexual harrassment that Sarah Palin later admitted that she knew.
This story is hardly over. And given that fact, I just have to ask: Why pick her?
Politico.com suggests some answers. They suggest six reasons why McCain made this pick. You can read the whole thing here. Here's the highlights of their top two reasons:
"1. He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election — and very sick of the Bush years.
McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike...
2. He’s willing to gamble — bigtime. Let’s face it: This is not the pick of a self-confident candidate. It is the political equivalent of a trick play or, as some Democrats called it, a Hail Mary pass in football. McCain talks incessantly about experience, and then goes and selects a woman he hardly knows, who hardly knows foreign policy and who can hardly be seen as instantly ready for the presidency.
He is smart enough to know it could work, at least politically. Many Republicans see this pick as a brilliant stroke because it will be difficult for Democrats to run hard against a woman in the wake of the Hillary Clinton drama..."
So, to sum up: There seem to be a lot of questions about McCain's judgment in picking Palin.
I am sure more of these will get played out in the coming weeks. But it sure has me scratching my head this morning.
The Daily Show --ever the repository of its own biting, twisted, yet often dead-on versions of the truth-- asked the same questions I ask here in a piece last night. While I would never say it quite the way they do, I'll let the court jesters have the last word as to why McCain picked Palin. And we'll let the next few weeks see if anybody else agrees with them.
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"He's The Best I've Ever Seen"
Aug/29/2008 01:49 PM | Permalink
Last night was historic in many ways. Many of those
ways have been duly noted in papers and
blogs
around the nation today.
But last night was historic in one intensely personal way too. It marked the first, and only, time in my entire life that my favorite candidate for President actually came away with his/her party's nomination.
I've been a political junkie for years. Never before, in all my years, have I backed the right horse right from the starting gate.
Back in 2005, Dennise and I got something perhaps a lot of other folks didn't get: an early, albeit brief, glimpse at the phenomenon that was to become Barack Obama.
I write this blog today not to endorse a candidate, since neither Dennise nor I ever would ever do that. But I'd like to tell you about that brief meeting, why I believe Obama won the nomination, and why --discounting the genuine novelty of actually being *right* for once-- I am not surprised he is the Democratic nominee.
We met Obama at a rally here in Dallas in the Fall of 2005. It had been almost a year since the election of 2004, when Dennise and several other Democrats broke through to win what many saw as improbable victories in Dallas County.
The rally was intended to be a "kick off" for the 2006 campaign, then about a year away. Three sitting US Senators --Harry Reid, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama-- came to Dallas for an outdoor rally at Lee Park.
Dennise got invited to the "pre-event reception" in the building there at Lee Park (I can't remember the building's name), and I was lucky enough to tag along as a spouse.
When we arrived, two things struck us immediately:
1) Although it was a year away from any election, there were about 3,000 people in the crowd that day. It stunned us that so many would come out for an off-year rally. And we thought then that it probably boded well for Democrats in Dallas County (it did).
2) We were stunned by the rows and rows of potential Democratic candidates lined up at tables to collect the obligatory signatures necessary to get on the ballot. When Dennise had run in 2004, running as a Democrat was a lonely business. Six brave souls ran for judge. One for sheriff. Stunningly (to many) four of them won.
As we saw all those potential candidates out for the rally that day, it was clear that the 2004 wins had motivated others to give it a shot in 2006. That "shot" ended up being heard 'round Dallas County; as a year later, almost all the folks we met that day were swept into office.
After soaking-in our amazement at these two developments, we made our way into the reception. And it's there we briefly met Barack Obama for the first time, and each separately came to the conclusion that he was a special human being.
To get the feel for what I mean, let me describe how the three Senators entered the room.
Harry Reid arrived first. Many people shook his hand. Many people took pictures. As we did here:
The reaction was polite and decorous, as you might imagine it would be for the Majority Leader of the US Senate. Harry Reid is nothing to sneeze at, to be sure.
Next came Joe Biden. The room got a little more crowded for Biden, ever the affable extrovert, who was shaking hands and working the room vigorously. (But, sadly, just far enough across the room that we didn't get a pic...)
Finally, after some minutes, it was announced that Obama was about to arrive.
Suddenly, dozens of people who had been in the main room of that building crammed their way into the much smaller entry foyer. Elected officials. Party activists. People who you would not expect to get "giddy" over the arrival of anyone.
We followed them. It was electric. You would have thought they were awaiting the arrival of Bono.
Obama came into the room, and in the ensuing few minutes, we were able to get this pic of Dennise and Obama:
As Obama moved through the Foyer, I was stunned at how many of Dallas' Democratic powerbrokers had all but abandoned two sitting US Senators --Biden and Reid-- to come and greet this relative newcomer.
For brief moment, in the midst of the pushing and jostling, I found myself standing next to former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk.
We were both just looking across the room at the scene. Semi-jokingly, I said to him, "Man, that guy's a rock star, isn't he?"
To which Ron Kirk --no slouch in the charisma gene-- replied:
"Oh...you have no idea...He's the best I've ever seen."
I thought at the time about what an endorsement that was. I watched as political insiders who don't normally go giddy for anyone, pushed and shoved to get a chance to meet Obama.
Obama went on to give a great speech that day. He was already well known for his speech at the Democratic Convention the year before, in which he said this:
There is something about that way of thinking, that belief that we can acknowledge our differences and still work through them together with respect, that is resonating quite deeply with the American public today.
As Dennise and Obama chatted briefly, as a bystander told Obama how Dennise had been elected, and how great that moment had been. Obama said something like, "Well, thanks for keeping things going here in Texas."
Almost an hour and half later, he bumped into Dennise again, and said, "Hi Judge."
Now, that doesn't mean a whole lot. But we were both impressed that he'd remembered who she was, in the midst of that big crowd, an hour and a half later.
So, while it wasn't really until 2007 that most Americans paid any attnetion to Obama, the Fall of 2005 was the moment Dennise and I first got a glimpse of the charisma and excitement that would become a movement.
And we each thought to ourselves: If this guy runs for President, he's going to do much better than anyone imagines.
He has. And none of it has been surprising to us.
Obama is a saavy politician. I know folks are wondering what Bill and Hillary Clinton really think of him. And I'm not sure we'll ever really know. But I can say that I noticed a very telling little moment at the end of the third night of the convention. It was when Obama took the stage to thank all those who'd already spoken and to invite the crowd to the next night at Mile High Stadium.
Notice what happens in this video right after the 1:45 mark. Obama has just acknowledged President Clinton's great speech. Then, during the applause, you can almost see it dawning on Clinton just how saavy this guy is. And you can actually see him mouth the words, "This was smart."
The consummate politician acknowledging one who is perhaps just as masterful.
Obama's background is as a community organizer. That's what he's done, professionally. He knows how to assemble teams to get things done. He knows how to motivate. He knows how to inspire. That's what he's done in this campaign.
Obama did one other very astute thing these past few years. He travelled around the country, including Dallas County, to learn how local Democrats had won in new and unexpected places. Now, frankly, he may not have really cared...I have no idea. But I know he showed up, he asked, and he listened. He didn't just fly in, raise money, and then leave again. That kind of attention at the local level is what has caused this huge organization to seemingly appear out of nowhere. Obama had been working to create friendships and trusts long before he announced his run for the presidency.
This is the "Fifty State Strategy?" It's another part of his success...to leave no part of the country uncovered and unaccounted for.
I hear people express concern ---perhaps even fear-- over the size of Obama's rallies....as if there is hero worship underway...as if it's something like "The Borg." (Thank you, thank you. Star Trek references are hard to work in...)
But I think folks who fear fail to realize is that Obama gets that NONE of this is about him. He, more than anyone, seems to realize that he's tapped in to a pre-existing desire for change and a new direction. As he said last night:
"This election has never been about me. It's about you."
I personally believe he gets that. And that this is why he's attracting the crowds that he does.
Time and time again during this campaign, I've been surprised to hear the surprise of others at Obama's success. But if you'd read his books, if you'd paid attention to his public appearances, if you'd been aware of his background, you probably weren't surprised at all.
And given the truly epic and historic nature of 75,000-plus people at Mile High Stadium last night, and millions more watching on television, I trust nothing he accomplishes from here on out will surprise anyone.
But last night was historic in one intensely personal way too. It marked the first, and only, time in my entire life that my favorite candidate for President actually came away with his/her party's nomination.
I've been a political junkie for years. Never before, in all my years, have I backed the right horse right from the starting gate.
Back in 2005, Dennise and I got something perhaps a lot of other folks didn't get: an early, albeit brief, glimpse at the phenomenon that was to become Barack Obama.
I write this blog today not to endorse a candidate, since neither Dennise nor I ever would ever do that. But I'd like to tell you about that brief meeting, why I believe Obama won the nomination, and why --discounting the genuine novelty of actually being *right* for once-- I am not surprised he is the Democratic nominee.
We met Obama at a rally here in Dallas in the Fall of 2005. It had been almost a year since the election of 2004, when Dennise and several other Democrats broke through to win what many saw as improbable victories in Dallas County.
The rally was intended to be a "kick off" for the 2006 campaign, then about a year away. Three sitting US Senators --Harry Reid, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama-- came to Dallas for an outdoor rally at Lee Park.
Dennise got invited to the "pre-event reception" in the building there at Lee Park (I can't remember the building's name), and I was lucky enough to tag along as a spouse.
When we arrived, two things struck us immediately:
1) Although it was a year away from any election, there were about 3,000 people in the crowd that day. It stunned us that so many would come out for an off-year rally. And we thought then that it probably boded well for Democrats in Dallas County (it did).
2) We were stunned by the rows and rows of potential Democratic candidates lined up at tables to collect the obligatory signatures necessary to get on the ballot. When Dennise had run in 2004, running as a Democrat was a lonely business. Six brave souls ran for judge. One for sheriff. Stunningly (to many) four of them won.
As we saw all those potential candidates out for the rally that day, it was clear that the 2004 wins had motivated others to give it a shot in 2006. That "shot" ended up being heard 'round Dallas County; as a year later, almost all the folks we met that day were swept into office.
After soaking-in our amazement at these two developments, we made our way into the reception. And it's there we briefly met Barack Obama for the first time, and each separately came to the conclusion that he was a special human being.
To get the feel for what I mean, let me describe how the three Senators entered the room.
Harry Reid arrived first. Many people shook his hand. Many people took pictures. As we did here:
The reaction was polite and decorous, as you might imagine it would be for the Majority Leader of the US Senate. Harry Reid is nothing to sneeze at, to be sure.
Next came Joe Biden. The room got a little more crowded for Biden, ever the affable extrovert, who was shaking hands and working the room vigorously. (But, sadly, just far enough across the room that we didn't get a pic...)
Finally, after some minutes, it was announced that Obama was about to arrive.
Suddenly, dozens of people who had been in the main room of that building crammed their way into the much smaller entry foyer. Elected officials. Party activists. People who you would not expect to get "giddy" over the arrival of anyone.
We followed them. It was electric. You would have thought they were awaiting the arrival of Bono.
Obama came into the room, and in the ensuing few minutes, we were able to get this pic of Dennise and Obama:
As Obama moved through the Foyer, I was stunned at how many of Dallas' Democratic powerbrokers had all but abandoned two sitting US Senators --Biden and Reid-- to come and greet this relative newcomer.
For brief moment, in the midst of the pushing and jostling, I found myself standing next to former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk.
We were both just looking across the room at the scene. Semi-jokingly, I said to him, "Man, that guy's a rock star, isn't he?"
To which Ron Kirk --no slouch in the charisma gene-- replied:
"Oh...you have no idea...He's the best I've ever seen."
I thought at the time about what an endorsement that was. I watched as political insiders who don't normally go giddy for anyone, pushed and shoved to get a chance to meet Obama.
Obama went on to give a great speech that day. He was already well known for his speech at the Democratic Convention the year before, in which he said this:
"Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
There is something about that way of thinking, that belief that we can acknowledge our differences and still work through them together with respect, that is resonating quite deeply with the American public today.
As Dennise and Obama chatted briefly, as a bystander told Obama how Dennise had been elected, and how great that moment had been. Obama said something like, "Well, thanks for keeping things going here in Texas."
Almost an hour and half later, he bumped into Dennise again, and said, "Hi Judge."
Now, that doesn't mean a whole lot. But we were both impressed that he'd remembered who she was, in the midst of that big crowd, an hour and a half later.
So, while it wasn't really until 2007 that most Americans paid any attnetion to Obama, the Fall of 2005 was the moment Dennise and I first got a glimpse of the charisma and excitement that would become a movement.
And we each thought to ourselves: If this guy runs for President, he's going to do much better than anyone imagines.
He has. And none of it has been surprising to us.
Obama is a saavy politician. I know folks are wondering what Bill and Hillary Clinton really think of him. And I'm not sure we'll ever really know. But I can say that I noticed a very telling little moment at the end of the third night of the convention. It was when Obama took the stage to thank all those who'd already spoken and to invite the crowd to the next night at Mile High Stadium.
Notice what happens in this video right after the 1:45 mark. Obama has just acknowledged President Clinton's great speech. Then, during the applause, you can almost see it dawning on Clinton just how saavy this guy is. And you can actually see him mouth the words, "This was smart."
The consummate politician acknowledging one who is perhaps just as masterful.
Obama's background is as a community organizer. That's what he's done, professionally. He knows how to assemble teams to get things done. He knows how to motivate. He knows how to inspire. That's what he's done in this campaign.
Obama did one other very astute thing these past few years. He travelled around the country, including Dallas County, to learn how local Democrats had won in new and unexpected places. Now, frankly, he may not have really cared...I have no idea. But I know he showed up, he asked, and he listened. He didn't just fly in, raise money, and then leave again. That kind of attention at the local level is what has caused this huge organization to seemingly appear out of nowhere. Obama had been working to create friendships and trusts long before he announced his run for the presidency.
This is the "Fifty State Strategy?" It's another part of his success...to leave no part of the country uncovered and unaccounted for.
I hear people express concern ---perhaps even fear-- over the size of Obama's rallies....as if there is hero worship underway...as if it's something like "The Borg." (Thank you, thank you. Star Trek references are hard to work in...)
But I think folks who fear fail to realize is that Obama gets that NONE of this is about him. He, more than anyone, seems to realize that he's tapped in to a pre-existing desire for change and a new direction. As he said last night:
"This election has never been about me. It's about you."
I personally believe he gets that. And that this is why he's attracting the crowds that he does.
Time and time again during this campaign, I've been surprised to hear the surprise of others at Obama's success. But if you'd read his books, if you'd paid attention to his public appearances, if you'd been aware of his background, you probably weren't surprised at all.
And given the truly epic and historic nature of 75,000-plus people at Mile High Stadium last night, and millions more watching on television, I trust nothing he accomplishes from here on out will surprise anyone.
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How to Save $13,636 While Driving 100,000 Miles
Aug/23/2008 06:38 PM | Permalink
Did I get your attention with that headline?
Hope so.
Because I'm not kidding, and I've done the math to prove it. I am about to tell you how Dennise and I saved $13,636 by driving 100,000 miles.
Let me raise the stakes.
Driving that same 100,000 miles, we also reduced dangerous greenhouse gases by 78,875 pounds, roughly the equivalent of a highly polluting car's five-year output.
"Wait," you say, "there must be catch. This is like one of those commercials on late-night TV, right? Nobody gives you money for driving a car. Nobody saves greenhouse gases by driving that much."
Ah, dear reader, but that's where you'd be wrong. Because you see, there's a very simple answer to how it's very, very possible...possible for just about anyone, really.
The answer is this: You can drive 100,000 miles, save $13,636, and eliminate the greenhouse gases equivalent to the average car all by doing one simple thing:
Drive a Toyota Prius.
Longtime readers will recall my love for Hybrids, and my love for the Prius. I wrote this entry some years back, imploring everyone to consider getting a Hybrid.
As we drove home from breakfast with my parents at Cindi's this morning, a funny thing happened to our Prius' odometer. We rounded the corner of the block, down by the creek, and up popped this:
So, that gave me pause. I asked myself a variation of that same simple question I asked in my original blog about Hybrids a few years back:
If we had another Jeep, instead of our Hybrid, how much more would it be costing us to go that 100,000 miles?
The answer --again, averaged out-- is that it would cost $13, 636 more!!!
Here's how I get that number....
We start with what has, more or less, remained our real-life working averages for some years.**
The Prius gets about 45 miles/gallon. (Dennise get a little more than this...me a little less...it's an average...)
The Jeep Cherokee we own gets about 12.5 miles/gallon. (Pretty pitiful...mostly my driving...)
Using those real numbers from our real experience, the Prius has used: 2,222 gallons of gas to go 100,000 miles.
To go the same distance the Jeep would have used: 8,000 gallons of gas.
For a difference of a whopping 5,778 gallons of gas!!!
Then I went online and found average gas prices since January 2003. If you take the weekly average since that time, gas has cost $ 2.36.
(BTW.....doesn't this seem low to you?)
That means we saved $ 13,636 dollars!
That's the good news. The depressing news is that that means we could have bought gas for two more Prius' with what we'll spend to go 100,000 miles in the Jeep!!!
Wow....
The gas calculation is based on our real-life experience. Since I have no real-life experience with the cost of greenhouse gasses, my assertion about them comes from a cool little widget at hybridcars.com. The widget allows you to compare any make and model car to any make and model Hybrid, and see the savings in gas, money, and pollutants.
The per-year numbers may be easier to get your head around...
Per year, a Jeep puts out: 23,929 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
Per year, a Prius puts out: 8,154 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
Another calculation, hydrocarbons (read: plain old smog) factors out this way per year:
A Jeep: 23 pounds
A Prius: 10 pounds
The final point to make. Besides the savings of thousands of dollars in gasoline, and the elimination of whole cars-worth of smog from the air, there is one final crucial reason to buy a Hybrid: Fighting the war on Terror.
I'll refer you here to a great page on hybridcars.com that's titled "Oil Dependence."
Here's the relevant part:
Buying a Hybrid is a very significant, and very real way, you can personally fight the war on terror, and help win it, in a way that military-might can never do. I mean this as literally as I can. Most Americans have not been asked to sacrifice in this war (something that continues to astound me) and as you'll note from the underline portions above, the money we pay for our gas can help to finance terrorism. This is something we all can do.
So, enough with the preaching. Enough with the facts.
Time for the only question left.
Given that there are now Hybrid SUVs, trucks, sedans, and luxury cars from almost every known manufacturer....
What are you waiting for?
** I recognize that many people get vastly different averages than this. This is our real-life experience.
Hope so.
Because I'm not kidding, and I've done the math to prove it. I am about to tell you how Dennise and I saved $13,636 by driving 100,000 miles.
Let me raise the stakes.
Driving that same 100,000 miles, we also reduced dangerous greenhouse gases by 78,875 pounds, roughly the equivalent of a highly polluting car's five-year output.
"Wait," you say, "there must be catch. This is like one of those commercials on late-night TV, right? Nobody gives you money for driving a car. Nobody saves greenhouse gases by driving that much."
Ah, dear reader, but that's where you'd be wrong. Because you see, there's a very simple answer to how it's very, very possible...possible for just about anyone, really.
The answer is this: You can drive 100,000 miles, save $13,636, and eliminate the greenhouse gases equivalent to the average car all by doing one simple thing:
Drive a Toyota Prius.
Longtime readers will recall my love for Hybrids, and my love for the Prius. I wrote this entry some years back, imploring everyone to consider getting a Hybrid.
As we drove home from breakfast with my parents at Cindi's this morning, a funny thing happened to our Prius' odometer. We rounded the corner of the block, down by the creek, and up popped this:
So, that gave me pause. I asked myself a variation of that same simple question I asked in my original blog about Hybrids a few years back:
If we had another Jeep, instead of our Hybrid, how much more would it be costing us to go that 100,000 miles?
The answer --again, averaged out-- is that it would cost $13, 636 more!!!
Here's how I get that number....
We start with what has, more or less, remained our real-life working averages for some years.**
The Prius gets about 45 miles/gallon. (Dennise get a little more than this...me a little less...it's an average...)
The Jeep Cherokee we own gets about 12.5 miles/gallon. (Pretty pitiful...mostly my driving...)
Using those real numbers from our real experience, the Prius has used: 2,222 gallons of gas to go 100,000 miles.
To go the same distance the Jeep would have used: 8,000 gallons of gas.
For a difference of a whopping 5,778 gallons of gas!!!
Then I went online and found average gas prices since January 2003. If you take the weekly average since that time, gas has cost $ 2.36.
(BTW.....doesn't this seem low to you?)
That means we saved $ 13,636 dollars!
That's the good news. The depressing news is that that means we could have bought gas for two more Prius' with what we'll spend to go 100,000 miles in the Jeep!!!
Wow....
The gas calculation is based on our real-life experience. Since I have no real-life experience with the cost of greenhouse gasses, my assertion about them comes from a cool little widget at hybridcars.com. The widget allows you to compare any make and model car to any make and model Hybrid, and see the savings in gas, money, and pollutants.
The per-year numbers may be easier to get your head around...
Per year, a Jeep puts out: 23,929 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
Per year, a Prius puts out: 8,154 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
Another calculation, hydrocarbons (read: plain old smog) factors out this way per year:
A Jeep: 23 pounds
A Prius: 10 pounds
The final point to make. Besides the savings of thousands of dollars in gasoline, and the elimination of whole cars-worth of smog from the air, there is one final crucial reason to buy a Hybrid: Fighting the war on Terror.
I'll refer you here to a great page on hybridcars.com that's titled "Oil Dependence."
Here's the relevant part:
Let's look at the energy security spiral resulting from our dependence on Persian Gulf oil:
1. Ensuring free access to oil forces the U.S. to maintain a military presence in the Persian Gulf. This presence costs the American taxpayer more than $50 billion per year in defense spending—and obviously a lot more during times of war.
2. The presence of the U.S. military and oil firms in these nations arouses hostility from people who reject American values or resent American wealth and power.
3. The production of oil in otherwise under-developed societies funnels vast wealth to a few, leaving the rest behind in poverty, undermining the stability of those nations and arousing more hatred in their people.
4. Oil money from the West—that means the cash you fork over at the pumps—fills the coffers of terrorist organizations to pursue a program of anti-American violence. 911 is just one example. (Oil money enables Saudi Arabia to invest approximately 40% of its income on weapons procurement.)
5. Pipelines, tankers and oil rigs become critical and very vulnerable targets for terrorists trying to bring the international economy to a standstill, by diminishing the supply of oil.
6. Both the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy currently project a steady increase in world demand for oil through at least 2020. This means further enrichment of the oil-producing countries, continued funding to terrorist groups, sustained lethal threats to the U.S. and its allies, and fluctuating oil supply lines.
As long as we remain (and grow even more) dependent, this cycle of energy insecurity—oil and blood and oil and blood—will continue.
Buying a Hybrid is a very significant, and very real way, you can personally fight the war on terror, and help win it, in a way that military-might can never do. I mean this as literally as I can. Most Americans have not been asked to sacrifice in this war (something that continues to astound me) and as you'll note from the underline portions above, the money we pay for our gas can help to finance terrorism. This is something we all can do.
So, enough with the preaching. Enough with the facts.
Time for the only question left.
Given that there are now Hybrid SUVs, trucks, sedans, and luxury cars from almost every known manufacturer....
What are you waiting for?
** I recognize that many people get vastly different averages than this. This is our real-life experience.
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Obama's Plane (An Impressive, Mid-Campaign Smear)
Aug/07/2008 08:31 AM | Permalink
As some readers know, every so often I get an email
smear that is so over-the-top, I feel the need to
correct it here. I did it a couple of months ago,
with an email that, incredulously, claimed more
soldiers had died under Clinton and Carter than under
President Bush. Of course, it wasn't true. And if you
missed that entry,
knock yourself out.
The mid-season smear-de-jour (does that make me sound too French?) is about Obama's airplane, and the ominous and unpatriotic assertion that he painted over an American flag.
But as with every email smear, just because something is literally true doesn't mean you have the whole context. And so, I'd like to give it to you. (Context, that is...)
First, part of the original smear email.
It starts:
"I don't know about you .........but I am DISGUSTED. My stomach is turning over............"
Then, to add credibility, it says: "We snoped this."
The it delivers the knock out punch:
"Obama The Patriot- Removes American Flag From His Plane
Barack Obama recently finished a $500,000 total overhaul of his 757. And as part of the new design, he decided to remove the American flag from the tail...
What American running for President of the United States would remove the symbol of his country? And worse, he replaced the flag with it with a symbol of himself..."
Then, they provide a picture of the tail, just so you'll see they're telling the, um, truth:
They finish with: "Please forward this on if you're not ashamed of your country or it's flag & think this is a disgrace!"
Sounds ominous, huh?
Well, I am neither ashamed of my country, nor it's flag. But I'm not going to forward this on either. Because as a you surely know by now, dear friends, there is a difference between truth and context. And the reality here is that, while the emails claim is technically true, the actual context of it makes the whole issue seem not quite so, shall we say, ominous.
First, the entire Snopes entry here.
Now, of course, I hope you'll go read this for yourself. Because, if you don't, then you're really just doing what readers of the email do, aren't you? You're taking my word for it. I'm telling you "Snopes provides context for this claim." But, of course, the email said that too. So, please check it out. It will make me feel better if you do.
It is true that Obama recently had his campaign plane repainted. It is true that this repainting removed an American flag from the tail.
However!!! The story omits a key point: the flag was on the plane not because Obama put it there, but because the plane used to belong to "North American Airlines."
Turns out, all their planes have American flags on the tail. Have a look here:
Here are some important points that Snopes makes about the repainting:
The story goes on to point out that the distinctive design of the American flag on the jet depicted above is actually a registered trademark of North American Airlines.
I don't know much about trademark infringement, but I believe I am right to say that it would have been a violation of trademark law for Obama's campaign to continue using a plane with that trademarked depiction of the American flag. If anyone who knows trademark law somehow can see away around this, let me know.
So, yes, Obama painted over an American flag that was on the back of his plane. Sounds horrible, until you know the whole story.
But, of course, truth and context hardly matter in things like this. Smears like this aren't about the truth. Smears are always about tapping into deeper fears that are already out there.
Fears that Obama is not "patriotic."
Fears that he's a Muslim. (Even 15-20 percent of all Democrats apparently still believe this one!!!)
Fears that he's a extremist Christian associated with Rev. Wright.
BTW, just to be clear, you know those last two are mutually exclusive, right?
Amazingly, Obama gets smeared with two things that cannot possibly both be true!!!
But see, that's the nature of smears: the truth doesn't matter. Because it's not about the truth. It's about re-enforcing somebody's pre-existing bias. It's about repeating the same bias --over and over, in enough different ways-- that people begin to think, "Well, I've heard this just enough that it makes me uneasy."
Hopefully, we are getting past this kind of of politics. I happen to believe the internet helps this quite a bit. Folks can go look it up for themselves. Or, they can just listen to bloggers like me correct the context. It seems to me that, thus far, these kinds of smears have gotten a lot of press in this campaign, but not a lot of traction. I hope that's true.
But I don't count on them stopping anytime soon. Because even though they don't work on the general public, they will still work on a certain segment. In the world of smears, not wearing a small "flag pin" becomes painting over an airplane-sized one. Either way, the clear message is: Obama hates the flag.
BTW, did you happen to notice he's wearing a flag pin a lot more these days?
"So what?" you say. Perhaps you're still asking: "Why didn't he paint a different, non-trademarked, flag on the back of his new plane?"
And I suppose that's an interesting question. But if we ask him that, I hope we'll also ask Senator McCain why he didn't either:
The mid-season smear-de-jour (does that make me sound too French?) is about Obama's airplane, and the ominous and unpatriotic assertion that he painted over an American flag.
But as with every email smear, just because something is literally true doesn't mean you have the whole context. And so, I'd like to give it to you. (Context, that is...)
First, part of the original smear email.
It starts:
"I don't know about you .........but I am DISGUSTED. My stomach is turning over............"
Then, to add credibility, it says: "We snoped this."
The it delivers the knock out punch:
"Obama The Patriot- Removes American Flag From His Plane
Barack Obama recently finished a $500,000 total overhaul of his 757. And as part of the new design, he decided to remove the American flag from the tail...
What American running for President of the United States would remove the symbol of his country? And worse, he replaced the flag with it with a symbol of himself..."
Then, they provide a picture of the tail, just so you'll see they're telling the, um, truth:
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They finish with: "Please forward this on if you're not ashamed of your country or it's flag & think this is a disgrace!"
Sounds ominous, huh?
Well, I am neither ashamed of my country, nor it's flag. But I'm not going to forward this on either. Because as a you surely know by now, dear friends, there is a difference between truth and context. And the reality here is that, while the emails claim is technically true, the actual context of it makes the whole issue seem not quite so, shall we say, ominous.
First, the entire Snopes entry here.
Now, of course, I hope you'll go read this for yourself. Because, if you don't, then you're really just doing what readers of the email do, aren't you? You're taking my word for it. I'm telling you "Snopes provides context for this claim." But, of course, the email said that too. So, please check it out. It will make me feel better if you do.
It is true that Obama recently had his campaign plane repainted. It is true that this repainting removed an American flag from the tail.
However!!! The story omits a key point: the flag was on the plane not because Obama put it there, but because the plane used to belong to "North American Airlines."
Turns out, all their planes have American flags on the tail. Have a look here:
Here are some important points that Snopes makes about the repainting:
"Although Senator Barack Obama flew on a variety of aircraft during the long campaign season, from March through June 2008 he primarily used a Boeing 757-200ER aircraft chartered from (and operated by) North American Airlines as his campaign plane. During that period, the plane bore the standard color scheme and company markings of a North American Airlines aircraft...
However, once the primary campaign effectively ended and Senator Obama became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, his campaign plane underwent a month-long refurbishment to prepare it for the general election campaign, a process that included reconfiguring the interior seating and modifying the exterior markings to identify and publicize the aircraft as Barack Obama's official campaign plane."
The story goes on to point out that the distinctive design of the American flag on the jet depicted above is actually a registered trademark of North American Airlines.
I don't know much about trademark infringement, but I believe I am right to say that it would have been a violation of trademark law for Obama's campaign to continue using a plane with that trademarked depiction of the American flag. If anyone who knows trademark law somehow can see away around this, let me know.
So, yes, Obama painted over an American flag that was on the back of his plane. Sounds horrible, until you know the whole story.
But, of course, truth and context hardly matter in things like this. Smears like this aren't about the truth. Smears are always about tapping into deeper fears that are already out there.
Fears that Obama is not "patriotic."
Fears that he's a Muslim. (Even 15-20 percent of all Democrats apparently still believe this one!!!)
Fears that he's a extremist Christian associated with Rev. Wright.
BTW, just to be clear, you know those last two are mutually exclusive, right?
Amazingly, Obama gets smeared with two things that cannot possibly both be true!!!
But see, that's the nature of smears: the truth doesn't matter. Because it's not about the truth. It's about re-enforcing somebody's pre-existing bias. It's about repeating the same bias --over and over, in enough different ways-- that people begin to think, "Well, I've heard this just enough that it makes me uneasy."
Hopefully, we are getting past this kind of of politics. I happen to believe the internet helps this quite a bit. Folks can go look it up for themselves. Or, they can just listen to bloggers like me correct the context. It seems to me that, thus far, these kinds of smears have gotten a lot of press in this campaign, but not a lot of traction. I hope that's true.
But I don't count on them stopping anytime soon. Because even though they don't work on the general public, they will still work on a certain segment. In the world of smears, not wearing a small "flag pin" becomes painting over an airplane-sized one. Either way, the clear message is: Obama hates the flag.
BTW, did you happen to notice he's wearing a flag pin a lot more these days?
"So what?" you say. Perhaps you're still asking: "Why didn't he paint a different, non-trademarked, flag on the back of his new plane?"
And I suppose that's an interesting question. But if we ask him that, I hope we'll also ask Senator McCain why he didn't either:
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The Demons are Still Legion (The Joseph Dwyer Story)
Jul/30/2008 10:40 PM | Permalink
Several weeks ago,
I blogged about "the girl in the
picture"
from the Vietnam War, and the improbable story of how
she's overcome her hatred with a powerful and deep
forgiveness.
Days after I posted the blog, I saw a news item about Joseph Dwyer, and I've been haunted by his story ever since. Like Kim Phuc, Joseph Dywer is the subject of a picture that many simply refer to as "the picture." Like Kim Phuc, it's become a seminal picture for people during a time of war.
But unlike the arc of Kim Phuc's story, Army Medic Joseph Dwyer's story finds him home from the war unable to shake his demons, unable to live with being called a "hero," and ultimately unable to cope with life itself.
Joseph Dwyer was like so many young men and women who signed up for military service in the wake of September 11th. He came from a long line of police officers, including a brother who missed being at Ground Zero simply because he missed a morning train that day.
Dwyer reasurred his family he wouldn't see heavy action But that was far from the truth. The 3rd Infantry Division was one of the forward units in the initial push into Bagdad. As one officer described it, they were "the tip of the spear" of the initial US attack.
On the day "the picture" was taken, the Associated Press describes the scene this way:
(all quotes in this blog are from this story)
(Warren Zinn: The Army Times)
I remember the photo too. And I remember how, even at the time, it struck me as something of a mirror opposite of Kim Phuc's scene of horror. Yes, here was a picture of another naked civilian child. Only this time instead of portraying a horror at the hands of our soldiers, it symbolized a kinder, gentler, Army helping to heal and to save.
Dwyer was hailed as a hero. The Army gave him the "Combat Medical Badge for service under enemy fire." John Walsh --of America's Most Wanted fame-- gave him the "Hometown Hero" award.
But Dwyer was embarrassed by the praise. Given the horrors of war and the capricious nature of his photo being singled out, he found it hard to cope. After a 91-day tour in Iraq, and upon his return home, coping got even tougher.
Friends noticed the difference almost immediately. He lost sixty-five pounds. When eating out, he insisted on sitting with his back to the wall, so nobody could sneak up on him. Everything about his new hometown --El Paso, Texas-- reminded him of Iraq...from the desert landscapes to the dark skin of local Latinos.
His odd behavior got more and more troubling:
His wife told others that he was "seeing imaginary Iraqis all around him."
It got worse...
Eventually, his wife and child left him. That seemed to unhinge his final hold on reality:
Joseph Dwyer died on June 28th of this year, in what can only be described as a tragic end to a hero's tale:
Police treated his death as an accidental overdose. But of course, as the above story reveals, it's something far more tragic.
In the blog about Kim Phuc I noted that the current war has produced the next generation of young children filled with anger and hate toward America. But it's producing something else too. It's also producing the next generation of profoundly wounded veterans, unable to cope with return to the "normal world," and scarred in ways that don't initially show to the naked eye.
The myth of the "success" of this was has been, in part, been that there are comparatively few casualties. The reality is that advances in military health care mean thousands of soldiers who would have died, say, during Vietnam, are now saved from death. They are dismembered. They are disabled. But they are alive. And they return to a nation that mostly forgets about them, and doesn't like to think about the cost they have born.
Then there's the special case of those who stitch up all these newly wounded, in the first few minutes on the battlefield: medics like Joseph Dwyer. God knows what horrors they have seen. Even the best of them surely have nightmares they find hard to share with anyone.
In the Bible, Jesus comes upon a man possessed by evil spirits, just outside a town called Gerasenes. The man is described in great detail, as having lived outside of normal society for many years. He lives in a graveyard and wanders about totally naked.
Jesus asks the man's demon what its name is, and the demon answers "Legion." The text explains that this is because so many demons have entered him.
It's telling to remember that one of the best known popular uses of the word "legion" was to describe a regiment of the infamous Roman Army.
And that reminds me that there is something more than a little crazy about war....even the most just of wars.
As Sam Keen noted in his powerful book, "Faces of the Enemy" the steps toward war always include a period of dehumanizing those who are different, so we can overcome the psychological prohibition against killing that resides deep inside each of us. War involves an entire country being propagandized to the belief that an "enemy" is subhuman and perhaps even deserves death.
War, Keen argues, could never be fought unless a nation first goes through this exercise in enemy-making.
Knowing this truth (as we should), to expect that young men and women can go to far off places, dehumanize an entire population, kill them with no side-effects, and then re-enter polite society with few problems defies all credulity.
We send young men and women off to war --off to join the "legion" --and we should not pretend to be shocked that, upon their return, some of the demons take up permanent residence inside their souls. Like the Gerasenes man, they feel as if they live in a permanent graveyard. Like the Gerasenes man, they are unable to cope in regular society. And we look at them with a combination of pity and fear.
The Good News of the Bible story, of course, is that there is such a thing as miraculous healing. And whether that specific demon was mental illness or something more, I do believe healing is possible.
But, as the Bible story notes, even the best of healing is messy and still involves pain. In that story, the demons rush out of the man, rush into a herd of pigs, who then rush over the edge of a cliff.
Healing happens. But it's a painful process, at least for the pigs. There is collateral damage, even in this Biblical healing.
How much more collateral damage will we see, as our veterans return home? How many "legion" of troops --struggling just as mightily as Joseph Dwyer struggled-- will we watch from afar with a mixture of fear and trepidation?
Get ready. For they're coming home now. They're already home. They will be legion. And the pain of their healing, if and when it happens, will be an ongoing human cost of this unnecessary war.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But, sometimes, pictures can lie too. Or, sometimes, things just change.
How stunning the change for Kim Phuc; that she has overcome such inner and outer pain during the past thirty years.
How tragic the change for Joseph Dwyer; that the "hero" the world acclaimed couldn't overcome his own inner demons.
When Joseph's mother first saw "the picture" of him, she had a premonition.
"I just didn't think he was going to come home," she said.
"And he never did."
Days after I posted the blog, I saw a news item about Joseph Dwyer, and I've been haunted by his story ever since. Like Kim Phuc, Joseph Dywer is the subject of a picture that many simply refer to as "the picture." Like Kim Phuc, it's become a seminal picture for people during a time of war.
But unlike the arc of Kim Phuc's story, Army Medic Joseph Dwyer's story finds him home from the war unable to shake his demons, unable to live with being called a "hero," and ultimately unable to cope with life itself.
Joseph Dwyer was like so many young men and women who signed up for military service in the wake of September 11th. He came from a long line of police officers, including a brother who missed being at Ground Zero simply because he missed a morning train that day.
Dwyer reasurred his family he wouldn't see heavy action But that was far from the truth. The 3rd Infantry Division was one of the forward units in the initial push into Bagdad. As one officer described it, they were "the tip of the spear" of the initial US attack.
On the day "the picture" was taken, the Associated Press describes the scene this way:
"During the push into Baghdad, Dwyer's unit came under heavy fire. An airstrike called in to suppress ambush fire rocked the convoy.
As the sun rose along the Euphrates River on March 25, 2003, Army Times photographer Warren Zinn watched as a man ran toward the soldiers carrying a white flag and his injured 4-year-old son. Zinn clicked away as Dwyer darted out to meet the man, then returned, cradling the boy in his arms.
The photo — of a half-naked boy, a kaffiyeh scarf tied around his shrapnel-injured leg and his mouth set in a grimace of pain, and of a bespectacled Dwyer dressed in full battle gear, his M-16 rifle dangling by his side — appeared on front pages and magazine covers around the world."
(all quotes in this blog are from this story)
(Warren Zinn: The Army Times)
I remember the photo too. And I remember how, even at the time, it struck me as something of a mirror opposite of Kim Phuc's scene of horror. Yes, here was a picture of another naked civilian child. Only this time instead of portraying a horror at the hands of our soldiers, it symbolized a kinder, gentler, Army helping to heal and to save.
Dwyer was hailed as a hero. The Army gave him the "Combat Medical Badge for service under enemy fire." John Walsh --of America's Most Wanted fame-- gave him the "Hometown Hero" award.
But Dwyer was embarrassed by the praise. Given the horrors of war and the capricious nature of his photo being singled out, he found it hard to cope. After a 91-day tour in Iraq, and upon his return home, coping got even tougher.
Friends noticed the difference almost immediately. He lost sixty-five pounds. When eating out, he insisted on sitting with his back to the wall, so nobody could sneak up on him. Everything about his new hometown --El Paso, Texas-- reminded him of Iraq...from the desert landscapes to the dark skin of local Latinos.
His odd behavior got more and more troubling:
"One day, he swerved to avoid what he thought was a roadside bomb and crashed into a convenience store sign. He began answering his apartment door with a pistol in his hand and would call friends from his car in the middle of the night, babbling and disoriented from sniffing inhalants."
His wife told others that he was "seeing imaginary Iraqis all around him."
It got worse...
"On Oct. 6, 2005, when superiors went to the couple's off-base apartment to persuade Dwyer to return to the hospital, Dwyer barricaded himself in. Imagining Iraqis swarming up the sides and across the roof, he fired his pistol through the door, windows and ceiling.
After a three-hour standoff, Dwyer's eldest brother, Brian, also a police officer, managed to talk him down over the phone. Dwyer was admitted for psychiatric treatment."
Eventually, his wife and child left him. That seemed to unhinge his final hold on reality:
"Without his wife and daughter to anchor him, Dwyer's grip on reality loosened further. He reverted to Iraq time, sleeping during the day and "patrolling" all night. Unable to possess a handgun, he placed knives around the house for protection.
In those last months, Dwyer opened up a little to his parents.
What bothered him most, he said, was the sheer volume of the gunfire. He talked about the grisly wounds he'd treated and dwelled on the people he was unable to save. His nasal membranes seemed indelibly stained with the scents of the battlefield — the sickeningly sweet odor of rotting flesh and the metallic smell of blood."
Joseph Dwyer died on June 28th of this year, in what can only be described as a tragic end to a hero's tale:
"Officers had been to the white ranch house at 560 W. Longleaf many times before over the past year to respond to a "barricade situation." Each had ended uneventfully, with Joseph Dwyer coming out or telling police in a calm voice through the window that he was OK.
But this time was different.
The Iraq War veteran had called a taxi service to take him to the emergency room. But when the driver arrived, Dwyer shouted that he was too weak to get up and open the door.
The officers asked Dwyer for permission to kick it in.
"Go ahead!" he yelled.
They found Dwyer lying on his back, his clothes soiled with urine and feces. Scattered on the floor around him were dozens of spent cans of Dust-Off, a refrigerant-based aerosol normally used to clean electrical equipment.
Dwyer told police Lt. Mike Wilson he'd been "huffing" the aerosol.
"Help me, please!" the former Army medic begged Wilson. "I'm dying. Help me. I can't breathe."
Unable to stand or even sit up, Dwyer was hoisted onto a stretcher. As paramedics prepared to load him into an ambulance, an officer noticed Dwyer's eyes had glassed over and were fixed.
A half hour later, he was dead."
Police treated his death as an accidental overdose. But of course, as the above story reveals, it's something far more tragic.
In the blog about Kim Phuc I noted that the current war has produced the next generation of young children filled with anger and hate toward America. But it's producing something else too. It's also producing the next generation of profoundly wounded veterans, unable to cope with return to the "normal world," and scarred in ways that don't initially show to the naked eye.
The myth of the "success" of this was has been, in part, been that there are comparatively few casualties. The reality is that advances in military health care mean thousands of soldiers who would have died, say, during Vietnam, are now saved from death. They are dismembered. They are disabled. But they are alive. And they return to a nation that mostly forgets about them, and doesn't like to think about the cost they have born.
Then there's the special case of those who stitch up all these newly wounded, in the first few minutes on the battlefield: medics like Joseph Dwyer. God knows what horrors they have seen. Even the best of them surely have nightmares they find hard to share with anyone.
In the Bible, Jesus comes upon a man possessed by evil spirits, just outside a town called Gerasenes. The man is described in great detail, as having lived outside of normal society for many years. He lives in a graveyard and wanders about totally naked.
Jesus asks the man's demon what its name is, and the demon answers "Legion." The text explains that this is because so many demons have entered him.
It's telling to remember that one of the best known popular uses of the word "legion" was to describe a regiment of the infamous Roman Army.
And that reminds me that there is something more than a little crazy about war....even the most just of wars.
As Sam Keen noted in his powerful book, "Faces of the Enemy" the steps toward war always include a period of dehumanizing those who are different, so we can overcome the psychological prohibition against killing that resides deep inside each of us. War involves an entire country being propagandized to the belief that an "enemy" is subhuman and perhaps even deserves death.
War, Keen argues, could never be fought unless a nation first goes through this exercise in enemy-making.
Knowing this truth (as we should), to expect that young men and women can go to far off places, dehumanize an entire population, kill them with no side-effects, and then re-enter polite society with few problems defies all credulity.
We send young men and women off to war --off to join the "legion" --and we should not pretend to be shocked that, upon their return, some of the demons take up permanent residence inside their souls. Like the Gerasenes man, they feel as if they live in a permanent graveyard. Like the Gerasenes man, they are unable to cope in regular society. And we look at them with a combination of pity and fear.
The Good News of the Bible story, of course, is that there is such a thing as miraculous healing. And whether that specific demon was mental illness or something more, I do believe healing is possible.
But, as the Bible story notes, even the best of healing is messy and still involves pain. In that story, the demons rush out of the man, rush into a herd of pigs, who then rush over the edge of a cliff.
Healing happens. But it's a painful process, at least for the pigs. There is collateral damage, even in this Biblical healing.
How much more collateral damage will we see, as our veterans return home? How many "legion" of troops --struggling just as mightily as Joseph Dwyer struggled-- will we watch from afar with a mixture of fear and trepidation?
Get ready. For they're coming home now. They're already home. They will be legion. And the pain of their healing, if and when it happens, will be an ongoing human cost of this unnecessary war.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But, sometimes, pictures can lie too. Or, sometimes, things just change.
How stunning the change for Kim Phuc; that she has overcome such inner and outer pain during the past thirty years.
How tragic the change for Joseph Dwyer; that the "hero" the world acclaimed couldn't overcome his own inner demons.
When Joseph's mother first saw "the picture" of him, she had a premonition.
"I just didn't think he was going to come home," she said.
"And he never did."
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What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
Jun/05/2008 08:12 PM | Permalink
Actually, almost all these quotes come from HuffPo posts over the past few weeks.
First, a little context....
It Was REALLY Over Last Saturday (But Maybe Not How You Think...)
That was the day of the DNC Rules Committee meeting about Michigan and Florida. And you might think I am referring to the delegate allocation, suggesting that Barack Obama "won" an unfair delegate allocation. In fact, that's not the case. Actually, Obama didn't get his own "hard line" position on delegates. What was approved, in the case of both states, were the proposals the state parties put forward.
In other words, the message sent by the DNC was "yes, we're still punishing you guys, but we're also trying to signal to you that you matter more than the plans put forth by either campaign."
In a strange way, that's a win for Obama because it signaled to all of usthat the DNC was not in the pocket of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
There is evidence of this...
Donna Brazile, no mincer of words that day, has revealed that Obama had the votes to force a 50-50 split of delegates in Michigan. To review: Clinton wanted 74 delegates for her...the Michigan state party wanted a 69-59 split between both candidates...Obama's "hard line" position was that there should be a 50-50 split.
Brazile reveals that Obama had the votes to enforce his "hard line" position, if he had wanted to. It would not have passed by as wide a margin as the plan that was ultimately approved, it would have really ticked off the State Party (and also Clinton and her supporters). But he could have done it.
And yet, he didn't.
I just point this out as yet another example of his graciousness and political savvy. He clearly saw it was better to signal unity to the party and peace with Clinton.
But on that day, it wasn't about who got how many delegates. It was about who didn't get their way (Clinton), who had the power to get their way (Obama) and who he ultimately listened to (the States).
So, What Happened to Hillary?
Let's remember what an incredible lead she had going into this thing. She had 20-30 point leads in the polls last winter. She had the Clinton name, arguably the most powerful name in Democratic politics since Roosevelt. She and Bill had been the de facto leaders of the Democratic Party for sixteen years. (With all respect to All Gore and John Kerry...)
In short, she had everything going for her. But, she didn't count on Obama and his own charisma and strategy, and she often underestimated her own weaknesses.
The best quick-and-dirty assessment I've seen of all of this was on the Today Show this week:
They conclude it was:
1)
Strategy:
It was NOT over on February 5th. She got stunned by
his fundraising and 50-state strategy.
2)
They got the Message Wrong:
It WAS about change
3)
They Underestimated "Clinton
Fatigue":
They REALLY, underestimated it.
4)
Bill and Hillary's Own
"Gaffes":
Bosnia, Jesse Jackson, "hard working white voters"
5)
Staying at the Party Too
Long:
It's been over since February, and many folks knew
it.
I can't sum it up better than that.
Was it Sexism?
Erica Jong sure seems to think so. In
an essay
filled with over-the-top rhetoric ("It feels like
Joan of Arc burning at the stake. You can smell the
burning flesh") she declares that this campaign
proves sexism is not dead:
"It's not sexism -- it's her" seems to have replaced, "I'm not a feminist, but" in our national lexicon. This is not to imply that Hillary Clinton is faultless -- far from it. But it's clear that the faults we tolerate and even overlook in men, we see as glaring in women. The problem with sexism is that it's so damned invisible."
But what if it really IS that folks were saying "it's her, not that she's a woman?"
That's what Peggy Drexler, also a staunch feminists (why must feminists always be "staunch?") says in an essay called "Don't Vote Chromosomes: The First Woman Must be the Right Woman."
As more and more "women of a certain age" told her Clinton needed to stay in the race because she was the last chance for a woman president in their lifetime, Wexler started saying, "Whaah?"
"Don't get me wrong. After a combined 16 years of intern abuse, lying to Congress, bullying, and macho posturing, I would love to see a woman's imprint on the Oval Office. But not to score one for our side. That makes as much sense as choosing Pepsi over Coke because Pepsi is run by a female."
Wexler points out that women's leadership styles run the gamut, and often exhibit "a more even-handed willingness to form consensus and consider opinions counter to our own."
But, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, she just didn't see it:
"Leadership style? I see in Hillary the same calculating, "bring em on" swagger of the last eight years: Dick Cheney - only better accessorized.
With Hillary we're talking about a woman who added assassination to possibilities of the early summer political season; who threatened to "obliterate" Iran; who declared herself the candidate of "hard working Americans - white Americans."
As for her concern for women's issues, Hillary has made promises on choice, reproductive services, expanded women's health care and pay parity. Where in her Senate career do we see any serious tenure-defining effort to protect or achieve any of that?
In fact, Hillary is not nearly as progressive as some might hope. She supported the Defense of Marriage Act, she co-sponsored a flag burning amendment, she voted to send our sons and daughters into the meat grinder of an unnecessary war. And with close to 70 percent of women in most polls favoring stricter gun control laws, what are we to make of her snuggling up to the NRA with tales of her childhood shooting lessons?"
Ouch.
See, there is a point we can't miss here. Maybe for many voters it really *was* about her being...her...a human being named Clinton, and not about her being a woman.
BTW, buried in this essay is a little nugget I dearly love:
"And I also like the idea of voting for a woman who truly cares about women's' issues. Without that, I'm not sure why women should get all that excited. In fact, a Yale study looked at voting records and found that legislators most likely to favor women's issues are men - with daughters."
So, what if it had to do, for many people, with "Clinton fatigue?"
What if many of us found it hard to imagine 28-years of presidential rule by two American families?
(it's kind of creepy when you put it like that, isn't it?)
What if many of us feel we used up all the water in our "defend the Clinton's" aquifer back in the 1990s?
I think, far more than sexism, these were the major factors.
And this points me to...
What Obama's Victory Means
See, the other side of Hillary's loss is Obama's win. Obama defeated the biggest name is Democratic politics for the last 50 years.
Late in the campaign, people kept asking "Why can't he win these big states?!!"
The question I always hoped they'd ask is, "Why, with her name, did so many of these races go from 20-30 point leads, to wins by ten points or less?
The answer is, I believe, because many people really like what they see in Barack Obama.
They wanted "change." But they also wanted idealism.
Gary Hart sees this nomination as a victory of "idealism" over "pragmatism":
"Though most people who start out as young idealists become more pragmatic with the weight of years, some of us do not. Some of us cling to the hope that America can do better, that public service can be noble, that equality and justice are achievable. We don't want to settle for past policy frameworks or for half measures. We would prefer to set a higher standard and to challenge the political and social systems to struggle upward. These feelings are not voluntary. They are part of one's very character.
I hope to live to see the first woman president. But I also hope she will be an idealist, not only a gender pioneer but a bold, brave, and innovative leader who is not part of a flawed Washington system. I want America to send a powerful signal to a watching world that we have now taken a giant step into the global culture by electing an African-American. But my hope and dream also is, and has been since the days of John and Robert Kennedy, that this president will call us to a nobler mission and a higher goal, that he will remind us always of our Constitutional principles and ideals, that he will place us back on our historic path to the establishment of a more perfect union and a principled republic."
As an observation, I also believe this is what leads some to oppose Obama. Because they have seen the ruin that has come to some of our idealists in the past century, and they either don't want that for Obama. Or they don't want to pain of losing an idealist again, should something happen to him or his candidacy.
But, in the end, I think Hart is right: a part of Obama's win is a victory of idealism over pragmatism. A politician must always have both as a part of their character. The question, it seems to me, is which one a politician "leads" with. Voters, for now, seem to want a politician who leads with idealism.
But beyond this, but perhaps related to it, there are generational differences at play here. It's been sixteen years since the young, vibrant couple known as "Bill and Hillary" rocketed to the scene. That's several lifetimes, politically, and they are not so young any more. In fact, more time has now elapsed between 1992 and now, than between their ascendancy that year and the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution!"
So, one of the other key concepts at play here is generational change.
And for this, I point you to this last essay by John Zogby, titled "The End of Boomerism as We Know It."
"The Clintons are prototypical Baby Boomers -- committed to ideals of peace and justice but overwhelmed with themselves. They (we, because I was born in 1948) are consumed with being the center of attention, the bride and groom at every wedding, so much so, that the ends don't simply justify the means, they are one and the same. Getting elected is the game, the final goal, the definition of self-worth. In his recent book, former White House spokesman Scott McClellan decried the mentality of "the permanent campaign" that he said permeated the White House of George W. Bush (the other Boomer president), which in some respects mirrors the Clinton behavior.
Sad to say, Bill Clinton became best known for the hallmarks of Boomerism -- self-centeredness and permanent adolescence -- as exhibited by the Lewinsky affair and all the other, lesser controversies and scandals."
He goes on to argue that those who believed George Bush was the antidote to this failed to realize that he was also a Boomer with similar flaws.
Zogby concludes:
"After 16 years, Americans have finally declared, state by state, caucus by caucus, primary by primary, that they have had enough of the Boomer generation in the White House.
In the final analysis, Hillary Clinton is smart, charming -- and the wrong person for the times. Voters have moved beyond Boomerism. Now, Americans will choose between an older version of duty, honor, glory, and a return to the American Century vs. a new vision of global pluralism, diversity, change, and youthful vigor.
Is Boomer Power gone forever? It is impossible right now to say one way or the other, but one thing we do know is that it has, at least, suffered a serious setback."
I think this is probably right.
I am a Baby Boomer by about three years. (Depending upon when you officially end the boom...) Barack Obama is a year older than me.
Those of us on the tail end of the "boom" have always felt an unease around our older Boomer brothers and sisters. On the one hand, there is much to be admired in them. On the other, their self-absorbed nature has always bothered us.
The Clintons are the classic examples of this older generation of Boomers. The Obamas are the epitome of the younger Boomers.
While older Boomers could look back and straddle the divide between them and the "Greatest Generation" (read: McCain) we younger Boomers have always been as equally comfortable around "Busters" (I married one) and even "Millenials." (The young adult children of many of those older Boomers!)
Ironically, I believe the Clintons and their political generation, young and vibrant as they were in 1992, failed to realize just how much generational change is at work in this election. To quote The Who, the "new boss" has become "same as the old boss." And that "same old boss" is now the Clintons.
For younger voters, and even for people like me, Barack and Michelle Obama remind us more of the Bill and Hillary Clinton of 1992 than do the the Bill and Hillary of 2008!
The times? They are always a-changin'
And, whatever happens this November, it's clear this election is now about change.
Should be fun.
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No Joy in Vindication
May/30/2008 09:49 AM | Permalink
In the book, McClellan says this:
“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
The other passage I call your attention to is from McClellan's interview with Keith Olbermann last night. Keith spent the entire show with McClellan, and they covered a lot of ground. But there was one part of the interview that somehow broke a well inside my soul. Here is the question from Keith:
Olbermann: "...I'm asking this for every person that ever came up to me on the street and said, 'I feel I am going out of my mind living through this...this cannot be the America that I grew up in'....Were the critics inside and outside the media, of the President, largely...right?"
McClellan: "In terms of the Iraq War?
Olbermann: "Specifically that, and you can go out in any direction from there that you like...specifically Iraq..."
And here is McClellan's response:
McClellan: "I think certain in terms of Iraq, there was a lot that they were right about, as I went back and reflected on this. It's not that I'm necessarily aligned with them on some other views and things...but certainly on the buildup to the Iraqi War, we should have been listening some more to what they were saying...the American people should have been listening a little bit closer to some of what was being said.
But I, like a lot of Americans was caught up in the moment of post-911 and wanting to put my faith and trust in the White House, and the President I was serving."
You can watch the exchange here, if you like. The relevant passage starts at the 5:25 mark:
There was something about OIbermann's question --about asking a question on behalf of Americans, like me, who DID felt like they were "going out of their mind" during the start of this war...
There was something about McClellan's response, which was basically to say, "Yes, critics of the war were right, and we should have all listened to them"...
There was something about that exchange that unleashed a torrent of emotion in me. There, on the couch, watching the TV, tears poured out.
Honestly? I hadn't thought about the war --really thought about it-- in weeks. But there was something about McClellan-the-insider going on record and saying, "Yes, you were right to raise your questions" which, at one and the same time, brought me the comfort to know I was not crazy then, but also brought me the shame to know that I get absolutely no pleasure in that now.
So, I end with a word to all my friends who supported this war at the beginning...to all those who said things like:
"What IF Saddam has WMD?"
"Surely the President knows something we don' t know..."
"They will greet us like liberators..."
"This will be short and sweet..."
"The situation has changed....it's a different kind of war..."
To you, I say this:
The only possible redemption of this sad situation will be if you can promise to remember this horrible time, promise to listen critically to your leaders in the future, and promise to never to rush to judgment again.
Despite what you've heard, the evidence was there at the time. People were raising objections at the time. We can redeem this situation by learning from it. But only if we consciously choose to remember to remember.
Even then, though, there is no joy in being vindicated on this war now.
None whatsoever.
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Three Reasons to Love MSNBC
May/16/2008 09:29 AM | Permalink
We watch MSNBC for most of our news these days. We
watch it each primary night for hours.
We were drawn to MSNBC because of Keith Olbermann and "Countdown." But I'm not even going to mention him here.
Because what we've come to love about their shows is the smartness of all of their pundits....folks like Rachel Maddow on the left, and Pat Buchanan on the right. (Say what you will about him: he's a smart pundit...)
What I love about this network is that they tend to ask tough questions, or seek actual substance over style..something very rare in television news.
For example, on MSNBC's morning show --Morning Joe-- Mika Brzezinski simply could not cover just another story on Paris Hilton. I posted this before, but here's her protest against Paris Hilton:
Genius.
You gotta love her for doing that...and for the network for allowing it.
I go back and forth on Chris Matthews. There are times when I hear him interview somebody, and think "Jeez, what a jerk."
And there are times when he catches somebody with a question of substance, and I think "What a genius."
One thing you have to say for him, he's an equal opportunity B.S. Crusher. Take, for example, this short exchange between Austin Mayor, Kirk Watson and Matthews on the night of the Texas Primary:
Ouch.
I'm an Obama fan. I've always found Kirk Watson to be a great politician. But if you're going to go on a national network, you do need to be a better prepared.
But my new favorite Chris Matthews moment came just the other day, with a conservative radio host from California. This guy comes on with a bloviating style, ala Rush Limbaugh. But Matthews tears him to shreds when it's clear he doesn't even understand the words he is saying.
Watch how he tries to wriggle off the fish hook by screaming more, all the while failing to get that the net is underneath him and Matthews already has him reeled into the boat:
Jeez, that's fun to watch. What's even more funny is that they never even get to the "liberal" pundit in this segment.
Except for one very sage bit of advice:
"When you're in a hole, stop digging."
UPDATE!!!
Last night on Countdown --with Rachel Maddow sitting in as guest host-- Chris Matthews came on for an excellent discussion of just how insidious this problem of unchallenged rhetoric has become in our nation. The first part of this clip is a re-play of the exchange on Hardball. But the last four-minutes is a discussion of how rhetoric is being used in our politics today. And it's very, very, VERY good, and worth a seeing:
We were drawn to MSNBC because of Keith Olbermann and "Countdown." But I'm not even going to mention him here.
Because what we've come to love about their shows is the smartness of all of their pundits....folks like Rachel Maddow on the left, and Pat Buchanan on the right. (Say what you will about him: he's a smart pundit...)
What I love about this network is that they tend to ask tough questions, or seek actual substance over style..something very rare in television news.
For example, on MSNBC's morning show --Morning Joe-- Mika Brzezinski simply could not cover just another story on Paris Hilton. I posted this before, but here's her protest against Paris Hilton:
Genius.
You gotta love her for doing that...and for the network for allowing it.
I go back and forth on Chris Matthews. There are times when I hear him interview somebody, and think "Jeez, what a jerk."
And there are times when he catches somebody with a question of substance, and I think "What a genius."
One thing you have to say for him, he's an equal opportunity B.S. Crusher. Take, for example, this short exchange between Austin Mayor, Kirk Watson and Matthews on the night of the Texas Primary:
Ouch.
I'm an Obama fan. I've always found Kirk Watson to be a great politician. But if you're going to go on a national network, you do need to be a better prepared.
But my new favorite Chris Matthews moment came just the other day, with a conservative radio host from California. This guy comes on with a bloviating style, ala Rush Limbaugh. But Matthews tears him to shreds when it's clear he doesn't even understand the words he is saying.
Watch how he tries to wriggle off the fish hook by screaming more, all the while failing to get that the net is underneath him and Matthews already has him reeled into the boat:
Jeez, that's fun to watch. What's even more funny is that they never even get to the "liberal" pundit in this segment.
Except for one very sage bit of advice:
"When you're in a hole, stop digging."
UPDATE!!!
Last night on Countdown --with Rachel Maddow sitting in as guest host-- Chris Matthews came on for an excellent discussion of just how insidious this problem of unchallenged rhetoric has become in our nation. The first part of this clip is a re-play of the exchange on Hardball. But the last four-minutes is a discussion of how rhetoric is being used in our politics today. And it's very, very, VERY good, and worth a seeing:
Right on Wright
Apr/30/2008 12:37 AM | Permalink
Tonight,
Dennise and Maria were watching TV, and some clips of
Rev. Jeremiah Wright came on from his National Press
Club appearance last night. Among other things, these
were clips where he was again blaming the government
for AIDS, and calling American soldiers terrorists.
The following is a mostly verbatim transcription of the conversation that ensued...
"Mom, was Rev. Wright alive when Martin Luther King got shot?"
"Yes, Maria, he was."
"I think he's still angry about that. And I think he's probably also still mad about that gas that makes you cry...."
"You mean 'tear gas?'"
"Yeah, tear gas....from on the marches in Atlanta, Georgia.* And I think he's probably mad about people having to sit at the back of the bus too."
"It could be, sweetie."
"Mom, I think he needs to talk to a counselor. Maybe he could talk to Ms. Wilson."
"Who is that, Maria?"
"She's our counselor at school. She says that before you get angry and say mean things you should try screaming into a pillow, or even screaming into a mirror..."
"Into a mirror?"
"Well," said Maria, "actually I made that last part up."
* (we assume she meant Selma, Alabama...)
The following is a mostly verbatim transcription of the conversation that ensued...
"Mom, was Rev. Wright alive when Martin Luther King got shot?"
"Yes, Maria, he was."
"I think he's still angry about that. And I think he's probably also still mad about that gas that makes you cry...."
"You mean 'tear gas?'"
"Yeah, tear gas....from on the marches in Atlanta, Georgia.* And I think he's probably mad about people having to sit at the back of the bus too."
"It could be, sweetie."
"Mom, I think he needs to talk to a counselor. Maybe he could talk to Ms. Wilson."
"Who is that, Maria?"
"She's our counselor at school. She says that before you get angry and say mean things you should try screaming into a pillow, or even screaming into a mirror..."
"Into a mirror?"
"Well," said Maria, "actually I made that last part up."
* (we assume she meant Selma, Alabama...)
David LaMotte Gets Spun
Apr/25/2008 09:39 AM | Permalink
Wanted to blog about this quickly this morning,
because it seems to be breaking on the blogs, and it
involves an actual friend of mine...
David LaMotte is a truly fine songwriter friend from the great city of Asheville, North Carolina. I was overhearing some audio from the Huffington Post this morning, and thought "that voice sounds familiar."
It was. It was David's.
Basically, he got a "push poll" call from the Clinton campaign. I'll let him explain it:
You can read the entire transcript of the encounter --or, better still, listen to all the audio-- here.
And here's David's own thoughts on the whole thing.
David's a truly good guy. Son of a Presbyterian Minister, he's not only a gifted songwriter, but also truly committed to the poor in many parts of the world. I am honored to call him and friend, and humored that he's found himself in the midst of this developing blog story today.
But, wait!! There's more.
Here's where this story becomes surreal and dang funny. For you see, those of us who know David knowthat he has actually written a song about political spin!!
The song is called...yep, you guessed it.... "Spin."
It's on a CD of the same name, and you can get it at David's website.
Here's just a little of lyrics:
The moral I draw from this for the Clinton campaign, or any other:
Never try to "spin" a guy who's already clear on what spin is.
(Or one who happens to have a tape recorder laying around...)
David LaMotte is a truly fine songwriter friend from the great city of Asheville, North Carolina. I was overhearing some audio from the Huffington Post this morning, and thought "that voice sounds familiar."
It was. It was David's.
Basically, he got a "push poll" call from the Clinton campaign. I'll let him explain it:
"A guy named Ed called from Akron, Ohio, and when I asked what polling outfit he works for he said Garin-Hart-Yang, based in DC At first I was delighted to be polled, as I've been interested in the race and following the rest of the nation's polls closely throughout the campaign.
The questions started out normal enough, but got progressively more ridiculous. Early in the conversation Ed asked my preference among the Democratic candidates and I told him I was an Obama supporter.
Then the questions turned to long Hillary-praising and Barack bashing policy statements with the response options being "Do you consider that a very strong, strong or weak or very weak reason to support her candidacy for president?" which is kind of an unanswerable question, and clearly not the point. At the end of the conversation they asked "Now based on everything we've discussed, who would you vote for?"
The questions were often based on statements that I wouldn't agree with in the first place. It's classic push polling as I've read about it, though never experienced it before. The questions are of the "Are you still beating your wife?" variety. No way to answer with any sense of veracity and integrity.
Toward the end of the conversation it occurred to me to record it on my old-school tape-based answering machine..."
You can read the entire transcript of the encounter --or, better still, listen to all the audio-- here.
And here's David's own thoughts on the whole thing.
David's a truly good guy. Son of a Presbyterian Minister, he's not only a gifted songwriter, but also truly committed to the poor in many parts of the world. I am honored to call him and friend, and humored that he's found himself in the midst of this developing blog story today.
But, wait!! There's more.
Here's where this story becomes surreal and dang funny. For you see, those of us who know David knowthat he has actually written a song about political spin!!
The song is called...yep, you guessed it.... "Spin."
It's on a CD of the same name, and you can get it at David's website.
Here's just a little of lyrics:
Six o'clock dinner, the family falls silent
Move over a little I can't see the screen
The man in the box speaks in high definition
Turn it up loud so I won't hear the screams
More about bad things the bad guys are doing
More about how I need what they sell
And right down the road they are building a prison
On the whole the economy's doing quite well
(Chorus)
Give me the update, tell me again
Show me the difference between us and them
Give it a number between one and ten
Give me the headline
Give me the spin
The moral I draw from this for the Clinton campaign, or any other:
Never try to "spin" a guy who's already clear on what spin is.
(Or one who happens to have a tape recorder laying around...)
What I Always Believed About Saddam
Jan/29/2008 11:59 PM | Permalink
In the context of early 2008 --with the "Surge"
apparently reducing violence in Iraq, with the US
Economy in the tank, and with everybody fixated on
the presidential primaries as a way to take our minds
off the past seven years --it may well be that nobody
wants to hear any additional analysis of the war, its
causes, or its justifications.
I understand that. But call me crazy, I still believe in that seemingly trite expression: "those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat it." And until we can come to terms with this war in brutal honesty, we risk making the same mistakes somewhere down the line.
One of the "lessons" I fear we are accepting about Sadaam Hussein is this: That he was simply a crazy evil dictator, hell-bent on destroying his country and bringing down the wrath of America.
The conventional wisdom is that absolutely NO ONE --within the government, or without; no pundit or social scientist-- could have predicted that Saddam really didn't have any WMD. No one, they claim, actually believed him when, before the war, his representatives said he had destroyed it all.
If he had destroyed it, then why not let the inspectors in? He must be lying...
That was the conventional wisdom then. And our own poorly edited "intelligence" supported this view. As George Tenet so inelegantly put it, "we were all wrong."
Republicans and Democrats throughout the government were also quick to say: "Everyone say the same intelligence..."
Who could have known? We were just all wrong...right?
Not exactly.
See, I believed Saddam might be telling the truth. I also believed he might be lying. I also believed he might be changing his story intentionally, blowing smoke to throw the whole world off his scent.
Here's something I wrote to that effect back in 2005. It was in answer to the question: Why didn't Saddam just admit he didn't have the WMD and open his country fully to the UN Inspectors?
Here's what I said back then:
"Because he was an "evil dictator." And evil dicators rule by fear and intimidation. Were he to have admitted that he'd actually destroyed much of his weapons of mass destruction, he would not have not only been immediately vulnerable to offensive attacks from neighboring countries, but he would have also risked civil war from within. The Kurds and Shiites would have quite possibly been emboldened to rise up against him.
It is not surprising that he would play the game of chicken with his own people and with the West. What is MOST unfortunate is that our government chose to not see that he could NEVER admit to having destroyed his weapons capacity."
See, I believed this from the very start. Nothing else made logical sense.
Now, IF Saddam were are democratic leader --an elected leader, a leader of a representative democracy-- there's NO WAY he would have played this deadly game of "chicken" with his nation.
But he wasn't. I always believed he was what he was: an EVIL DICTATOR.
Our problem? When the Bush Government set ultimatums for him, we actually believed we were dealing with some kind of rational person.
We failed to remember that, unlike leaders in our country, Saddam ruled by fear and made decisions from a fear-based matrix.
And this weekend, I saw a most extraordinary interview on 60 Minutes that finally proved this theory to me. It was an interview with FBI Agent George Piro, who was assigned by our government to gain Saddam's "confidence" after his arrest. Piro's job was to "befriend" Hussein, in an attempt to get inside his head, and get answers to the most pressing questions our government still had.
The interview provides a fascinating insight into the inner workings of an FBI Agent, and the delicate dance of building "confidence" between a prisoner and interrogator. You can watch the whole thing here. I strongly encourage it.
Piro, an American of Lebanese descent who is fluent in Arabic, was picked for this job from the very first day of Hussein's imprisonment. Our government wanted to try to get inside his mind and see if he'd reveal some of the most pressing questions about the war:
Did he really not have any WMD?
If not, why not just come clean to the UN Inspectors?
Why play this game of "chicken" with the US?
After months of gaining Saddam's confidence, he finally opened up to Piro and told him everything. Among the things Saddam admitted was that he never believed that the US would actually invade Iraq. He assumed that the US was just "saber rattling," as much as he was.
Here is the relevant passage from the 60 Minutes transcript, with the essential lines in bold type for emphasis:
"And what did he tell you about how his weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed?" Pelley asks.
"He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq," Piro says.
"So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?" Pelley asks.
"It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq," Piro says.
Before his wars with America, Saddam had fought a ruinous eight year war with Iran and it was Iran he still feared the most.
"He believed that he couldn't survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?" Pelley asks.
"Absolutely," Piro says.
Think about it for half a second. Really think about it. Saddam WAS an evil dictator. He DID rule by fear. And when you rule by fear, uncertainty is a key part of your arsenal. The element of surprise is a key defensive strategy. For both external and internal security reasons, Saddam needed to portray an aire of invincibility and strength. Show weakness, admit the weapons were gone, and he risked losing power forever.
Did we really believe a brutal dictator would be enlightened enough to choose the security of his own nation above his own skin?
Apparently, we did. At least many in our own government did. We actually negotiated with him and his representatives as if we believed their bluster.
Or, perhaps even more troubling, their bluster reinforced the message of fear that our own leaders wanted and needed to wage the war.
So, a couple of observations....
Rule Number One for Future War Planning:
Take the words and actions of an evil dictator with a grain of salt. Don't assume you can believe, or disbelieve, everything he says. Just believe he's acting like an evil dictator would normally act.
Dictators desire self-preservation at all costs, and if you try to take away a crucial defense, don't be shocked when they don't react logically.
Rule Number Two for Future War Planning:
When the intelligence is mixed, when the opponent IS an evil dictator, think twice...three...even four times...before rushing to the military option. Make no mistake, despite the conventional wisdom, this war was rushed when there WERE other options.
The facts are, as we now know them, sanctions WERE working. Saddam WAS blustering. But that was a part of his front too. (Oh yeah...the story confirms that Saddam hated Al Quaida...)
If there are other logical/plausible rationales for why the other side is acting the way they are, war should not be the immediate option. And to launch despite all this violates a key tenet of "just war theory."
-------------------------
Other nuggets from the interview...
We learn why Saddam originally invaded Kuwait in 1990. Turns out, it was because of an insult against Iraqi women. No kidding.
Also from the transcript of the 60 Minutes interview...
Pelley says:
"Back then, Saddam accused Kuwait of wrecking Iraq’s economy by stealing oil and demanding repayment of loans. But Piro learned, for the first time, that the brutal invasion was triggered by personal insult.
"What really triggered it for him, according to Saddam, was he had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of these issues. And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait. He wanted to punish, he told me, Emir Al Sabah, for saying that," Piro explains."
See, we even got that war wrong too. That war wasn't about the oil for Saddam; although there was an economic component to it. That war was about one guy insulting the women of the other guy's country. It was about, to use a term cross-cuturally, a kind of deadly-serious "Machismo."
--------------------------------------------
Whether anyone else is interested in this or not, as the five-year anniversary of the war approaches, I feel these kinds of revelations ARE still important. Because there are other evil dictators out there. Whoever is president, both now and in the future, will have deal with them in some way or another.
I just hope and pray that if we identify them as an evil dictator, we will truly believe that they THINK like one too; and not like we might think, with our Western, logical, and self-preserving, minds.
Otherwise, we may get into yet another war, and come out scratching our heads yet again.
---------------
One more, "Oh by the way..."
Piro denied that any "coercive techniques," such as waterboarding, were used against Hussein.
Why not?
Says Piro: "I think Saddam clearly had demonstrated over his legacy that he would not respond to threats, to any type of fear-based approach."
I understand that. But call me crazy, I still believe in that seemingly trite expression: "those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat it." And until we can come to terms with this war in brutal honesty, we risk making the same mistakes somewhere down the line.
One of the "lessons" I fear we are accepting about Sadaam Hussein is this: That he was simply a crazy evil dictator, hell-bent on destroying his country and bringing down the wrath of America.
The conventional wisdom is that absolutely NO ONE --within the government, or without; no pundit or social scientist-- could have predicted that Saddam really didn't have any WMD. No one, they claim, actually believed him when, before the war, his representatives said he had destroyed it all.
If he had destroyed it, then why not let the inspectors in? He must be lying...
That was the conventional wisdom then. And our own poorly edited "intelligence" supported this view. As George Tenet so inelegantly put it, "we were all wrong."
Republicans and Democrats throughout the government were also quick to say: "Everyone say the same intelligence..."
Who could have known? We were just all wrong...right?
Not exactly.
See, I believed Saddam might be telling the truth. I also believed he might be lying. I also believed he might be changing his story intentionally, blowing smoke to throw the whole world off his scent.
Here's something I wrote to that effect back in 2005. It was in answer to the question: Why didn't Saddam just admit he didn't have the WMD and open his country fully to the UN Inspectors?
Here's what I said back then:
"Because he was an "evil dictator." And evil dicators rule by fear and intimidation. Were he to have admitted that he'd actually destroyed much of his weapons of mass destruction, he would not have not only been immediately vulnerable to offensive attacks from neighboring countries, but he would have also risked civil war from within. The Kurds and Shiites would have quite possibly been emboldened to rise up against him.
It is not surprising that he would play the game of chicken with his own people and with the West. What is MOST unfortunate is that our government chose to not see that he could NEVER admit to having destroyed his weapons capacity."
See, I believed this from the very start. Nothing else made logical sense.
Now, IF Saddam were are democratic leader --an elected leader, a leader of a representative democracy-- there's NO WAY he would have played this deadly game of "chicken" with his nation.
But he wasn't. I always believed he was what he was: an EVIL DICTATOR.
Our problem? When the Bush Government set ultimatums for him, we actually believed we were dealing with some kind of rational person.
We failed to remember that, unlike leaders in our country, Saddam ruled by fear and made decisions from a fear-based matrix.
And this weekend, I saw a most extraordinary interview on 60 Minutes that finally proved this theory to me. It was an interview with FBI Agent George Piro, who was assigned by our government to gain Saddam's "confidence" after his arrest. Piro's job was to "befriend" Hussein, in an attempt to get inside his head, and get answers to the most pressing questions our government still had.
The interview provides a fascinating insight into the inner workings of an FBI Agent, and the delicate dance of building "confidence" between a prisoner and interrogator. You can watch the whole thing here. I strongly encourage it.
Piro, an American of Lebanese descent who is fluent in Arabic, was picked for this job from the very first day of Hussein's imprisonment. Our government wanted to try to get inside his mind and see if he'd reveal some of the most pressing questions about the war:
Did he really not have any WMD?
If not, why not just come clean to the UN Inspectors?
Why play this game of "chicken" with the US?
After months of gaining Saddam's confidence, he finally opened up to Piro and told him everything. Among the things Saddam admitted was that he never believed that the US would actually invade Iraq. He assumed that the US was just "saber rattling," as much as he was.
Here is the relevant passage from the 60 Minutes transcript, with the essential lines in bold type for emphasis:
"And what did he tell you about how his weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed?" Pelley asks.
"He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq," Piro says.
"So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?" Pelley asks.
"It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq," Piro says.
Before his wars with America, Saddam had fought a ruinous eight year war with Iran and it was Iran he still feared the most.
"He believed that he couldn't survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?" Pelley asks.
"Absolutely," Piro says.
Think about it for half a second. Really think about it. Saddam WAS an evil dictator. He DID rule by fear. And when you rule by fear, uncertainty is a key part of your arsenal. The element of surprise is a key defensive strategy. For both external and internal security reasons, Saddam needed to portray an aire of invincibility and strength. Show weakness, admit the weapons were gone, and he risked losing power forever.
Did we really believe a brutal dictator would be enlightened enough to choose the security of his own nation above his own skin?
Apparently, we did. At least many in our own government did. We actually negotiated with him and his representatives as if we believed their bluster.
Or, perhaps even more troubling, their bluster reinforced the message of fear that our own leaders wanted and needed to wage the war.
So, a couple of observations....
Rule Number One for Future War Planning:
Take the words and actions of an evil dictator with a grain of salt. Don't assume you can believe, or disbelieve, everything he says. Just believe he's acting like an evil dictator would normally act.
Dictators desire self-preservation at all costs, and if you try to take away a crucial defense, don't be shocked when they don't react logically.
Rule Number Two for Future War Planning:
When the intelligence is mixed, when the opponent IS an evil dictator, think twice...three...even four times...before rushing to the military option. Make no mistake, despite the conventional wisdom, this war was rushed when there WERE other options.
The facts are, as we now know them, sanctions WERE working. Saddam WAS blustering. But that was a part of his front too. (Oh yeah...the story confirms that Saddam hated Al Quaida...)
If there are other logical/plausible rationales for why the other side is acting the way they are, war should not be the immediate option. And to launch despite all this violates a key tenet of "just war theory."
-------------------------
Other nuggets from the interview...
We learn why Saddam originally invaded Kuwait in 1990. Turns out, it was because of an insult against Iraqi women. No kidding.
Also from the transcript of the 60 Minutes interview...
Pelley says:
"Back then, Saddam accused Kuwait of wrecking Iraq’s economy by stealing oil and demanding repayment of loans. But Piro learned, for the first time, that the brutal invasion was triggered by personal insult.
"What really triggered it for him, according to Saddam, was he had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of these issues. And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait. He wanted to punish, he told me, Emir Al Sabah, for saying that," Piro explains."
See, we even got that war wrong too. That war wasn't about the oil for Saddam; although there was an economic component to it. That war was about one guy insulting the women of the other guy's country. It was about, to use a term cross-cuturally, a kind of deadly-serious "Machismo."
--------------------------------------------
Whether anyone else is interested in this or not, as the five-year anniversary of the war approaches, I feel these kinds of revelations ARE still important. Because there are other evil dictators out there. Whoever is president, both now and in the future, will have deal with them in some way or another.
I just hope and pray that if we identify them as an evil dictator, we will truly believe that they THINK like one too; and not like we might think, with our Western, logical, and self-preserving, minds.
Otherwise, we may get into yet another war, and come out scratching our heads yet again.
---------------
One more, "Oh by the way..."
Piro denied that any "coercive techniques," such as waterboarding, were used against Hussein.
Why not?
Says Piro: "I think Saddam clearly had demonstrated over his legacy that he would not respond to threats, to any type of fear-based approach."
More on Military Deaths
Jan/22/2008 04:47 PM | Permalink
A little more on
this blog
from Sunday...
Kim emailed yesterday to ask a good question:
"What are the leading causes of death for each of these years/eras? Is there any data on this?"
Don't know why I didn't stop to ask that question myself. On Sunday, I was in such a hurry to get the blog posted, so shocked by the blatantly incorrect data, that I didn't delve into this slightly deeper question. But it's a good one.
And, turns out, the same report provides the answers...for those willing to look it up.
Just one page over from the page I cited Sunday (meaning: page 11), you will find a more detailed table called:
"US Active Duty Military Deaths, 1980 Through 2006"
This table provides a chart listing out the deaths each year by different standardized categories.
The categories are:
Accident
Hostile Action
Homicide
Illness
Pending
Self-Inflicted
Terrorist Attack
Undetermined
Turns out, the greatest cause of death of active military personnel in every single year since 1980 was "Accident." The second-greatest cause in most years was "Illness." Sadly, "Self-Inflicted" and "Homicide" are the third and fourth most populous categories.
The statistic that jumped out for me during Clinton's time was "Terrorist Attack." And the total number who died during Clinton's two terms was: 75
This compares to just 55 for the first six years of Bush's term.
By the way, the biggest number of terrorism deaths since 1980 happened in 1983, during Reagan's tenure, and the number of deaths was: 263.
(Was this Beirut? I'm thinking it must have been...)
One of the more interesting stats, then, is a direct, "apples-to-apples" comparison of "Hostile Action" deaths in both the Bush and Clinton years.
Of course, we've been in a war for this past half decade now. It makes sense to assume Bush's total would be higher, despite the insinuation of the email that started all of this.
Sure enough, that's the case.
Total Active Military Deaths due to "Hostile Action:
Six years of George W. Bush (2001-2006): 2,596.
Eight years of Bill Clinton (1993-2000): One.
Kim emailed yesterday to ask a good question:
"What are the leading causes of death for each of these years/eras? Is there any data on this?"
Don't know why I didn't stop to ask that question myself. On Sunday, I was in such a hurry to get the blog posted, so shocked by the blatantly incorrect data, that I didn't delve into this slightly deeper question. But it's a good one.
And, turns out, the same report provides the answers...for those willing to look it up.
Just one page over from the page I cited Sunday (meaning: page 11), you will find a more detailed table called:
"US Active Duty Military Deaths, 1980 Through 2006"
This table provides a chart listing out the deaths each year by different standardized categories.
The categories are:
Accident
Hostile Action
Homicide
Illness
Pending
Self-Inflicted
Terrorist Attack
Undetermined
Turns out, the greatest cause of death of active military personnel in every single year since 1980 was "Accident." The second-greatest cause in most years was "Illness." Sadly, "Self-Inflicted" and "Homicide" are the third and fourth most populous categories.
The statistic that jumped out for me during Clinton's time was "Terrorist Attack." And the total number who died during Clinton's two terms was: 75
This compares to just 55 for the first six years of Bush's term.
By the way, the biggest number of terrorism deaths since 1980 happened in 1983, during Reagan's tenure, and the number of deaths was: 263.
(Was this Beirut? I'm thinking it must have been...)
One of the more interesting stats, then, is a direct, "apples-to-apples" comparison of "Hostile Action" deaths in both the Bush and Clinton years.
Of course, we've been in a war for this past half decade now. It makes sense to assume Bush's total would be higher, despite the insinuation of the email that started all of this.
Sure enough, that's the case.
Total Active Military Deaths due to "Hostile Action:
Six years of George W. Bush (2001-2006): 2,596.
Eight years of Bill Clinton (1993-2000): One.
Military Losses for 20 Years....I play at being
Snopes.com
Jan/20/2008 07:43 PM | Permalink
I've written about chain/spam emails before. I've
written about Snopes.com before.
These days I assume everyone knows about both, and that anybody who really wants to be well informed will check stuff out on their own.
But every now and then, an email comes my way that is so wrong, and so un-refuted, that I feel compelled to respond. That happened today, and this blog my reaction. Consider this entry your own personal Snopes.com for the day.
The "issue" is an email I got this morning titled:
"Military Losses for 20 Years"
It was forwarded to me by a cousin of mine who I respect a great deal. No beef with him, in other words. Just a beef with whoever started this insidious chain message.
So that you can truly be informed, I have included the entire email at the end of this blog entry, so you can see the original context for yourself.
The gist of the email is an astounding claim that more military personnel died during the Clinton years than during the George W. Bush presidency.
It cites a government report as the source of information for this claim.
The claim in the email is that during Clinton's presidency, a whopping 13,417 service men and women died. During Bush's tenure, the email claims only 9,016 members of the Armed Forces have died. The clear insinuation is that while everyone thinks the current war has been terrible, things were much worse when Clinton was in the White House.
The email goes on to make the claim that huge numbers of military personnel died during the "reign" of President Jimmy Carter. (BTW, since they aren't royalty, I wasn't aware that our presidents had "reigns.")
The email claims the data it cites is substantiated by a congressional study. And, it even gives a url to the study itself. (Something that gives an air of legitimacy to these kinds of emails...)
Here is the link to the report the email cites.
This email then goes on to editorialize about all of these so-called shocking discoveries:
"These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?"
The "muckraking" email ends with two ominous questions, thrown out to the innocent and fearful patrons of cyberspace:
"Now ask yourself these two questions:
'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"
Well, first...I don't know that it ever includes "marching," but I do know whatever "agenda" journalist have starts with editors who are sticklers for...gosh darn it...accurate statistics.
Secondly...they don't print these kinds of claims because these claims are just flat out lies and mistruths.
And, finally....I don't personally believe that the mainstream media "hates" the web, because the web itself gives guys like me the chance to refute this kind of garbage.
The facts are: almost every "fact" in this email is a lie not supported by the documentation the email cites!!!!
I will now unpack this....
First, let's assume the report the email cites is a genuine government report, and is genuinely accurate. I have no idea whether it is or not. But for the sake of argument --for the sake of "fact checking" it's own inner consistency-- assume the backing documents are true.
When you open the .pdf file at the above link, and then go to page ten, you'll find a helpful chart titled:
"Table 4: US Active Military Deaths, 1980 to 2006"
Using a calculator, and amazingly dexterous fingers, I managed to do my own counting. And here are the TRUE numbers:
For the years 1993-2000 (the eight full years of Bill Clinton's presidency)
There were a total of: 7,500 military deaths for those in active duty
(remember: the email claims: 13, 417)
Yes, it's a strangely round number. But it appears to be correct. As Casey Stengel once said, "You could look it up..."
For the years of George W. Bush's presidency 2001-2006
There were a total of: 8,792 military deaths for those in active duty.
(the email claims: 9,016)
Note! The Bush statistic only includes data through 2006, and a footnote admits that the 2006 data is "preliminary." This number does not include any combat deaths for 2007.
As mentioned above, the email goes on to claim that there were 2,392 deaths in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president. The email makes this sound shocking, since Carter won a "Nobel Peace Prize." And, actually, this one number appears to be correct.
However! Even though this is correct, it fails to account for the truth that the largest single year for military deaths since 1980 was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The year was 1983, and the total deaths were: 2,465. (Go ahead. "Casey Stengel" it)
Also! Note this unusual factoid: the spam email incorrectly claims this exact same number of deaths (2.465) during 1995 (a Clinton year...surprise, surprise...). This does not appear to be correct. The actual number for 1995 was: 1,040.
----------------------------------------------------
So, why did I write this "correction"?
Well, because we're entering the high-season for politics and dirty tricks. Love or hate her, there is again a "Clinton" the ballot this year. Many people (including many Republicans) are still very concerned about the war.
What makes this kind of email especially insidious is that it provides you a link to check the facts yourself.
It just assumes you won't.
To that end, it's really propaganda. It's a smear campaign, and it's the worst kind of dirty trick.
And even if you later read MY email --where I also exhort you to "check the facts"-- the dissonance between two competing fact claims will cause lot of folks to just shrug their shoulders, complain of "tired brain," and walk away...often with their initial preconceptions still intact.
The facts are these: Many more service men and women have died during six years of GW. Bush's presidency than during eight years of Bill Clinton's.
But for people are naturally inclined to disbelieve these "true" facts, propagandistic email like this allow them to keep their incorrect preconceptions in full force. They then pass those lies on to unwitting friends and family. And the lies take on a life and "truth" all their own, regardless of the "facts".
It's a sinister, and sickly effective, form of "disinformation."
There is a lot at stake here. American men and women are giving their live each day. That is nothing to gloss over or make light of. I am not attempting to do that here, nor am I attempting to make their deaths into a political football. The death of any military person, in any historical age, is tragic. But if we are to honor their memory, the best way to do that is through being truthful about the history of our modern republic.
Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton claimed that a "vast right wing conspiracy" was out to get both her and President Clinton. I've always been skeptical about just how "vast" it really was.
At the same time, these kinds of emails remind us that there are people who do play fast and loose with the facts, and assume most folks are just too stupid to check things out themselves.
The morale of the story for this political season:
Trust, but verify.
The truth is out there.
Just maybe not in an email some guy forwards to you.
Below is the original text of an email sent to Eric on January 20, 2008:
"Subject: Military losses for 20 yrs
Interesting numbers. you can check this by clicking on to the suggested website. Snopes has nothing on this. These figures don't bring back anyone, but the person sending these does make a point about the perception of our military losses and activity. Comments after this were a part of the email sent to me.
Military losses for 20 years
These are some rather eye-opening facts: Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
>>1980 .......... 2,392
>>1981 ......... 2,380
>>1984 .......... 1,999
>>1988 .......... 1,819
>>1989 .......... 1,636
>>1990 ......... 1,508
>>1991 .......... 1,787
>>1992 .......... 1,293----------------------------------------------------
>>1993 .......... 1,213
>>1994 .......... 1,075
>>1995 ...........2,465
>>1996 ......... 2,318 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
>>1997 .......... 817
>>1998 ......... 2,252
>>1999 .......... 1,984 -------------------------------------------------
>>2000 .......... 1,983
>>2001 .......... 890
>>2002 .......... 1,007 7 BUSH years @ 9,016 deaths
>>2003 .......... 1,410
>>2004 .......... 1,887
>>2005 ......... 919
>>2006.......... 920 ------------------------------------------------------------
If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.
Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency; when America wasn't even involved in a war? And, I was even more confused; when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!
These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?
Our Mainstream Print and TV media, and many Politicians like to slant; that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq, are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN--- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:
European descent (White) ....... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3%
Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American ..................... . 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%
Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:
European descent (white) ..... 74.31%
Hispanic ............................. 10.74%
Black ................................... 9.67%
Asian ................................. . 1.81%
Native American .................... 1.09%
Other .................................... . 33%
You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure...and they sway public opinion! (These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf )
Now ask yourself these two questions:
'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"
These days I assume everyone knows about both, and that anybody who really wants to be well informed will check stuff out on their own.
But every now and then, an email comes my way that is so wrong, and so un-refuted, that I feel compelled to respond. That happened today, and this blog my reaction. Consider this entry your own personal Snopes.com for the day.
The "issue" is an email I got this morning titled:
"Military Losses for 20 Years"
It was forwarded to me by a cousin of mine who I respect a great deal. No beef with him, in other words. Just a beef with whoever started this insidious chain message.
So that you can truly be informed, I have included the entire email at the end of this blog entry, so you can see the original context for yourself.
The gist of the email is an astounding claim that more military personnel died during the Clinton years than during the George W. Bush presidency.
It cites a government report as the source of information for this claim.
The claim in the email is that during Clinton's presidency, a whopping 13,417 service men and women died. During Bush's tenure, the email claims only 9,016 members of the Armed Forces have died. The clear insinuation is that while everyone thinks the current war has been terrible, things were much worse when Clinton was in the White House.
The email goes on to make the claim that huge numbers of military personnel died during the "reign" of President Jimmy Carter. (BTW, since they aren't royalty, I wasn't aware that our presidents had "reigns.")
The email claims the data it cites is substantiated by a congressional study. And, it even gives a url to the study itself. (Something that gives an air of legitimacy to these kinds of emails...)
Here is the link to the report the email cites.
This email then goes on to editorialize about all of these so-called shocking discoveries:
"These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?"
The "muckraking" email ends with two ominous questions, thrown out to the innocent and fearful patrons of cyberspace:
"Now ask yourself these two questions:
'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"
Well, first...I don't know that it ever includes "marching," but I do know whatever "agenda" journalist have starts with editors who are sticklers for...gosh darn it...accurate statistics.
Secondly...they don't print these kinds of claims because these claims are just flat out lies and mistruths.
And, finally....I don't personally believe that the mainstream media "hates" the web, because the web itself gives guys like me the chance to refute this kind of garbage.
The facts are: almost every "fact" in this email is a lie not supported by the documentation the email cites!!!!
I will now unpack this....
First, let's assume the report the email cites is a genuine government report, and is genuinely accurate. I have no idea whether it is or not. But for the sake of argument --for the sake of "fact checking" it's own inner consistency-- assume the backing documents are true.
When you open the .pdf file at the above link, and then go to page ten, you'll find a helpful chart titled:
"Table 4: US Active Military Deaths, 1980 to 2006"
Using a calculator, and amazingly dexterous fingers, I managed to do my own counting. And here are the TRUE numbers:
For the years 1993-2000 (the eight full years of Bill Clinton's presidency)
There were a total of: 7,500 military deaths for those in active duty
(remember: the email claims: 13, 417)
Yes, it's a strangely round number. But it appears to be correct. As Casey Stengel once said, "You could look it up..."
For the years of George W. Bush's presidency 2001-2006
There were a total of: 8,792 military deaths for those in active duty.
(the email claims: 9,016)
Note! The Bush statistic only includes data through 2006, and a footnote admits that the 2006 data is "preliminary." This number does not include any combat deaths for 2007.
As mentioned above, the email goes on to claim that there were 2,392 deaths in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president. The email makes this sound shocking, since Carter won a "Nobel Peace Prize." And, actually, this one number appears to be correct.
However! Even though this is correct, it fails to account for the truth that the largest single year for military deaths since 1980 was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The year was 1983, and the total deaths were: 2,465. (Go ahead. "Casey Stengel" it)
Also! Note this unusual factoid: the spam email incorrectly claims this exact same number of deaths (2.465) during 1995 (a Clinton year...surprise, surprise...). This does not appear to be correct. The actual number for 1995 was: 1,040.
----------------------------------------------------
So, why did I write this "correction"?
Well, because we're entering the high-season for politics and dirty tricks. Love or hate her, there is again a "Clinton" the ballot this year. Many people (including many Republicans) are still very concerned about the war.
What makes this kind of email especially insidious is that it provides you a link to check the facts yourself.
It just assumes you won't.
To that end, it's really propaganda. It's a smear campaign, and it's the worst kind of dirty trick.
And even if you later read MY email --where I also exhort you to "check the facts"-- the dissonance between two competing fact claims will cause lot of folks to just shrug their shoulders, complain of "tired brain," and walk away...often with their initial preconceptions still intact.
The facts are these: Many more service men and women have died during six years of GW. Bush's presidency than during eight years of Bill Clinton's.
But for people are naturally inclined to disbelieve these "true" facts, propagandistic email like this allow them to keep their incorrect preconceptions in full force. They then pass those lies on to unwitting friends and family. And the lies take on a life and "truth" all their own, regardless of the "facts".
It's a sinister, and sickly effective, form of "disinformation."
There is a lot at stake here. American men and women are giving their live each day. That is nothing to gloss over or make light of. I am not attempting to do that here, nor am I attempting to make their deaths into a political football. The death of any military person, in any historical age, is tragic. But if we are to honor their memory, the best way to do that is through being truthful about the history of our modern republic.
Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton claimed that a "vast right wing conspiracy" was out to get both her and President Clinton. I've always been skeptical about just how "vast" it really was.
At the same time, these kinds of emails remind us that there are people who do play fast and loose with the facts, and assume most folks are just too stupid to check things out themselves.
The morale of the story for this political season:
Trust, but verify.
The truth is out there.
Just maybe not in an email some guy forwards to you.
Below is the original text of an email sent to Eric on January 20, 2008:
"Subject: Military losses for 20 yrs
Interesting numbers. you can check this by clicking on to the suggested website. Snopes has nothing on this. These figures don't bring back anyone, but the person sending these does make a point about the perception of our military losses and activity. Comments after this were a part of the email sent to me.
Military losses for 20 years
These are some rather eye-opening facts: Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
>>1980 .......... 2,392
>>1981 ......... 2,380
>>1984 .......... 1,999
>>1988 .......... 1,819
>>1989 .......... 1,636
>>1990 ......... 1,508
>>1991 .......... 1,787
>>1992 .......... 1,293----------------------------------------------------
>>1993 .......... 1,213
>>1994 .......... 1,075
>>1995 ...........2,465
>>1996 ......... 2,318 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
>>1997 .......... 817
>>1998 ......... 2,252
>>1999 .......... 1,984 -------------------------------------------------
>>2000 .......... 1,983
>>2001 .......... 890
>>2002 .......... 1,007 7 BUSH years @ 9,016 deaths
>>2003 .......... 1,410
>>2004 .......... 1,887
>>2005 ......... 919
>>2006.......... 920 ------------------------------------------------------------
If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.
Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency; when America wasn't even involved in a war? And, I was even more confused; when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!
These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?
Our Mainstream Print and TV media, and many Politicians like to slant; that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq, are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN--- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:
European descent (White) ....... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3%
Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American ..................... . 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%
Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:
European descent (white) ..... 74.31%
Hispanic ............................. 10.74%
Black ................................... 9.67%
Asian ................................. . 1.81%
Native American .................... 1.09%
Other .................................... . 33%
You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure...and they sway public opinion! (These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf )
Now ask yourself these two questions:
'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"
American People's Poll on Iraq
Sep/01/2007 12:04 AM | Permalink
Later today, I will be a part of a large peace rally
planned for downtown Fort Worth. It's called "The
American People's Poll on Iraq," and is set to be an
all day festival featuring music and speakers. I just
looked on their website, and it seems Cindy Sheehan
may be there, along with other Camp Casey alumns.
So, I'll probably pull out "Prairie Chapel Road, and "Purple Land."
As I understand it, this is visioned as a peace rally for folks who have never been to a peace rally.
If you're free, stop by.
So, I'll probably pull out "Prairie Chapel Road, and "Purple Land."
As I understand it, this is visioned as a peace rally for folks who have never been to a peace rally.
If you're free, stop by.
Style vs. Substance
Jul/13/2007 11:38 AM | Permalink
For years, we Americans have enjoyed a love-hate
relationship with our television news anchors. We
trust them to frame the issues of the day and present
us with a snapshot of the world as it is. (Or, at
least, the world as they see it...)
We turn to them again and again in moments of crisis, for information, comfort, and a communal connection with others. In fact, in times of crisis you could argue that TV news anchors draw millions of us together in a way that no other media source --no one else anywhere, really-- can.
But the unspoken underbelly of TV news anchors is that they not only have to be sharp and professional journalists, but they also have to be easy on the eye. I am not saying I believe this to be fair. I am saying that if you asked 100 journalists about it, the vast majority would give you Walter Cronkite's answer: It's just "the way it is."
The movie "Broadcast News" famously brought this truth to the big screen. It pitted the characters of William Hurt and Albert Brooks against each other. In the film, Hurt plays a "pretty boy" who knows virtually nothing of journalism, but somehow manages to ascend to "the chair," as the lead anchor of a network news show. Brooks plays an intelligent, well trained, but far-too-self-aware, journeyman reporter who knows the world, knows his profession, and knows that none that matters in a world where style so often trumps substance.
At the end of the movie, Brooks walks away from the insanely-manic pace of the network newsroom, content to live out his days as a local reporter for a Seattle affiliate. Hurt, the pretty boy, becomes a broadcast news institution.
Of course, there is an even deeper, and crasser, level to this "style vs substance" dynamic. The deeper level is the unfair double standard concerning women and men on TV news.
Yes, men are mostly expected to be "pretty boys." But some of them aren't. Cronkite was a lovable grandfather. Koppel looked vaguely like Alfred E. Newman. Guys can get away that, so long as we believe them to be consummate journalistic professionals.
Women cannot. They are not only expected to be consummate professionals, but they are also expected to be...well..."Babes."
Even with his grandfatherly countenance, Cronkite might still be able to chair the CBS News today. He knows the world, he knows the news. It doesn't matter how he looks. Katie Couric not only has to know the world and know the news, but she has to look "pretty" doing it too.
Again, I'm not saying this is fair or right. In fact, it's more than a little sick, and really quite sexist.
But leave it to FOX to push this envelope as far as it will go. FOX --the network that gave a whole new meaning to "style over substance"-- is in the process of editing a new reality show called "Anchorwoman."
The premise of the show places a woman, whose only credentials appear to be that she is a "babe," in the anchor chair of a Tyler Texas newsroom. The woman, Lauren Jones, is a former swimsuit model and pro-wrestling...ahem..."personality." She has ZERO training as a journalist. She has ZERO experience as a journalist.
But for reasons still unclear to me, a Tyler TV station allowed FOX to insert her into their staff, and even gave her the "chair" as coanchor of their local evening news. Then, they allowed FOX to follow her --and the rest of their staff- around with cameras, to see just what kind of wacky, oddball, hilarity might ensue.
Here is a Good Morning America clip that talks about Ms. Jones, the Tyler station, and the ethical issues involved:
Let me say --and I hope you all noted-- that the brief GMA clip of the "average" Tyler "woman on the street" indicates that she's really embarrassed by this whole episode. Many of us here in Texas are. This is FOX thing, not a Texas thing. Please keep that in mind. (Please?)
And the thing that gets me about all this is not that FOX came up with this idea. I expect that from them. They're FOX. What really gets me is the choice of this TV station to play along.
Why in the heck did the editors at this station (A CBS affiliate, btw...) allow this?! Do they really see their newsroom as nothing more than a playground for some crass cultural experiment? Isn't it still a real newsroom? Aren't there some standards of journalistic professionalism that need to be embraced and held sacred?
Or, have we really come to a place where style does trump substance, and such things just don't matter anymore?
After all, since all the customer sees is the image of a body in a chair, maybe looking good really is all that matters. Maybe any old good-looking body can do it.
Since most of the TV news appears to be about Paris Hilton, maybe it's just the natural evolution of things to have the news read by Paris Hilton.
Hey....speaking Paris Hilton...
No...really....
You see, into this sorry state of affairs comes a real TV anchorwoman who gives me the hope that substance isn't quite dead yet.
Mika Brzezinski --daughter of former Carter cabinet member, Zbigniew-- is a respectable journalist with MSNBC. Several weeks ago now, she did something on MSNBC's new morning show, "Morning Joe," that caused quite a stir in the journalistic world.
Brzezinski's task was to provide short, top-of-the-hour, news breaks on the show hosted by Joe Scarborough. But on this day, she decided she would not "lead" with a yet another story about Paris Hilton.
Apparently, she actually believed there were others stories more deserving of the lead position that morning. You know, like maybe the war? Maybe...I don't know...the Attorney General scandal? Maybe the key Republican Senator who, that very morning, had announced his break with the President on the issue of the war, and his newly found support for bringing the troops home now?
Gee, maybe, she thought, one of those is the real lead story of the day.
But no. Her editors gave her yet another in the endless cycle of trivial and vacuous Paris Hilton stories. That was to be her lead.
But on this particular morning, something in Mika Brzezinski snapped. For three successive "news breaks" that morning, she refused to follow the instructions of her bosses. She wouldn't do the story on Paris Hilton. She and the other on-air personalities treat it with a sense of humor. They joke about it. But you can also sense a very real frustration simmering in her, just below the surface.
Take a look:
People seem to be captured by, and enamored with, this small "protest" by Brzezinski. In fact, 2.8 million people have watched the above clip on YouTube. That is HUGE.
And, she has become something of a celebrity among her fellow journalists, and folks like me, who are cheered by her actions. In an AP story after-the-fact, Brzezinski says this:
"I could not get through the first three words without crumbling. My skin was crawling. This was our lead? On a day like this?"
And as for the positive reaction to her little on-air-protest, she offers up this thought:
"Among journalists it touched a nerve because I think we’re tired of pretending this is important. We also know that, deep down inside, our viewers know that we don’t believe this is news. They can’t. They can’t think we’re that dumb."
Indeed!
Happily, her MSNBC bosses have actually seen fit to give her the "chair" on a new hour-long morning news show. And I will point out that, in the past few weeks, the rest of the media seems to finally have gotten the hint that nobody's all that concerned about Paris Hilton.
Thank God.
-----------------------------------
On his show, Keith Olbermann used to introduce Paris-Hilton-like stories with the tag line "another story my producers are making me cover." He would say it in jest. But you also always hoped he really believed it too.
Mika Brzezinski reminded us that he's not alone. She reminded us that perhaps it does matter who sits in "the chair." A bimbo is probably never going to "get" that a story about a bimbo is not a lead story. A swimsuit model is probably never going to grasp that it's really not even news at all. And a wrestling "personality" is probably never going to have the guts to stand up to her editors on live national television.
Hopefully, now and then, a journalist will.
And hopefully, now and then, we'll continue to be reminded that, in the end, substance still does matter.
We turn to them again and again in moments of crisis, for information, comfort, and a communal connection with others. In fact, in times of crisis you could argue that TV news anchors draw millions of us together in a way that no other media source --no one else anywhere, really-- can.
But the unspoken underbelly of TV news anchors is that they not only have to be sharp and professional journalists, but they also have to be easy on the eye. I am not saying I believe this to be fair. I am saying that if you asked 100 journalists about it, the vast majority would give you Walter Cronkite's answer: It's just "the way it is."
The movie "Broadcast News" famously brought this truth to the big screen. It pitted the characters of William Hurt and Albert Brooks against each other. In the film, Hurt plays a "pretty boy" who knows virtually nothing of journalism, but somehow manages to ascend to "the chair," as the lead anchor of a network news show. Brooks plays an intelligent, well trained, but far-too-self-aware, journeyman reporter who knows the world, knows his profession, and knows that none that matters in a world where style so often trumps substance.
At the end of the movie, Brooks walks away from the insanely-manic pace of the network newsroom, content to live out his days as a local reporter for a Seattle affiliate. Hurt, the pretty boy, becomes a broadcast news institution.
Of course, there is an even deeper, and crasser, level to this "style vs substance" dynamic. The deeper level is the unfair double standard concerning women and men on TV news.
Yes, men are mostly expected to be "pretty boys." But some of them aren't. Cronkite was a lovable grandfather. Koppel looked vaguely like Alfred E. Newman. Guys can get away that, so long as we believe them to be consummate journalistic professionals.
Women cannot. They are not only expected to be consummate professionals, but they are also expected to be...well..."Babes."
Even with his grandfatherly countenance, Cronkite might still be able to chair the CBS News today. He knows the world, he knows the news. It doesn't matter how he looks. Katie Couric not only has to know the world and know the news, but she has to look "pretty" doing it too.
Again, I'm not saying this is fair or right. In fact, it's more than a little sick, and really quite sexist.
But leave it to FOX to push this envelope as far as it will go. FOX --the network that gave a whole new meaning to "style over substance"-- is in the process of editing a new reality show called "Anchorwoman."
The premise of the show places a woman, whose only credentials appear to be that she is a "babe," in the anchor chair of a Tyler Texas newsroom. The woman, Lauren Jones, is a former swimsuit model and pro-wrestling...ahem..."personality." She has ZERO training as a journalist. She has ZERO experience as a journalist.
But for reasons still unclear to me, a Tyler TV station allowed FOX to insert her into their staff, and even gave her the "chair" as coanchor of their local evening news. Then, they allowed FOX to follow her --and the rest of their staff- around with cameras, to see just what kind of wacky, oddball, hilarity might ensue.
Here is a Good Morning America clip that talks about Ms. Jones, the Tyler station, and the ethical issues involved:
Let me say --and I hope you all noted-- that the brief GMA clip of the "average" Tyler "woman on the street" indicates that she's really embarrassed by this whole episode. Many of us here in Texas are. This is FOX thing, not a Texas thing. Please keep that in mind. (Please?)
And the thing that gets me about all this is not that FOX came up with this idea. I expect that from them. They're FOX. What really gets me is the choice of this TV station to play along.
Why in the heck did the editors at this station (A CBS affiliate, btw...) allow this?! Do they really see their newsroom as nothing more than a playground for some crass cultural experiment? Isn't it still a real newsroom? Aren't there some standards of journalistic professionalism that need to be embraced and held sacred?
Or, have we really come to a place where style does trump substance, and such things just don't matter anymore?
After all, since all the customer sees is the image of a body in a chair, maybe looking good really is all that matters. Maybe any old good-looking body can do it.
Since most of the TV news appears to be about Paris Hilton, maybe it's just the natural evolution of things to have the news read by Paris Hilton.
Hey....speaking Paris Hilton...
No...really....
You see, into this sorry state of affairs comes a real TV anchorwoman who gives me the hope that substance isn't quite dead yet.
Mika Brzezinski --daughter of former Carter cabinet member, Zbigniew-- is a respectable journalist with MSNBC. Several weeks ago now, she did something on MSNBC's new morning show, "Morning Joe," that caused quite a stir in the journalistic world.
Brzezinski's task was to provide short, top-of-the-hour, news breaks on the show hosted by Joe Scarborough. But on this day, she decided she would not "lead" with a yet another story about Paris Hilton.
Apparently, she actually believed there were others stories more deserving of the lead position that morning. You know, like maybe the war? Maybe...I don't know...the Attorney General scandal? Maybe the key Republican Senator who, that very morning, had announced his break with the President on the issue of the war, and his newly found support for bringing the troops home now?
Gee, maybe, she thought, one of those is the real lead story of the day.
But no. Her editors gave her yet another in the endless cycle of trivial and vacuous Paris Hilton stories. That was to be her lead.
But on this particular morning, something in Mika Brzezinski snapped. For three successive "news breaks" that morning, she refused to follow the instructions of her bosses. She wouldn't do the story on Paris Hilton. She and the other on-air personalities treat it with a sense of humor. They joke about it. But you can also sense a very real frustration simmering in her, just below the surface.
Take a look:
People seem to be captured by, and enamored with, this small "protest" by Brzezinski. In fact, 2.8 million people have watched the above clip on YouTube. That is HUGE.
And, she has become something of a celebrity among her fellow journalists, and folks like me, who are cheered by her actions. In an AP story after-the-fact, Brzezinski says this:
"I could not get through the first three words without crumbling. My skin was crawling. This was our lead? On a day like this?"
And as for the positive reaction to her little on-air-protest, she offers up this thought:
"Among journalists it touched a nerve because I think we’re tired of pretending this is important. We also know that, deep down inside, our viewers know that we don’t believe this is news. They can’t. They can’t think we’re that dumb."
Indeed!
Happily, her MSNBC bosses have actually seen fit to give her the "chair" on a new hour-long morning news show. And I will point out that, in the past few weeks, the rest of the media seems to finally have gotten the hint that nobody's all that concerned about Paris Hilton.
Thank God.
-----------------------------------
On his show, Keith Olbermann used to introduce Paris-Hilton-like stories with the tag line "another story my producers are making me cover." He would say it in jest. But you also always hoped he really believed it too.
Mika Brzezinski reminded us that he's not alone. She reminded us that perhaps it does matter who sits in "the chair." A bimbo is probably never going to "get" that a story about a bimbo is not a lead story. A swimsuit model is probably never going to grasp that it's really not even news at all. And a wrestling "personality" is probably never going to have the guts to stand up to her editors on live national television.
Hopefully, now and then, a journalist will.
And hopefully, now and then, we'll continue to be reminded that, in the end, substance still does matter.
The First Mother's Day
May/13/2007 02:37 PM | Permalink
Hope you're having a good Mother's Day today.
Did you know, however, that the very first Mother's Day in America was not a day for flowers or Hallmark Cards? It was not a day of champagne brunches and long distance phone calls.
The very first Mother's Day in America was visioned as a day for Mother's to call for an end to war. The first Mother's Day was an anti-war protest.
It's true. And it's a story I've been telling in Mother's Day sermons for many years now. I first learned this story though the Rev. Forrester Church's great book, "God, and Other Famous Liberals." But it's also a story that's now been chronicled in this wonderful website, called "Mother's Day for Peace."
The Mother's Day we celebrate was codified as a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was urged to create Mother's Day by activists like Anna Jarvis. (Some of the proponents of the Mother's Day we celebrate, btw, were good Methodist women...)
But that's not the very first Mother's Day. The first Mother's Day was the invention of a remarkable woman: Julia Ward Howe.
Julia Ward Howe and her husband were among the "whos who" of Boston society in the mid-1800s. But Julia was not content to rest comfortably in a high strata of society. She was a free-thinker and a passionate supporter of women's rights. She was an abolitionist.
Interestingly, Julia Ward Howe is actually best known as the writer of the famous "Battle Hymn of the Republic." A song that eventually became the anthem of the Union Army, it remains one of our national treasures to this day.
Howe was initially honored that a song she'd written became such a crucial part of the war effort. However, as the Civil War grew longer and the casualties mounted, she became increasingly uneasy that her song was being used to justify aggression and killing. Although she never seems renounced the song completely, it is clear that in later years she became concerned about the nationalistic pride that some took from it.
After the long horror of the Civil War ended, Julia Ward Howe became hopeful that perhaps humankind would put an end to war once and for all. Surely, she reasoned, humanity would find other ways to resolve disputes. Surely everyone could see how bloody and senseless war was as a tool of diplomacy and change. Surely, the horrid lesson of the American Civil War would be that war would "never again" be waged.
However, even as America was still healing its own war wounds, Howe began to hear the rumors of war a new war in Europe. The Franko-Prussian War soon broke out. Julia Ward Howe was devastated.
How could humanity be so mindless?
Could anyone out there actually stop war?
Finally, she hit on an idea. She reasoned that politicians and generals were usually men, and that men were usually the drivers of war. So, she reasoned, perhaps the one group who would have an undeniable voice in the struggle to end war were mothers.
Who gave up more in war?
Who suffered more from the premature and senseless deaths of their sons?
So, in 1870 Julia Ward Howe wrote the first official "Mother's Day Proclamation." In subsequent years, Mother's Day gatherings were organized around this proclamation in towns like Boston, New York, and Paris.
Here's a part of that first proclamation:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession."
Like many visionaries and dreamers, Julia Ward Howe's vision of Mother's Day faded. Some fifty-years after her original proclamation, a new generation took up the cause and Mother's Day became the sweet, sentimental, and relatively benign holiday we've come to know.
But it can never be denied that the very first Mother's Day was organized by a mother opposed to war.
Recently, a friend sent me a link to a new website that tells the story of Julia Ward Howe's "Mother's Day" in much the same way that I have related it here.
But this site does one more thing. It takes Howe's own proclamation --now almost 140-years-old-- and brings them to life through the voices of famous actresses and activists of our time.
Take a look at it the video now, and hear the words of Julia Ward Howe, as they echo down through time...
As I said, I've been telling the story of Julia Ward Howe for several years now. And as I mentioned, I have used her story in several Mother's Day sermons over the years. But it struck me this year that the great Julia Ward Howe has a modern counterpart. Her name is Cindy Sheehan.
I realize that there are a great many people who dislike Cindy Sheehan. Perhaps even hate her. Even though three-fourths of Americans now seem to believe the war is not going well, and vast majorities want to the war to end soon, mothers like Cindy Sheehan are still vilified and hated by many.
But the reality is that the "movement" Sheehan inspired was first led by modern-day mothers, just as Howe led it 140-years-ago. These are mothers who simply want an answer to a simple question:
What is the noble justification for this war?
It's a good question. And, to my mind, it remains unanswered to this day.
During my trips to Camp Casey, that first August of its existence, I was struck by how organic the movement was. It was clearly a movement primarily led by women. They were not "slick." They were not "politicos." But they were sincere, they were hurting, and they just wanted some answers. They came together as much to gather strength from each other --to remind themselves that they were not alone-- as they did to become activists.
Many of the women I met at Camp Casey had never spoken publicly before any crowd, but were now being interviewed on national television. Many were still sorting out their own views of the war. But they felt compelled to speak, and to be heard. And for a short time the nation listened to them.
And they have a great-great-great-grandmother in Julia Ward Howe.
So, whatever you are doing this Mother's Day, whatever your view of this particular war, I hope you can give thanks for the vision of Julia Ward Howe and remember the peaceful vision of the very first Mother's Day.
Did you know, however, that the very first Mother's Day in America was not a day for flowers or Hallmark Cards? It was not a day of champagne brunches and long distance phone calls.
The very first Mother's Day in America was visioned as a day for Mother's to call for an end to war. The first Mother's Day was an anti-war protest.
It's true. And it's a story I've been telling in Mother's Day sermons for many years now. I first learned this story though the Rev. Forrester Church's great book, "God, and Other Famous Liberals." But it's also a story that's now been chronicled in this wonderful website, called "Mother's Day for Peace."
The Mother's Day we celebrate was codified as a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was urged to create Mother's Day by activists like Anna Jarvis. (Some of the proponents of the Mother's Day we celebrate, btw, were good Methodist women...)
But that's not the very first Mother's Day. The first Mother's Day was the invention of a remarkable woman: Julia Ward Howe.
Julia Ward Howe and her husband were among the "whos who" of Boston society in the mid-1800s. But Julia was not content to rest comfortably in a high strata of society. She was a free-thinker and a passionate supporter of women's rights. She was an abolitionist.
Interestingly, Julia Ward Howe is actually best known as the writer of the famous "Battle Hymn of the Republic." A song that eventually became the anthem of the Union Army, it remains one of our national treasures to this day.
Howe was initially honored that a song she'd written became such a crucial part of the war effort. However, as the Civil War grew longer and the casualties mounted, she became increasingly uneasy that her song was being used to justify aggression and killing. Although she never seems renounced the song completely, it is clear that in later years she became concerned about the nationalistic pride that some took from it.
After the long horror of the Civil War ended, Julia Ward Howe became hopeful that perhaps humankind would put an end to war once and for all. Surely, she reasoned, humanity would find other ways to resolve disputes. Surely everyone could see how bloody and senseless war was as a tool of diplomacy and change. Surely, the horrid lesson of the American Civil War would be that war would "never again" be waged.
However, even as America was still healing its own war wounds, Howe began to hear the rumors of war a new war in Europe. The Franko-Prussian War soon broke out. Julia Ward Howe was devastated.
How could humanity be so mindless?
Could anyone out there actually stop war?
Finally, she hit on an idea. She reasoned that politicians and generals were usually men, and that men were usually the drivers of war. So, she reasoned, perhaps the one group who would have an undeniable voice in the struggle to end war were mothers.
Who gave up more in war?
Who suffered more from the premature and senseless deaths of their sons?
So, in 1870 Julia Ward Howe wrote the first official "Mother's Day Proclamation." In subsequent years, Mother's Day gatherings were organized around this proclamation in towns like Boston, New York, and Paris.
Here's a part of that first proclamation:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession."
Like many visionaries and dreamers, Julia Ward Howe's vision of Mother's Day faded. Some fifty-years after her original proclamation, a new generation took up the cause and Mother's Day became the sweet, sentimental, and relatively benign holiday we've come to know.
But it can never be denied that the very first Mother's Day was organized by a mother opposed to war.
Recently, a friend sent me a link to a new website that tells the story of Julia Ward Howe's "Mother's Day" in much the same way that I have related it here.
But this site does one more thing. It takes Howe's own proclamation --now almost 140-years-old-- and brings them to life through the voices of famous actresses and activists of our time.
Take a look at it the video now, and hear the words of Julia Ward Howe, as they echo down through time...
As I said, I've been telling the story of Julia Ward Howe for several years now. And as I mentioned, I have used her story in several Mother's Day sermons over the years. But it struck me this year that the great Julia Ward Howe has a modern counterpart. Her name is Cindy Sheehan.
I realize that there are a great many people who dislike Cindy Sheehan. Perhaps even hate her. Even though three-fourths of Americans now seem to believe the war is not going well, and vast majorities want to the war to end soon, mothers like Cindy Sheehan are still vilified and hated by many.
But the reality is that the "movement" Sheehan inspired was first led by modern-day mothers, just as Howe led it 140-years-ago. These are mothers who simply want an answer to a simple question:
What is the noble justification for this war?
It's a good question. And, to my mind, it remains unanswered to this day.
During my trips to Camp Casey, that first August of its existence, I was struck by how organic the movement was. It was clearly a movement primarily led by women. They were not "slick." They were not "politicos." But they were sincere, they were hurting, and they just wanted some answers. They came together as much to gather strength from each other --to remind themselves that they were not alone-- as they did to become activists.
Many of the women I met at Camp Casey had never spoken publicly before any crowd, but were now being interviewed on national television. Many were still sorting out their own views of the war. But they felt compelled to speak, and to be heard. And for a short time the nation listened to them.
And they have a great-great-great-grandmother in Julia Ward Howe.
So, whatever you are doing this Mother's Day, whatever your view of this particular war, I hope you can give thanks for the vision of Julia Ward Howe and remember the peaceful vision of the very first Mother's Day.
What about This General?
May/10/2007 07:38 AM | Permalink
The President listens to the troops...the men and
women on the ground?
Yes, it's a question. And the longer the war goes, the more I wonder about it
For example, how about these?
Is that ad too connected with Wesley Clark to be convincing? Still doesn't include someone "on the ground" from Iraq?
OK, then. What about this General?
I'm no Army expert, but reading his title in the ad, I'm pretty sure that this was a guy with his boots on the ground.
Still too partisan?
OK, then. What about the 11 Republican members of congress who visited the President yesterday? Among other things, they apparently said this:
"Participants in Tuesday's White House meeting said frustration about the Iraqi government's efforts dominated the conversation, with one pleading with the president to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood." The House members pressed Bush and Gates hard for a "Plan B" if the current troop increase fails to quell the violence and push along political reconciliation."
"...Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone."
So, if he's not listening to these troops, these generals, or these Republican members of congress, who is he listening to?
Yes, it's a question. And the longer the war goes, the more I wonder about it
For example, how about these?
Is that ad too connected with Wesley Clark to be convincing? Still doesn't include someone "on the ground" from Iraq?
OK, then. What about this General?
I'm no Army expert, but reading his title in the ad, I'm pretty sure that this was a guy with his boots on the ground.
Still too partisan?
OK, then. What about the 11 Republican members of congress who visited the President yesterday? Among other things, they apparently said this:
"Participants in Tuesday's White House meeting said frustration about the Iraqi government's efforts dominated the conversation, with one pleading with the president to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood." The House members pressed Bush and Gates hard for a "Plan B" if the current troop increase fails to quell the violence and push along political reconciliation."
"...Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone."
So, if he's not listening to these troops, these generals, or these Republican members of congress, who is he listening to?
When There Are No Answers
Apr/17/2007 08:07 AM | Permalink
Sometimes, when a horrible tragedy happens, there are
simply no good answers. Or, if there are, it takes
weeks --if not months-- for them to emerge.
This morning, I am thinking, of course, of the shocking events at Virginia Tech yesterday. And it strikes me that the one thing we know is that we don't know very much.
But despite all we don't know, as usual, there has been an immediate rush-to-judgment; especially by the media.
When things like this happen, there is a natural human reaction to want to regain control, and to regain it immediately. Each one of us has our own natural responses that help us feel as if we have regained control again. Each of us has a natural desire to do something to be helpful.
But the truth is that, right now, most of us
can't offer much help beyond offering up our prayers,
our moments of silence, our mouths covered in horror.
And while that might not feel like much this morning,
in a sense it's a beautiful thing to offer because
it's so human and so honest.
And the problem is that we now live in a culture where we expect answers --fully formed, investigated, and justified-- within minutes of a tragedy like this. We don't like just offering prayers and keeping silence. We're all lemmings in this 24-hour media culture. We want action, and we want it now. Our sitcoms last thirty minutes...why can't they wrap up these tragedies that quickly too?
In a way that sickens my stomach, the critics and pundits are already "spinning" these events.
There has already been a great deal of second guessing of the local police and university officials. There has been an anti-gun group weigh-in about Virginia's apparently lax gun laws. There has been a pro-gun group who claims the whole thing could have been avoided by less restrictive laws.
And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of media-types, descending on this sleepy town and university, in the desperate hunt for the "breaking story" and the "hear it here first" scoop...hoping against hope to do what they were trained to do, and to feed our hunger for information NOW.
Enough, already.
Let us honor and mourn the dead. Let us leave the questions about fault, responsibility, and procedure to another day. Maybe even another week. Let us, first and foremost, allow ourselves to feel our grief and shock. Let us PRAY, or meditate, or observer a time of silence. Whatever we're comfortable with.
And stop the blame game. At least for now. Because we don't know everything, and we probably won't for some time.
One thing I know from previous situations like this: much of what gets thrown into the public debate early on is often later disproved and debunked. Remember how everyone believed that the OKC bomber "must" have been an "arab terrorist?" I remember that.
As of now, we're not even sure that there was only one gunman.
Last night, even on a news show I respect immensely --Countdown with Keith Olbermann-- I saw a lot of finger pointing and premature questioning.
I saw Olbermann and the MSNBC staff questioning the actions of the university staff.
They keep asking: Why didn't they shut down the campus right away?
This question really bugs me, at least right now. Maybe I will change my mind later and be as angry and accusatory as they seem to be now. But I also used to be an "RA," and I was a Hall Director too. I did that work for five straight years of my graduate and undergraduate life.
And one thing I know is this: college campuses are not like high school campuses.
You can lock down a high school campus in a couple of minutes. But even if you wanted to, it could take hours to lock down a college campus. And even then, it's doubtful you could ever "lock" it down completely. Most high school campuses consist of a single building. Locking down a college campus would be like locking down 40 or 50 of them, simultaneously.
It seems to me totally reasonable that authorities would assume the first shooting was an isolated incident, and that the shooter might have left the campus. It seems to me totally reasonable that it would take some time for them to ascertain precisely what had occurred and get the word out. A delay of at least an hour, perhaps two, getting any kind of word to the rest of the campus, seems understandable, even in a post-911 world.
As a Hall Director, I can remember working with the campus police to figure out what had happened when sometime as simple as a fire alarm got pulled. In fact, fire alarms used to get pulled pretty regularly in the dorms. Every single time, we'd evacuate that dorm and do a search. That takes time. Dorms are big places. (The one in question at VTA housed over 800 students...)
One night in my dorm, we also dealt with a bomb threat. It took a dozen or so folks, student staff and campus police, more than an hour to do a search of just that ONE building. In that time, nobody ever thought to search another building, or shut it down too. Imagine how long it would take to search every building of a campus, or lock them all down!
And let's say that the university did immediately decide to shut down the campus. What's the best thing to do? Do you ask students to walk back across campus to their dorms? Is that safe? Do you ask them to go back to the dorms, where the only shooting you know about has just taken place? Why would the authorities assume that was safe? Couldn't it be safer to remain inside a classroom, and to try not to panic everyone? Hard to know, really.
My point is, the answers aren't easy. You're dealing with student staff --RAs and Hall Directors-- who are compensated in room, board, and tuition, and whose main goal is to be a student, not a cop. You're dealing with campus police, whose are much more adept at towing cars and tucking in drunk students, not practicing paramilitary SWAT drills.
I've also already heard the police criticized for not yet confirming the identity of the shooter. But, as for me? I'd rather them do a thorough investigation than rush to put out information that turns out to be faulty.
Given the bitter questioning that's already taking place, I am not surprised that they are using the ubiquitous "abundance of caution" in what they say now. The more the damning-questions get asked, the more these scared authorities will want to be sure all their ducks are in a row before they say another word.
All I'm asking is this: give them a break. At least for now. They're grieving too. They're second-guessing themselves as much or more as anyone. It'll all come out eventually. Just not today.
Maybe I'll change my mind about this. Maybe we all will. Maybe we'll find out there was gross negligence on the part of the university and staff. But my hunch is that, like 911, we'll find out that it was just a chaotic scene where everybody was doing the best they knew how.
We all want answers. And in our light-speed-paced, media driven culture, we want answers yesterday. Reporters, like everybody else, don't know what to do, don't know what to say, and don't know how to respond either. So, in these cases, reporters do what they do best. They start to ask questions, and begin to assign blame.
Some folks bring bundt cakes over to your house when someone dies. Reporters bring questions.
I understand why. I just wish that, in the first days of a tragedy like this, we could simply all admit that we're not going to get any complete answers. In those first hours, we're not even going to get any good factual answers. And in the days and weeks to come, we may never get good moral ones. That's tremendously unsettling. And in response, we feel like we need to DO something...do more...
But this morning, thousands of VTA students and faculty are in still reeling. Hundreds of people directly involved are still trying to find their feet underneath them. And fifty families, and their close friends, are just now beginning to feel a deep personal shock, that will soon be followed by waves of grief, and finally an abiding anger and confusion.
But all that is yet to come.
For now, let us simply lift our prayers, offer our meditations and deepest sympathies. And let us learn to keep silence, for just a while, in the face of questions we may never know the answers to.
This morning, I am thinking, of course, of the shocking events at Virginia Tech yesterday. And it strikes me that the one thing we know is that we don't know very much.
But despite all we don't know, as usual, there has been an immediate rush-to-judgment; especially by the media.
When things like this happen, there is a natural human reaction to want to regain control, and to regain it immediately. Each one of us has our own natural responses that help us feel as if we have regained control again. Each of us has a natural desire to do something to be helpful.
And the problem is that we now live in a culture where we expect answers --fully formed, investigated, and justified-- within minutes of a tragedy like this. We don't like just offering prayers and keeping silence. We're all lemmings in this 24-hour media culture. We want action, and we want it now. Our sitcoms last thirty minutes...why can't they wrap up these tragedies that quickly too?
In a way that sickens my stomach, the critics and pundits are already "spinning" these events.
There has already been a great deal of second guessing of the local police and university officials. There has been an anti-gun group weigh-in about Virginia's apparently lax gun laws. There has been a pro-gun group who claims the whole thing could have been avoided by less restrictive laws.
And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of media-types, descending on this sleepy town and university, in the desperate hunt for the "breaking story" and the "hear it here first" scoop...hoping against hope to do what they were trained to do, and to feed our hunger for information NOW.
Enough, already.
Let us honor and mourn the dead. Let us leave the questions about fault, responsibility, and procedure to another day. Maybe even another week. Let us, first and foremost, allow ourselves to feel our grief and shock. Let us PRAY, or meditate, or observer a time of silence. Whatever we're comfortable with.
And stop the blame game. At least for now. Because we don't know everything, and we probably won't for some time.
One thing I know from previous situations like this: much of what gets thrown into the public debate early on is often later disproved and debunked. Remember how everyone believed that the OKC bomber "must" have been an "arab terrorist?" I remember that.
As of now, we're not even sure that there was only one gunman.
Last night, even on a news show I respect immensely --Countdown with Keith Olbermann-- I saw a lot of finger pointing and premature questioning.
I saw Olbermann and the MSNBC staff questioning the actions of the university staff.
They keep asking: Why didn't they shut down the campus right away?
This question really bugs me, at least right now. Maybe I will change my mind later and be as angry and accusatory as they seem to be now. But I also used to be an "RA," and I was a Hall Director too. I did that work for five straight years of my graduate and undergraduate life.
And one thing I know is this: college campuses are not like high school campuses.
You can lock down a high school campus in a couple of minutes. But even if you wanted to, it could take hours to lock down a college campus. And even then, it's doubtful you could ever "lock" it down completely. Most high school campuses consist of a single building. Locking down a college campus would be like locking down 40 or 50 of them, simultaneously.
It seems to me totally reasonable that authorities would assume the first shooting was an isolated incident, and that the shooter might have left the campus. It seems to me totally reasonable that it would take some time for them to ascertain precisely what had occurred and get the word out. A delay of at least an hour, perhaps two, getting any kind of word to the rest of the campus, seems understandable, even in a post-911 world.
As a Hall Director, I can remember working with the campus police to figure out what had happened when sometime as simple as a fire alarm got pulled. In fact, fire alarms used to get pulled pretty regularly in the dorms. Every single time, we'd evacuate that dorm and do a search. That takes time. Dorms are big places. (The one in question at VTA housed over 800 students...)
One night in my dorm, we also dealt with a bomb threat. It took a dozen or so folks, student staff and campus police, more than an hour to do a search of just that ONE building. In that time, nobody ever thought to search another building, or shut it down too. Imagine how long it would take to search every building of a campus, or lock them all down!
And let's say that the university did immediately decide to shut down the campus. What's the best thing to do? Do you ask students to walk back across campus to their dorms? Is that safe? Do you ask them to go back to the dorms, where the only shooting you know about has just taken place? Why would the authorities assume that was safe? Couldn't it be safer to remain inside a classroom, and to try not to panic everyone? Hard to know, really.
My point is, the answers aren't easy. You're dealing with student staff --RAs and Hall Directors-- who are compensated in room, board, and tuition, and whose main goal is to be a student, not a cop. You're dealing with campus police, whose are much more adept at towing cars and tucking in drunk students, not practicing paramilitary SWAT drills.
I've also already heard the police criticized for not yet confirming the identity of the shooter. But, as for me? I'd rather them do a thorough investigation than rush to put out information that turns out to be faulty.
Given the bitter questioning that's already taking place, I am not surprised that they are using the ubiquitous "abundance of caution" in what they say now. The more the damning-questions get asked, the more these scared authorities will want to be sure all their ducks are in a row before they say another word.
All I'm asking is this: give them a break. At least for now. They're grieving too. They're second-guessing themselves as much or more as anyone. It'll all come out eventually. Just not today.
Maybe I'll change my mind about this. Maybe we all will. Maybe we'll find out there was gross negligence on the part of the university and staff. But my hunch is that, like 911, we'll find out that it was just a chaotic scene where everybody was doing the best they knew how.
We all want answers. And in our light-speed-paced, media driven culture, we want answers yesterday. Reporters, like everybody else, don't know what to do, don't know what to say, and don't know how to respond either. So, in these cases, reporters do what they do best. They start to ask questions, and begin to assign blame.
Some folks bring bundt cakes over to your house when someone dies. Reporters bring questions.
I understand why. I just wish that, in the first days of a tragedy like this, we could simply all admit that we're not going to get any complete answers. In those first hours, we're not even going to get any good factual answers. And in the days and weeks to come, we may never get good moral ones. That's tremendously unsettling. And in response, we feel like we need to DO something...do more...
But this morning, thousands of VTA students and faculty are in still reeling. Hundreds of people directly involved are still trying to find their feet underneath them. And fifty families, and their close friends, are just now beginning to feel a deep personal shock, that will soon be followed by waves of grief, and finally an abiding anger and confusion.
But all that is yet to come.
For now, let us simply lift our prayers, offer our meditations and deepest sympathies. And let us learn to keep silence, for just a while, in the face of questions we may never know the answers to.
Election Night 2006
Nov/22/2006 07:44 PM | Permalink
On the day
after early voting ended, I decided to do a little
analysis of the vote, based on a quick and dirty
formula I personally devised. You should know that I
am not the best "detail" person in the world. I don't
do trees very well. But I do forests exquisitely.
So, I took the 20-some early voting locations, and I assigned a specific percentage of the vote to each one of them...a percentage, based on my opinion of how the vote in that early voting location would break down, Republican vs. Democratic. It was a "SWAG." Obviously, for more traditionally Republican areas, the percentages favored the Republicans more. Vice versa for more traditionally Democratic parts of town. For those areas where it's not so clear, I made some additional assumptions. (I'm not going to tell you my exact formula. Would Colonel Sanders tell you the "Original Recipe?")
When I took the early vote count total for all these voting locations, ran it through my little quick-and-dirty formula, then figured the percentage of votes, I determined that the early vote, party-wise, was breaking out something like this:
Republicans: 52 percent
Democrats: 48 percent
Interestingly, this was also my analysis of what the straight party vote would come out for this election, based on watching the trends in the past three elections. (For more on this, see my complete election analysis here)
If that sounds like bad news for Democrats, it's not. Republicans always win the early vote. Always. They probably always will. They excel in encouraging their straight ticket voters to get out and vote early. And --in ways I am in awe of-- they are magicians at producing large numbers of absentee and mail-in ballots that benefit their side.
Point is: to be down four percentage points, at the end of early voting, is not bad. It's great.
Early Vote Math
In 2002, when Sally Montgomery was elected, she won 45 percent of the early vote. In other words she was down when the early returns came in. But by the time the night was over, she had won as the first elected Democrat in 10 years. In 2004, Dennise's own math assumed that she (and any other Democrat) would need to be tracking at about 46 percent of the early vote to win that night. She actually got about 47 percent.
(By the way, that's when we knew she had a chance of winning. When those early returns in 2004 came back at 7 pm, and showed her down by just three points, we knew she really might win...)
So, my analysis showed this year's early vote coming out at 52-48, which was beyond anyone's wildest dreams. In fact, it was so optimistic that, despite the fact that I was pretty sure it was accurate (from a "forest" point of view...), I shared it with almost no one. I did share it with Jeff Dalton, and he told me that someone else in the Democratic Party had also done a "real" analysis that showed about the same numbers.
Still, though, this seemed wildly optimistic. After all, if the Democrats started the evening just two percentage points down in the early vote, that would mean they would probably sweep. All of them.
Sure enough, when the early returns came out on election night, the actual stats for the straight party vote?
Republicans 51.7
Democrats: 47.7
We knew right then: not only would Dennise win, but a lot of other people would too.
Sorry We Worried You
BTW, sincere apologies to all our friends and family for not explaining this strange, electoral math of Dallas County. Many of you have described your tortured thoughts (on both election nights...) as you went to bed assuming that Dennise had gone down to defeat both times, only to wake the next morning to her two victories. It's just the way the vote comes in here in the county. Based on the assumptions you can make about when people vote and why, Democrats will always get more election-day turnout; Republicans, more early vote turnout.
I went downstairs to the ballroom just after the early vote, to see if anyone else was as optimistic as I was becoming. I don't think it had fully sunk in with anyone yet. Most folks were dazed that the Dems were behind, and assumed we'd all lost again.
By the end of the night, however, it was the exact opposite...a complete sweep by the Dallas County Democrats of every single county-wide race. And, as I said in my other blog entry, Dennise led the pack...
...winning by 31,000 votes.
...winning by the largest margin (54-45) of any race in the last four elections.
She also won the early "in person" vote too. That's unheard of, really...a Democrat winning any part of the early vote. But Dennise did. Dennise's opponent won the overall early vote because she had a 1,100 vote margin in "mail in" votes. But we knew --when we saw Dennise was only down 1,100 in the early vote, that she had won the "in person" early vote, and that the straight ticket vote was 52-48-- that Dennise would win big.
So, after what was a truly grueling campaign (described for you here) election night was truly fun. It was the win we'd been waiting for for two years. It was a relief to have so many other Democrats win, and be able to celebrate with them. The truth is that while the 2004 election was great for Dennise personally, it was somewhat surreal otherwise. We were thrilled, but many of the other Democrats at the victory party that year were like zombies, having lost the Presidency, and just about every other major office.
Not so this time. Election night was a blast.
So, I took the 20-some early voting locations, and I assigned a specific percentage of the vote to each one of them...a percentage, based on my opinion of how the vote in that early voting location would break down, Republican vs. Democratic. It was a "SWAG." Obviously, for more traditionally Republican areas, the percentages favored the Republicans more. Vice versa for more traditionally Democratic parts of town. For those areas where it's not so clear, I made some additional assumptions. (I'm not going to tell you my exact formula. Would Colonel Sanders tell you the "Original Recipe?")
When I took the early vote count total for all these voting locations, ran it through my little quick-and-dirty formula, then figured the percentage of votes, I determined that the early vote, party-wise, was breaking out something like this:
Republicans: 52 percent
Democrats: 48 percent
Interestingly, this was also my analysis of what the straight party vote would come out for this election, based on watching the trends in the past three elections. (For more on this, see my complete election analysis here)
If that sounds like bad news for Democrats, it's not. Republicans always win the early vote. Always. They probably always will. They excel in encouraging their straight ticket voters to get out and vote early. And --in ways I am in awe of-- they are magicians at producing large numbers of absentee and mail-in ballots that benefit their side.
Point is: to be down four percentage points, at the end of early voting, is not bad. It's great.
Early Vote Math
In 2002, when Sally Montgomery was elected, she won 45 percent of the early vote. In other words she was down when the early returns came in. But by the time the night was over, she had won as the first elected Democrat in 10 years. In 2004, Dennise's own math assumed that she (and any other Democrat) would need to be tracking at about 46 percent of the early vote to win that night. She actually got about 47 percent.
(By the way, that's when we knew she had a chance of winning. When those early returns in 2004 came back at 7 pm, and showed her down by just three points, we knew she really might win...)
So, my analysis showed this year's early vote coming out at 52-48, which was beyond anyone's wildest dreams. In fact, it was so optimistic that, despite the fact that I was pretty sure it was accurate (from a "forest" point of view...), I shared it with almost no one. I did share it with Jeff Dalton, and he told me that someone else in the Democratic Party had also done a "real" analysis that showed about the same numbers.
Still, though, this seemed wildly optimistic. After all, if the Democrats started the evening just two percentage points down in the early vote, that would mean they would probably sweep. All of them.
Sure enough, when the early returns came out on election night, the actual stats for the straight party vote?
Republicans 51.7
Democrats: 47.7
We knew right then: not only would Dennise win, but a lot of other people would too.
Sorry We Worried You
BTW, sincere apologies to all our friends and family for not explaining this strange, electoral math of Dallas County. Many of you have described your tortured thoughts (on both election nights...) as you went to bed assuming that Dennise had gone down to defeat both times, only to wake the next morning to her two victories. It's just the way the vote comes in here in the county. Based on the assumptions you can make about when people vote and why, Democrats will always get more election-day turnout; Republicans, more early vote turnout.
I went downstairs to the ballroom just after the early vote, to see if anyone else was as optimistic as I was becoming. I don't think it had fully sunk in with anyone yet. Most folks were dazed that the Dems were behind, and assumed we'd all lost again.
By the end of the night, however, it was the exact opposite...a complete sweep by the Dallas County Democrats of every single county-wide race. And, as I said in my other blog entry, Dennise led the pack...
...winning by 31,000 votes.
...winning by the largest margin (54-45) of any race in the last four elections.
She also won the early "in person" vote too. That's unheard of, really...a Democrat winning any part of the early vote. But Dennise did. Dennise's opponent won the overall early vote because she had a 1,100 vote margin in "mail in" votes. But we knew --when we saw Dennise was only down 1,100 in the early vote, that she had won the "in person" early vote, and that the straight ticket vote was 52-48-- that Dennise would win big.
So, after what was a truly grueling campaign (described for you here) election night was truly fun. It was the win we'd been waiting for for two years. It was a relief to have so many other Democrats win, and be able to celebrate with them. The truth is that while the 2004 election was great for Dennise personally, it was somewhat surreal otherwise. We were thrilled, but many of the other Democrats at the victory party that year were like zombies, having lost the Presidency, and just about every other major office.
Not so this time. Election night was a blast.
Why Democrats Won in Dallas County
Nov/22/2006 07:42 PM | Permalink
Many people
have already written about the Democrat's win in
Dallas County. Here is a very good essay by Ken
Molberg that covers much of
the same ground that I will here. I think Ken is
quite right in almost everything he says.
(UPDATE (12.16.06): The Lone Star Project has now released their own report on these elections in Dallas County. And they have analyzed the actual voting data to an extent that others, including me, have not. They reach many of the same conclusions that I do in this essay, only they've crunched actual numbers from the election. Here's a pdf of their report.)
First off, this: Anyone who says they know definitively why the Democrats won Dallas County, but does not give you multiple reasons for the electoral wins, doesn't know what they're talking about. The roots of this electoral victory are deep and the shifts in Dallas County are complex. In my opinion, many of the old ways of analyzing the vote --where voters come from, who they vote for, and what their politics are-- will not hold in the future. And if you want to understand what did happen November 7th, and what will happen in Dallas County in future elections, you must look to at least three major factors:
1) An incredibly well organized Dallas Democratic Party and Coordinated Campaign.
2) The changing demographics of ALL of Dallas County, including the southern sector, a potential increase in the Hispanic vote, and the surprisingly strong showing in every suburb.
3) The intensity of the anti-Bush/anti-Republican vote, symbolized by Libertarian candidates getting crazy-good numbers in races where there was no Democrat.
Let me speak to all of these because, IMHO, you will not understand the election unless you understand them all.....
"What Did You Do With the Dallas County Democratic Party?!!"
That' s what many observers kept asking themselves during this campaign season. Because, unlike years past, when political infighting and recriminations tore unity to shreds, the Democratic Party in Dallas County was unified and strategic this time.
Over Labor Day weekend, I read a quote from Kenn George, the Dallas County Republican Chair, in the Morning News. He said that, in his opinion, the Democrats were unorganized and underfunded like "usual." I didn't know at the time time whether he was blowing smoke, or just genuinely deluded. To me, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if anyone outside of the small circle of candidates knew just how well they were working together. THEY knew they were, and they kept it going the whole election season.
Candidates stayed motivated on the task of beating their opponents, and did not beat up on each other. Each candidate, each party activist, brought his or her strengths to the table, and brought out the vote in many key areas of town.
At the heart of this effort was the "Coordinated Campaign." Ed Ishmael has described the Coordinated Campaign quite well in a Dallasblog essay. Kirk McPike, who led the Coordinated Campaign's "Northern Office," has also written an excellent summary of the organization behind it and even some of the key personalities who ran it. Please read it here on Burnt Orange blog. These two links will tell you just about everything you need to know about the Coordinated Campaign and the Democratic Party during this election.
I cannot add much to either of these two essays, except to say that its unity of purpose made this campaign season light-year's different from 2004. Hats off, and major kudos, to Darlene Ewing, who managed to herd all the Democratic cats in one direction long enough to keep the unity going. I am quite impressed with her leadership skills. Darlene was decisive when she needed to be decisive. But she also listened to alternative opinions, and changed her mind when that was the best thing too. She intentionally chose to keep the Democrat's campaign a positive one; concentrating on lifting up the qualifications of Democratic candidates, and showcasing Democratic values, as opposed to wasting time tearing down either on the Republican side. I cannot praise her highly enough for all she did in this campaign.
The candidates pitched in too. They raised money, enlisted their relatives, worked long hours at events when few people showed up, and did not take one single Dallas County voter for granted. They made sure the Democratic Party has a presence at Women's Events, Black Events, Hispanic Events, Gay/Lesbian Events, Christian Events, Jewish Events, Muslim Events....you get the idea...
They marched in dozens of suburban parades. They attended candidate forums of two listeners, and two hundred. They walked, door-to-door, to the homes of thousands of county residents. I don't know what the total count was, but I am certain that candidates and volunteers of the Dallas Democratic Party knocked on tens of thousands of doors during this election cycle.
In short, they worked their butts off. And their unity and hard work, is the first reason Democrats won.
"Oh the Times, They Are A Changin'"
And so are the demographics of Dallas County. But it is far too simplistic to reduce this shift to the classic "North/South" polarity of old. Yes, that's a part of what's going on. But, as I will go into below, it's not the whole story.
The key point to understand is this: every single neighborhood of Dallas County is trending more Democratic, and has been for the past few election cycles.
But first, the county as a whole. Consider this analysis of the county-wide straight party vote in the past three elections:
Republican: 2000: 49.28% 2002: 49.06% 2004: 48.32%
Democratic: 2000: 49.86% 2002: 50.41% 2004: 51.22%
As you can clearly see, since least 2000 the Democrats have been winning the straight party vote percentage battle. Not only is their percentage increasing over this time period, but the Republican's percentage has been decreasing.
The actual percentages for the recently held 2006 election were:
Republican: 46.14
Democratic: 53.04
These percentages actually exceeded my predictions (Rep: 47.24; Dem: 51.9) for this election. Democrats did even better than the straight party vote of the previous three elections would indicate.
This next line I am about to type is crucial: There is no imaginable way that this trend will reverse.
Read that last line again, and say it with me three times slowly. Especially those of you who believe this election was a fluke, or that Dennise's election last time was as fluke...or that Sally Montgomery's election the time before that was. Say it until you believe it.
And if you still don't believe it, consider these other facts:
In 2000, a Democratic State District Judge candidate (Mary Ann Huey) narrowly lost by less than one (0.74!) percent to the incumbent Republican.
In 2002, the Democrats won one county-wide judicial race (Sally Montgomery).
In 2002, another candidate (Lisa McKnight) lost by a just over 1,500 votes (0.42 percent!).
In 2004, Democrats ran in six contests, and won three (fifty percent)
In 2004, George W. Bush (Dallas resident of ten years, and personal friend to many in this county) won Dallas County by the slimmest of margins (10,000 out of more than 680,000 votes cast).
In 2006, Democrats ran in 40 races, and won all of them.
In 2006, Chris Bell won Dallas County (and might have even won a "head-to-head" with Rick Perry too).
So, yes, the "the times, they are a changin'" county wide.
But! They may be changing in more ways than you think. At least the data seems to indicate this. Here's what I mean....
These are not your Mother's Democratic Voters
As I said above, there are many folks who attribute almost all of the Democratic victory to an increase in southern sector voting. And while the southern sector vote is absolutely essential, always has been and always will be, if the analysis just stops there, I believe it misses the whole story.
Facts are, if you look just at the early voting numbers, turnout in the traditional South Dallas stronghold areas was significantly down. (BTW, this freaked out a lot of folks during early voting. There was not much confidence, in some circles, that ANY Democrats would win because this traditionally Democratic area was so lagging, turnout-wise...)
In fact, turnout was down at almost every early voting location in South Dallas, by percentages of between 15 and 37 percent. (compared to 2002, the last comparible midterm election...) So, it doesn't make sense to say that it was only the South Dallas vote that was decisive. It was important. VERY important. The races could not have been won without it. But, in my opinion, it was only when this is combined with other factors that the clear victory emerged for Dallas Democrats.
My personal hunch is that we will find another significant factor was increased Hispanic voter turnout. Domingo Garcia and others have already called it the most important single factor. We probably don't know enough of the facts yet to say that definitely. But you can't rule it out that claim based on the evidence.
Pundits argued for months about whether or not the Hispanic vote would "turn out," in record numbers this Fall. They didn't turn out in a tidal wave, that's true. But the facts are --with Dallas County as close as it is-- even a marginal increase in Hispanic voter turnout would have been enough to have a really key impact on this election.
And the Dallas Observer is reporting that it looks like there was a this kind of marginal increase. Their story reports that at least one analysis shows Hispanic turnout up 9 percent in early voting. If that total held for the general election, there's no doubt that it was a HUGE factor in this election. (In fact, taking into consideration traditional voting patterns, if the EV was up 9 percent, the election day voting was probably up even more than this).
The Observer story found anecdotal information about increased Hispanic turnout:
Poll workers in heavily Hispanic precincts say they noticed more Latinos casting ballots, especially people in their late teens and early 20s, and noted a high number seemed to be voting straight-ticket Democrat. Rising numbers of Hispanic activists and volunteers, along with a surge in citizenship applications, point to long-term political influence, and in the short term, observers believe Latino voters played a major role in Dallas County's Democratic sweep.
One factual indicator of this is the early voting turnout at Grauwyler Recreation Center. While there were not huge total numbers of votes there, it's interesting to note the huge percentage increase. This heavily Hispanic neighborhood saw a whopping 63 percent increase in early voting over 2002.
BTW, as an aside, let me give you one more factoid for your collection, regarding Latinos and this election...
On November 7th, Democrats elected five persons to countywide judicial posts. That one election night total is more than a 100 percent increase over what Republicans have elected in the past 20 years.*
Now, hold all these thoughts in your mind (about possible increased Hispanic turnout) and let me give you some other interesting factoids from the early vote.
Facts:
Early voting turnout was waaay DOWN in the Park Cities. (22 percent to be precise).
Early voting turnout was waaay UP in many of Dallas' suburbs (somewhere between 11 and 25 percent) take a look:
Irving: up 22 percent.
North Dallas: up 23 percent.
Richardson: up 22 percent.
Mesquite: up 25 percent.
Duncanville: up 11 percent.
As I puzzled over these numbers during early voting, it made no logical sense that early voting could be so far down in the Park Cities, but so far up in the suburbs, and for this to still just be Republican voters coming out. Coming out in the suburbs, but staying home in the Park Cities?!! It couldn't be. It had to be something else.
No, I was pretty convinced then (but too chicken to say it too aloud), and I'm even MORE convinced now, that this was something different and new. These were Suburban Democrats. I believe they are Black, Anglo, Hispanic, and Asian, and I personally believe turnout is up for all of them.
Elements of the Democratic Party (some candidates and several PACs) spent a lot of time cultivating votes in these more traditionally "Republican" or "swing" areas. I believe it paid off. You see this no more clearly than in the races for State Representative, which tend to be very localized. We assume that there are many safe Republican seats among these races, and that Democrats have no chance of winning them.
But take a look at these facts....
Moving from left to right across the Dallas area, take a look at how surprisingly well Democratic State Representative candidates did in this election:
Grand Prairie/Irving: Katie Hubener lost by a heart-breaking 250 votes!!! So, basically, she pulled in 50 percent of that vote.
North Dallas/Richardson: Harriet Miller hoped to beat Tony Goolsby. She did not, but she did pull in 46 percent of the vote.
Near North Dallas/Lake Highlands: My good friend, and church member, Phillip Shinoda did not win his race against Will Hartnett, but he topped a quite respectable 42 percent.
East Dallas: Allen Vaught (one of these candidate who walked door-to-door) won his race...pulled in 50 percent.
Center of Town/Park Cities: In one of the most Republican areas of town, Jack Borden pulled in 40 percent of the vote.
And, let's throw in one more: Will Pryor, in a district drawn to be "Republican safe," drew 41 percent of the vote in his effort to unseat Pete Sessions. Again, that's a District that's mainly North Dallas and Irving.
The point is this: No Democrat running for state legislature took LESS than 40 percent of the vote in Dallas' northern suburbs and in North Dallas itself.
Get your mind around that factoid. Yes, this is not your Mother's Democratic voter. These are Anglo suburbanites, joined by Black, Hispanic, and Asian suburbanites, and the traditionally rich Democratic base of South Dallas to form a powerful and winning combination.
We saw these Suburban Democrats first in 2004 during the Frost/Sessions race. Countless North Dallas and suburban Democrats expressed surprise at how many "Frost" signs were up in their neighborhoods. This time saw "Had Enough?" signs replaced the many Frost signs, along with signs for the aforementioned statehouse candidates; and folks like Will Pryor.
Summary: I believe we are seeing a permanent shift in the voting patterns of BOTH North Dallas and of South Dallas. And in both cases, this shift favors the Democrats.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Voter Scorned
There is no question that this election carried an anti-Bush, and anti-Republican, patina. It hung over the election at every level: from the Congress to the local race for County Judge. People --Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- wanted to send a statement. They are mad about the war, they are mad about Katrina, they are mad about Jack Abramov, they are mad about the dozen or so Republican members of congress who have gone down with him, they are mad about Tom Delay, they are mad about Mark Foley.
They are just mad.
One anecdote from the Fretz Park early voting location (told to me by a Harriet Miller volunteer, so take it with a grain of salt if you must):
The story goes that a guy came up to vote, and walked right up to Tony Goolsby's (the Republican incumbent's) volunteer, and said something like this:
"I have voted straight ticket Republican all of my life."
To which, allegedly, the volunteer whooped and hollered.
But, as the volunteer calmed down, the man continued, "But this year, I am going to go in and vote straight ticket Democrat!"
With that, he then turned, and walked straight into the voting location, leaving everyone watching in stunned silence.
I don't know if that story was true or not. But either way, the facts show that a LOT of people did exactly that: voted straight Democratic. Some of them were Republicans, voting Democratic for the very first time. Other Republicans stayed home.
As I said above, more people voted straight ticket than was predicted by my own estimate this time. In fact, the anti-Bush anger vote probably accounts for about one percent of straight ticket votes overall. Doesn't sound like much, but countywide, that's a lot of mad folks. Liberally, it could have been as many as 15-20,000 votes.
So, yes, there was an anti-Bush/anti-Republican edge to this election. And yes, some really fine human beings --Republican office holders and candidates; some of whom I have known for years and consider friends-- got caught up in it.
But before you dismiss it as a one time fad, please understand how deep it went, and how it factors in with everything else going on in the county. Again, we turn to some interesting numbers....
Take the races for State Supreme Court, for example. In almost all these races, no Democrat ran. It was a Libertarian verses a Republican. You'd assume a Republican stomping here, wouldn't you? In fact, in 2002 when a Libertarian ran against a Republican (with no Democrat on the ballot) Libertarians were only able to garner 13 percent of the vote in the very best case.
This year, Republicans still won those races handily. But! This year, Libertarian candidates drew between 20 and 26 percent of the vote in Dallas County. In some races, 26 percent of the people voted for a Libertarian, rather than vote Republican or just leave the ballot blank!! That's significant, friends. It points to a real desire to send a message, and express an anger and frustration with the President and the Republican Party. Whether you think it misguided or not, it's there, it's real, and it was a factor.
Before Republicans sooth themselves by believing that this is a temporary situation, they should remember points one and two of this essay:
-- The Democratic Party is well organized and, especially now that they've won, there is every indication that they will continue their winning strategies.
-- The demographics of Dallas County continue to shift, in the direction of Democratic voters, in every sector and neighborhood of the county.
In fact, even if there was a one percent anti-Republican factor in this election, and even if you assume that it caused some Democrats to get elected this time who otherwise would not have, the simple continuing trends in the Democrats favor will mean that by next election (2008) the percentages of Democratic voters will more than increase enough to account for the anti-Republican vote this time. In other words: the results of this election, a Democratic sweep, were never in doubt over the long term.
The point is this: whether everyone admits it or not, what happened November 7th was never a question of "if," but only of "when."
The anti-Republican backlash may have caused it to happen this election cycle (rather than next) for some (not all) of the candidates who won this time. But even if you take away that backlash-vote next time, the Democrats will more than be able to make up for that small percentage in their own continuing gains.
As for Republicans, the task becomes pretty monumental. To re-take county-wide offices, the Republicans will not only have to win back the angry swing voters, woo back their voters who stayed home, but also win OVER some new voters to make up for continuing Democratic gains.
And that's probably too tall an order, given the realities of a party whose own straight party vote has now decreased for four straight elections.
------------------------------
Well, that's about it. I have now exhausted all my thoughts about turnout in this election. Others will disagree, of course, and come up with much more simplistic reasons for why November 7th happened. That's fine. It's one of the fun parts of politics...the second guessing...the armchair quarterbacking...the trying to put an election into context and come up with reasons for why what happened happened.
So, I am sure there are other ways to look at it. And others can write their own essays. But, I will remind you, I am now 2-0 as a political advisor to my favorite Democratic candidate.
So, if you take only one point away from this essay, I hope it will be this:
Lots of people think they have this election all figured out, but their figuring only includes one of the preceding set of factors, while the real answer is more complex:
-- They point to surpressed Republican straight ticket turnout, but fail to recognize that the trendline has been dropping for Republican turnout for the last four elections.
-- They point to the changing Demographics of Dallas, and assume it's all a "southern sector" thing, but fail to account for the increases in Northern sector and Hispanic voting.
-- They point to anger against the Republicans, but fail to see just how well organized and funded the Democrats were.
The answer to why the Democrats won is complex. And I hope I've given you all something to think about.
*Based on research I have done for election returns going back to 1992 in countywide judicial races. And the claim here applies to elected verses appointed judgeships. The point being that Democrats, in one night, increased the number of elected Latino judges in Dallas County by more than 100 percent. And not only 100 percent more than those serving currently, but 100 percent more than the Republicans have ever elected in their history. If anyone finds evidence to contradict this claim, I would be happy to correct it. But I'm pretty sure it's right.
(UPDATE (12.16.06): The Lone Star Project has now released their own report on these elections in Dallas County. And they have analyzed the actual voting data to an extent that others, including me, have not. They reach many of the same conclusions that I do in this essay, only they've crunched actual numbers from the election. Here's a pdf of their report.)
First off, this: Anyone who says they know definitively why the Democrats won Dallas County, but does not give you multiple reasons for the electoral wins, doesn't know what they're talking about. The roots of this electoral victory are deep and the shifts in Dallas County are complex. In my opinion, many of the old ways of analyzing the vote --where voters come from, who they vote for, and what their politics are-- will not hold in the future. And if you want to understand what did happen November 7th, and what will happen in Dallas County in future elections, you must look to at least three major factors:
1) An incredibly well organized Dallas Democratic Party and Coordinated Campaign.
2) The changing demographics of ALL of Dallas County, including the southern sector, a potential increase in the Hispanic vote, and the surprisingly strong showing in every suburb.
3) The intensity of the anti-Bush/anti-Republican vote, symbolized by Libertarian candidates getting crazy-good numbers in races where there was no Democrat.
Let me speak to all of these because, IMHO, you will not understand the election unless you understand them all.....
"What Did You Do With the Dallas County Democratic Party?!!"
That' s what many observers kept asking themselves during this campaign season. Because, unlike years past, when political infighting and recriminations tore unity to shreds, the Democratic Party in Dallas County was unified and strategic this time.
Over Labor Day weekend, I read a quote from Kenn George, the Dallas County Republican Chair, in the Morning News. He said that, in his opinion, the Democrats were unorganized and underfunded like "usual." I didn't know at the time time whether he was blowing smoke, or just genuinely deluded. To me, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if anyone outside of the small circle of candidates knew just how well they were working together. THEY knew they were, and they kept it going the whole election season.
Candidates stayed motivated on the task of beating their opponents, and did not beat up on each other. Each candidate, each party activist, brought his or her strengths to the table, and brought out the vote in many key areas of town.
At the heart of this effort was the "Coordinated Campaign." Ed Ishmael has described the Coordinated Campaign quite well in a Dallasblog essay. Kirk McPike, who led the Coordinated Campaign's "Northern Office," has also written an excellent summary of the organization behind it and even some of the key personalities who ran it. Please read it here on Burnt Orange blog. These two links will tell you just about everything you need to know about the Coordinated Campaign and the Democratic Party during this election.
I cannot add much to either of these two essays, except to say that its unity of purpose made this campaign season light-year's different from 2004. Hats off, and major kudos, to Darlene Ewing, who managed to herd all the Democratic cats in one direction long enough to keep the unity going. I am quite impressed with her leadership skills. Darlene was decisive when she needed to be decisive. But she also listened to alternative opinions, and changed her mind when that was the best thing too. She intentionally chose to keep the Democrat's campaign a positive one; concentrating on lifting up the qualifications of Democratic candidates, and showcasing Democratic values, as opposed to wasting time tearing down either on the Republican side. I cannot praise her highly enough for all she did in this campaign.
The candidates pitched in too. They raised money, enlisted their relatives, worked long hours at events when few people showed up, and did not take one single Dallas County voter for granted. They made sure the Democratic Party has a presence at Women's Events, Black Events, Hispanic Events, Gay/Lesbian Events, Christian Events, Jewish Events, Muslim Events....you get the idea...
They marched in dozens of suburban parades. They attended candidate forums of two listeners, and two hundred. They walked, door-to-door, to the homes of thousands of county residents. I don't know what the total count was, but I am certain that candidates and volunteers of the Dallas Democratic Party knocked on tens of thousands of doors during this election cycle.
In short, they worked their butts off. And their unity and hard work, is the first reason Democrats won.
"Oh the Times, They Are A Changin'"
And so are the demographics of Dallas County. But it is far too simplistic to reduce this shift to the classic "North/South" polarity of old. Yes, that's a part of what's going on. But, as I will go into below, it's not the whole story.
The key point to understand is this: every single neighborhood of Dallas County is trending more Democratic, and has been for the past few election cycles.
But first, the county as a whole. Consider this analysis of the county-wide straight party vote in the past three elections:
Republican: 2000: 49.28% 2002: 49.06% 2004: 48.32%
Democratic: 2000: 49.86% 2002: 50.41% 2004: 51.22%
As you can clearly see, since least 2000 the Democrats have been winning the straight party vote percentage battle. Not only is their percentage increasing over this time period, but the Republican's percentage has been decreasing.
The actual percentages for the recently held 2006 election were:
Republican: 46.14
Democratic: 53.04
These percentages actually exceeded my predictions (Rep: 47.24; Dem: 51.9) for this election. Democrats did even better than the straight party vote of the previous three elections would indicate.
This next line I am about to type is crucial: There is no imaginable way that this trend will reverse.
Read that last line again, and say it with me three times slowly. Especially those of you who believe this election was a fluke, or that Dennise's election last time was as fluke...or that Sally Montgomery's election the time before that was. Say it until you believe it.
And if you still don't believe it, consider these other facts:
In 2000, a Democratic State District Judge candidate (Mary Ann Huey) narrowly lost by less than one (0.74!) percent to the incumbent Republican.
In 2002, the Democrats won one county-wide judicial race (Sally Montgomery).
In 2002, another candidate (Lisa McKnight) lost by a just over 1,500 votes (0.42 percent!).
In 2004, Democrats ran in six contests, and won three (fifty percent)
In 2004, George W. Bush (Dallas resident of ten years, and personal friend to many in this county) won Dallas County by the slimmest of margins (10,000 out of more than 680,000 votes cast).
In 2006, Democrats ran in 40 races, and won all of them.
In 2006, Chris Bell won Dallas County (and might have even won a "head-to-head" with Rick Perry too).
So, yes, the "the times, they are a changin'" county wide.
But! They may be changing in more ways than you think. At least the data seems to indicate this. Here's what I mean....
These are not your Mother's Democratic Voters
As I said above, there are many folks who attribute almost all of the Democratic victory to an increase in southern sector voting. And while the southern sector vote is absolutely essential, always has been and always will be, if the analysis just stops there, I believe it misses the whole story.
Facts are, if you look just at the early voting numbers, turnout in the traditional South Dallas stronghold areas was significantly down. (BTW, this freaked out a lot of folks during early voting. There was not much confidence, in some circles, that ANY Democrats would win because this traditionally Democratic area was so lagging, turnout-wise...)
In fact, turnout was down at almost every early voting location in South Dallas, by percentages of between 15 and 37 percent. (compared to 2002, the last comparible midterm election...) So, it doesn't make sense to say that it was only the South Dallas vote that was decisive. It was important. VERY important. The races could not have been won without it. But, in my opinion, it was only when this is combined with other factors that the clear victory emerged for Dallas Democrats.
My personal hunch is that we will find another significant factor was increased Hispanic voter turnout. Domingo Garcia and others have already called it the most important single factor. We probably don't know enough of the facts yet to say that definitely. But you can't rule it out that claim based on the evidence.
Pundits argued for months about whether or not the Hispanic vote would "turn out," in record numbers this Fall. They didn't turn out in a tidal wave, that's true. But the facts are --with Dallas County as close as it is-- even a marginal increase in Hispanic voter turnout would have been enough to have a really key impact on this election.
And the Dallas Observer is reporting that it looks like there was a this kind of marginal increase. Their story reports that at least one analysis shows Hispanic turnout up 9 percent in early voting. If that total held for the general election, there's no doubt that it was a HUGE factor in this election. (In fact, taking into consideration traditional voting patterns, if the EV was up 9 percent, the election day voting was probably up even more than this).
The Observer story found anecdotal information about increased Hispanic turnout:
Poll workers in heavily Hispanic precincts say they noticed more Latinos casting ballots, especially people in their late teens and early 20s, and noted a high number seemed to be voting straight-ticket Democrat. Rising numbers of Hispanic activists and volunteers, along with a surge in citizenship applications, point to long-term political influence, and in the short term, observers believe Latino voters played a major role in Dallas County's Democratic sweep.
One factual indicator of this is the early voting turnout at Grauwyler Recreation Center. While there were not huge total numbers of votes there, it's interesting to note the huge percentage increase. This heavily Hispanic neighborhood saw a whopping 63 percent increase in early voting over 2002.
BTW, as an aside, let me give you one more factoid for your collection, regarding Latinos and this election...
On November 7th, Democrats elected five persons to countywide judicial posts. That one election night total is more than a 100 percent increase over what Republicans have elected in the past 20 years.*
Now, hold all these thoughts in your mind (about possible increased Hispanic turnout) and let me give you some other interesting factoids from the early vote.
Facts:
Early voting turnout was waaay DOWN in the Park Cities. (22 percent to be precise).
Early voting turnout was waaay UP in many of Dallas' suburbs (somewhere between 11 and 25 percent) take a look:
Irving: up 22 percent.
North Dallas: up 23 percent.
Richardson: up 22 percent.
Mesquite: up 25 percent.
Duncanville: up 11 percent.
As I puzzled over these numbers during early voting, it made no logical sense that early voting could be so far down in the Park Cities, but so far up in the suburbs, and for this to still just be Republican voters coming out. Coming out in the suburbs, but staying home in the Park Cities?!! It couldn't be. It had to be something else.
No, I was pretty convinced then (but too chicken to say it too aloud), and I'm even MORE convinced now, that this was something different and new. These were Suburban Democrats. I believe they are Black, Anglo, Hispanic, and Asian, and I personally believe turnout is up for all of them.
Elements of the Democratic Party (some candidates and several PACs) spent a lot of time cultivating votes in these more traditionally "Republican" or "swing" areas. I believe it paid off. You see this no more clearly than in the races for State Representative, which tend to be very localized. We assume that there are many safe Republican seats among these races, and that Democrats have no chance of winning them.
But take a look at these facts....
Moving from left to right across the Dallas area, take a look at how surprisingly well Democratic State Representative candidates did in this election:
Grand Prairie/Irving: Katie Hubener lost by a heart-breaking 250 votes!!! So, basically, she pulled in 50 percent of that vote.
North Dallas/Richardson: Harriet Miller hoped to beat Tony Goolsby. She did not, but she did pull in 46 percent of the vote.
Near North Dallas/Lake Highlands: My good friend, and church member, Phillip Shinoda did not win his race against Will Hartnett, but he topped a quite respectable 42 percent.
East Dallas: Allen Vaught (one of these candidate who walked door-to-door) won his race...pulled in 50 percent.
Center of Town/Park Cities: In one of the most Republican areas of town, Jack Borden pulled in 40 percent of the vote.
And, let's throw in one more: Will Pryor, in a district drawn to be "Republican safe," drew 41 percent of the vote in his effort to unseat Pete Sessions. Again, that's a District that's mainly North Dallas and Irving.
The point is this: No Democrat running for state legislature took LESS than 40 percent of the vote in Dallas' northern suburbs and in North Dallas itself.
Get your mind around that factoid. Yes, this is not your Mother's Democratic voter. These are Anglo suburbanites, joined by Black, Hispanic, and Asian suburbanites, and the traditionally rich Democratic base of South Dallas to form a powerful and winning combination.
We saw these Suburban Democrats first in 2004 during the Frost/Sessions race. Countless North Dallas and suburban Democrats expressed surprise at how many "Frost" signs were up in their neighborhoods. This time saw "Had Enough?" signs replaced the many Frost signs, along with signs for the aforementioned statehouse candidates; and folks like Will Pryor.
Summary: I believe we are seeing a permanent shift in the voting patterns of BOTH North Dallas and of South Dallas. And in both cases, this shift favors the Democrats.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Voter Scorned
There is no question that this election carried an anti-Bush, and anti-Republican, patina. It hung over the election at every level: from the Congress to the local race for County Judge. People --Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- wanted to send a statement. They are mad about the war, they are mad about Katrina, they are mad about Jack Abramov, they are mad about the dozen or so Republican members of congress who have gone down with him, they are mad about Tom Delay, they are mad about Mark Foley.
They are just mad.
One anecdote from the Fretz Park early voting location (told to me by a Harriet Miller volunteer, so take it with a grain of salt if you must):
The story goes that a guy came up to vote, and walked right up to Tony Goolsby's (the Republican incumbent's) volunteer, and said something like this:
"I have voted straight ticket Republican all of my life."
To which, allegedly, the volunteer whooped and hollered.
But, as the volunteer calmed down, the man continued, "But this year, I am going to go in and vote straight ticket Democrat!"
With that, he then turned, and walked straight into the voting location, leaving everyone watching in stunned silence.
I don't know if that story was true or not. But either way, the facts show that a LOT of people did exactly that: voted straight Democratic. Some of them were Republicans, voting Democratic for the very first time. Other Republicans stayed home.
As I said above, more people voted straight ticket than was predicted by my own estimate this time. In fact, the anti-Bush anger vote probably accounts for about one percent of straight ticket votes overall. Doesn't sound like much, but countywide, that's a lot of mad folks. Liberally, it could have been as many as 15-20,000 votes.
So, yes, there was an anti-Bush/anti-Republican edge to this election. And yes, some really fine human beings --Republican office holders and candidates; some of whom I have known for years and consider friends-- got caught up in it.
But before you dismiss it as a one time fad, please understand how deep it went, and how it factors in with everything else going on in the county. Again, we turn to some interesting numbers....
Take the races for State Supreme Court, for example. In almost all these races, no Democrat ran. It was a Libertarian verses a Republican. You'd assume a Republican stomping here, wouldn't you? In fact, in 2002 when a Libertarian ran against a Republican (with no Democrat on the ballot) Libertarians were only able to garner 13 percent of the vote in the very best case.
This year, Republicans still won those races handily. But! This year, Libertarian candidates drew between 20 and 26 percent of the vote in Dallas County. In some races, 26 percent of the people voted for a Libertarian, rather than vote Republican or just leave the ballot blank!! That's significant, friends. It points to a real desire to send a message, and express an anger and frustration with the President and the Republican Party. Whether you think it misguided or not, it's there, it's real, and it was a factor.
Before Republicans sooth themselves by believing that this is a temporary situation, they should remember points one and two of this essay:
-- The Democratic Party is well organized and, especially now that they've won, there is every indication that they will continue their winning strategies.
-- The demographics of Dallas County continue to shift, in the direction of Democratic voters, in every sector and neighborhood of the county.
In fact, even if there was a one percent anti-Republican factor in this election, and even if you assume that it caused some Democrats to get elected this time who otherwise would not have, the simple continuing trends in the Democrats favor will mean that by next election (2008) the percentages of Democratic voters will more than increase enough to account for the anti-Republican vote this time. In other words: the results of this election, a Democratic sweep, were never in doubt over the long term.
The point is this: whether everyone admits it or not, what happened November 7th was never a question of "if," but only of "when."
The anti-Republican backlash may have caused it to happen this election cycle (rather than next) for some (not all) of the candidates who won this time. But even if you take away that backlash-vote next time, the Democrats will more than be able to make up for that small percentage in their own continuing gains.
As for Republicans, the task becomes pretty monumental. To re-take county-wide offices, the Republicans will not only have to win back the angry swing voters, woo back their voters who stayed home, but also win OVER some new voters to make up for continuing Democratic gains.
And that's probably too tall an order, given the realities of a party whose own straight party vote has now decreased for four straight elections.
------------------------------
Well, that's about it. I have now exhausted all my thoughts about turnout in this election. Others will disagree, of course, and come up with much more simplistic reasons for why November 7th happened. That's fine. It's one of the fun parts of politics...the second guessing...the armchair quarterbacking...the trying to put an election into context and come up with reasons for why what happened happened.
So, I am sure there are other ways to look at it. And others can write their own essays. But, I will remind you, I am now 2-0 as a political advisor to my favorite Democratic candidate.
So, if you take only one point away from this essay, I hope it will be this:
Lots of people think they have this election all figured out, but their figuring only includes one of the preceding set of factors, while the real answer is more complex:
-- They point to surpressed Republican straight ticket turnout, but fail to recognize that the trendline has been dropping for Republican turnout for the last four elections.
-- They point to the changing Demographics of Dallas, and assume it's all a "southern sector" thing, but fail to account for the increases in Northern sector and Hispanic voting.
-- They point to anger against the Republicans, but fail to see just how well organized and funded the Democrats were.
The answer to why the Democrats won is complex. And I hope I've given you all something to think about.
*Based on research I have done for election returns going back to 1992 in countywide judicial races. And the claim here applies to elected verses appointed judgeships. The point being that Democrats, in one night, increased the number of elected Latino judges in Dallas County by more than 100 percent. And not only 100 percent more than those serving currently, but 100 percent more than the Republicans have ever elected in their history. If anyone finds evidence to contradict this claim, I would be happy to correct it. But I'm pretty sure it's right.
Free Speech and Our Elections
Nov/22/2006 04:38 PM | Permalink
The following
stories are ones I have waited to share for two
years. Each of them happened during the campaign of
2004, when my wife originally ran for judge in Dallas
County. I did not share them until now, because in no
way did I want to affect (positively or negatively)
her election campaign this year. But I now feel
somewhat freer to share the following true stories.
Political signs get stolen. It happens. They get taken down. You have to put them back up. It happens a lot. You can't attribute every time a sign goes missing to some malicious intent. But sometimes you can. Each of these stories come from the 2004 campaign:
Story Number One: The punctured tires
The first story come to me from a Democratic precinct chair in North Dallas, who shared with me his story of the 2004 primary election. He was a supporter of Howard Dean at the time, and he had two large Howard Dean signs in the back windows of his mini-van. One Sunday, he was a church and he and his family came out of the worship service to discover that all four of his tires had been slashed.
Story Number Two: The fearful neighbor
During 2004, one of the strategies I used was to approach houses that had "Martin Frost" signs up already, and inquire as to whether they would put a sign for Dennise too. At one home, not a quarter mile from our house, a woman turned me down saying that her signs had been taken three times already, and that she was was afraid to put anyone else's signs up. I thought her story strange, until I heard the next two stories...
Story Number Three: The fearful neighbor, #2
Not ten minutes, I was on another doorstep, again inquiring about putting up a sign for Dennise. Here, another woman again demured, and told me a truly disturbing story. She said that a week before, two young, cheery volunteers for the Frost campaign had come by to put the yardsign she had requested by phone. They were walking door-to-door, and they were wearing clearly identifiable "Frost" t-shirts. She thanked them for putting up the sign, and then she watched as they walked away, down the street.
But to her horror, just a few paces past her property, she watched as one of her neighbors rode up to them on his bike, threw his bike down, and began to berate them:
"What are you doing in our neighborhood?!!"
"You don't belong here!!"
"We don't want you here!!"
They were clearly shaken, and so was she.
So, she also declined a sign for Dennise.
Story Number Four: Sign Disassembly
It's a common thing for campaign signs to get stolen. But in one case, I discovered something even more creative and sinister. I was at a home on a major, east/west, Near-North-Dallas street. It was a home that had agreed to put up one of Dennise's larger 4x4 signs, and I was personally delivering it.
I noticed that their 4x4 Martin Frost sign looked a little worse for the wear, and so I asked them about it. They told me that one day earlier that week, as they left the house for work, they discovered their Martin Frost sign had been completely disassembled. Not only that, but the screws and nails had been taken out of the wood frame and left in front of the wheels of their SUV, parked in their drive way. They noticed it in time to clean it up before accidentally driving over the booby trap.
Story Number Five: Of Eggs and Concrete
A neighbor of mine, two streets away, called me up to request a sign for Dennise. He already had a sign for "Kerry/Edwards"up, and and wanted to put one of her's up too. So, I brought it over. A day later, he called back to report it had been taken, and to request another one. I brought it to him. The next day, he called back to ask for a THIRD sign. I brought him several more, and as I drove up, found that he was using a post-hole digger to put his third "Kerry/Edwards" sign in place. He dug a hole, hand-mixed some concrete, and planted it deep in his yard! That sign was not coming out!!!
However, two days later, I drove by his house just out of curiosity, and found him on the front porch with a bucket of soap and a brush, cleaning off his front door.
They had been unable to steal the concrete sign, but they did egg his house.
------------------------------------------
Truthfully?
I used to hear these kinds of stories from folks, and assumed they were either paranoid or exaggerating. However, I am here to tell you that I heard each of these stories, first hand, from the people they happened to. And I have become deeply concerned.
In fairness, I am sure that people on the other side of the political aisle could come up with stories like these of their own. I am not naive enough to believe that such negative behavior is only the purview of Republicans. However, at least in 2004, there sure seemed to be a lot of it in North Dallas that I was privy to see involving Democratic signs.
What concerns me in this is what these incidents do to our right to free speech.
How can we have an honest political debate about the important issues in our country, when some people are afraid to put out something as benign as political yardsigns?!!
What does that say about us?
Baron Von Humbold was a German-born contemporary of Thomas Jefferson. In a book by Margaret Smith, the story is told of one of his visits to the presidential residence where, much to his surprise, he found newspapers laying around, filled with views contrary to Jefferson's. Here's how Margaret Smith tells the tale:
"Another time he called of a morning and was taken into the Cabinet; as he sat by the table, among the newspapers that were scattered about, he perceived one that was always filled with the most virulent abuse of Mr. Jefferson, calumnies the most offensive, personal as well as political. "Why are these libels allowed?" asked the Baron taking up the paper, 'why is not this libelous journal suppressed, or its Editor at least, fined and imprisoned?'"
Note President Jefferson's reply:
"Mr. Jefferson smiled, saying, 'Put that paper in your pocket Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of our press, questioned, show this paper, and tell where you found it.' "
One of the finest freedoms of our country is the ability to celebrate the differences of our opinions. If we are afraid to do so, if we are badgered into silence, we lose more than just the right to speak.
We become truly un-American.
Political signs get stolen. It happens. They get taken down. You have to put them back up. It happens a lot. You can't attribute every time a sign goes missing to some malicious intent. But sometimes you can. Each of these stories come from the 2004 campaign:
Story Number One: The punctured tires
The first story come to me from a Democratic precinct chair in North Dallas, who shared with me his story of the 2004 primary election. He was a supporter of Howard Dean at the time, and he had two large Howard Dean signs in the back windows of his mini-van. One Sunday, he was a church and he and his family came out of the worship service to discover that all four of his tires had been slashed.
Story Number Two: The fearful neighbor
During 2004, one of the strategies I used was to approach houses that had "Martin Frost" signs up already, and inquire as to whether they would put a sign for Dennise too. At one home, not a quarter mile from our house, a woman turned me down saying that her signs had been taken three times already, and that she was was afraid to put anyone else's signs up. I thought her story strange, until I heard the next two stories...
Story Number Three: The fearful neighbor, #2
Not ten minutes, I was on another doorstep, again inquiring about putting up a sign for Dennise. Here, another woman again demured, and told me a truly disturbing story. She said that a week before, two young, cheery volunteers for the Frost campaign had come by to put the yardsign she had requested by phone. They were walking door-to-door, and they were wearing clearly identifiable "Frost" t-shirts. She thanked them for putting up the sign, and then she watched as they walked away, down the street.
But to her horror, just a few paces past her property, she watched as one of her neighbors rode up to them on his bike, threw his bike down, and began to berate them:
"What are you doing in our neighborhood?!!"
"You don't belong here!!"
"We don't want you here!!"
They were clearly shaken, and so was she.
So, she also declined a sign for Dennise.
Story Number Four: Sign Disassembly
It's a common thing for campaign signs to get stolen. But in one case, I discovered something even more creative and sinister. I was at a home on a major, east/west, Near-North-Dallas street. It was a home that had agreed to put up one of Dennise's larger 4x4 signs, and I was personally delivering it.
I noticed that their 4x4 Martin Frost sign looked a little worse for the wear, and so I asked them about it. They told me that one day earlier that week, as they left the house for work, they discovered their Martin Frost sign had been completely disassembled. Not only that, but the screws and nails had been taken out of the wood frame and left in front of the wheels of their SUV, parked in their drive way. They noticed it in time to clean it up before accidentally driving over the booby trap.
Story Number Five: Of Eggs and Concrete
A neighbor of mine, two streets away, called me up to request a sign for Dennise. He already had a sign for "Kerry/Edwards"up, and and wanted to put one of her's up too. So, I brought it over. A day later, he called back to report it had been taken, and to request another one. I brought it to him. The next day, he called back to ask for a THIRD sign. I brought him several more, and as I drove up, found that he was using a post-hole digger to put his third "Kerry/Edwards" sign in place. He dug a hole, hand-mixed some concrete, and planted it deep in his yard! That sign was not coming out!!!
However, two days later, I drove by his house just out of curiosity, and found him on the front porch with a bucket of soap and a brush, cleaning off his front door.
They had been unable to steal the concrete sign, but they did egg his house.
------------------------------------------
Truthfully?
I used to hear these kinds of stories from folks, and assumed they were either paranoid or exaggerating. However, I am here to tell you that I heard each of these stories, first hand, from the people they happened to. And I have become deeply concerned.
In fairness, I am sure that people on the other side of the political aisle could come up with stories like these of their own. I am not naive enough to believe that such negative behavior is only the purview of Republicans. However, at least in 2004, there sure seemed to be a lot of it in North Dallas that I was privy to see involving Democratic signs.
What concerns me in this is what these incidents do to our right to free speech.
How can we have an honest political debate about the important issues in our country, when some people are afraid to put out something as benign as political yardsigns?!!
What does that say about us?
Baron Von Humbold was a German-born contemporary of Thomas Jefferson. In a book by Margaret Smith, the story is told of one of his visits to the presidential residence where, much to his surprise, he found newspapers laying around, filled with views contrary to Jefferson's. Here's how Margaret Smith tells the tale:
"Another time he called of a morning and was taken into the Cabinet; as he sat by the table, among the newspapers that were scattered about, he perceived one that was always filled with the most virulent abuse of Mr. Jefferson, calumnies the most offensive, personal as well as political. "Why are these libels allowed?" asked the Baron taking up the paper, 'why is not this libelous journal suppressed, or its Editor at least, fined and imprisoned?'"
Note President Jefferson's reply:
"Mr. Jefferson smiled, saying, 'Put that paper in your pocket Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of our press, questioned, show this paper, and tell where you found it.' "
One of the finest freedoms of our country is the ability to celebrate the differences of our opinions. If we are afraid to do so, if we are badgered into silence, we lose more than just the right to speak.
We become truly un-American.
Why We Should Elect Judges
Nov/22/2006 04:36 PM | Permalink
In the days
after the election, everyone from Republican
partisans to Steve Blow raised up a clarion call
we've heard before:
Why do we elect judges? Isn't there a better way?
Well, in short, there may be a better way to elect judges, but there is not a better way to get judges than through elections. As Churchill once said of democracy: It's not perfect, but it's better than all the other options.
The truth is, there really are only two good options:
1) Elections of some sort.
2) Appointments of some sort.
And while there are flaws to the first method, there are grave problems with the second.
When people complain about judicial elections, they do so for two main reason. They say:
1) "The judicial elections are controlled by 'special interests.'"
Then, they say:
2) "We don't know anything about these judges, the ballot is too confusing. How can we know who to vote for?!"
(This is the view Steve Blow took in a column a week or so before election day...)
As to the first concern....
Lawyers do contribute to many judicial campaigns. But they contribute in varying amounts, and some judicial races get almost zero dollars. Some of the most recent judicial campaigns were run on shoestring budgets funded only by the candidate's family and close friends. Others did get more total dollars from lawyers. However, I believe you will find is that --like many corporations on the national scene-- many lawyers eventually contribute money to both side of many campaigns. (And some will probably do so even more in the next election cycle...)
My own sense of most judicial elections is that there is little control or influence by the funders, whoever they are. Most of the candidates I know put up their own yardsigns, set up their own fundraisers, and used their own close family and friends as their "staff." If there were cookies to be baked, their Mom's baked them. If there were envelopes to be stuffed, their childhood friends stuffed them. Far from being manipulated by donations from lawyers, most campaigns were seriously grassroots efforts with little frills.
In fact, the grassroots nature of them can actually restore your faith in democracy.
I will wait to comment on the second "concern" about judicial elections ("the ballot is too long, and we don't know these people") until later in this essay. For now, let's turn to the other option: appointed judges.
Not A-Political, Just Differently-Political
Getting judges through an appointive system is seen by its proponents as an "a-political" solution. The idea is that some small group of people would recommend names to the governor --perhaps three-at-a-time for each open post-- and that the governor would then do the actual appointing.
Sounds good on the surface. But the truth is there are serious political concerns in this model too. This model, contrary to the myth around it, is not "a-political," it's just political in a different way.
And anybody who doubts it should remember what is currently going on in our state surrounding the issue of new coal burning electric plants proposed by the Governor and TXU. This process is overseen by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). As you can see here, the TCEQ is run by three political appointees, nominated by the Governor.
Surely, you have read the stories: local and county municipalities around the state worry that the green light is about to be given to dozens of coal plants without any "vote" by them or their local constituents. (a story in today's DMN estimates that the East Texas plants would result in more than 250 premature deaths each year..)
In other words, a highly controversial, seriously and long-term environmental decision, possibly affecting the health of millions of Texans, is being left up to the oversight of a group appointed by our governor, with no "vote" from the people.
That's what would happen if we to move to the appointment of judges.
The opponents of judicial elections complain about the problems inherent in lawyer's contributing to judicial campaigns. But think of what would be the case with appointed judges: The appointing body (even if their task is just to send three names up to the governor...) would, in all probability, be made up of...whom?
Lawyers!!!
Talk about undue influence!!! And just who would the governor appoint to this body? Do you really trust the governor to be non-partisan? Are you willing to take that risk?
Is the TCEQ acting in a non-partisan way toward these coal plants?
No way.
In fact, an appointive system would simply take control of judicial elections AWAY from the people, and put it INTO the hands of a few special interest lawyers, handpicked by the sitting governor. In a truly paradoxical way, it would not eliminate "special interests" from being a part of judicial selection, but instead guarantee it!!!
For all its flaws, at least with elections, we all get the chance to say our "yea" or "nea" to these candidates.
If you are a Republican in Dallas, right at this particular moment in time, perhaps appointing our judges seems like a good idea. But how will you feel in ten years, when a Democratic governor is in charge? That will happen at some point. (Impossible, you say? Two words: Dallas County).
Here's the bottom line on appointed judges:
Appointing judges is only a good idea if you happen to agree with the politics of the current governor.
And that's why they're a bad idea, no matter you may feel right now.
So, what about the second complaint about elections: that there's too many names on the ballot, and that no one can know about all these candidates?
I will turn to that issue now...
Turn Out, Tune In
First off, a word to voters. You complain that the ballot is too long, and that no one can know all these folks.
Well, me ask you this:
Do you take the time to get to know all the other candidates on your ballot?
Did you know all the candidates running for State Representative in the Dallas area (or, even in your district), before you stepped in the ballot box?
Could you name the candidates for Railroad Commissioner before the moment you saw the touch screen?
Do you even know what a Railroad Commissioner does?
One a Tuesday this Fall, when I was guest hosting the radio show with my friend, Charles Geilich (before it was bagged by KNON) we decided to do an electoral quiz. We asked our listeners to name the candidates for US Senator in the State of Texas. Somebody finally did. But it was probably five or six callers before anyone actually knew the answer; more than enough time for them to "Google it" and call in.
The point is, our ignorance of our electoral process extends far beyond our local judicial elections. And it's disingenuous for anyone to act as if this problem has somehow become horribly worse over night because of them. We were ignorant of our elections, and our duty as voters, long before the 42 judicial races of this cycle. Their appearance this time just put a hard spotlight on a problem that was already there.
And this time, candidates were out there, and candidates were available for you to get to know. At least on the Democratic side (all I can speak to), candidates attended hundreds of local events --parades, conventions, neighborhood meetings, elementary school forums, church and mosque services, bar associations, even the Greek Food Festival-- and were around for any normal human being to meet, greet, and question in the flesh. If you wanted to know about candidates, there were plenty of chances to do so over these past months.
So, in part, I blame ALL OF US for allowing ourselves to become so ignorant, and for then believing that the solution is to take a vote away from us, and give it to some "special interest group."
Yes, I blame us for not being more informed. But I blame one other group too.
I Blame the Media
Usually, this is something you hear conservatives doing. But I actually DO blame the media for a part of why we're so dissatisfied with our system of electing judges. And I'm frustrated with several of our local opinion columnists for blasting the idea of judicial elections (in columns and blogs), when the very paper they work for is part of the problem and part of the unrealized solution.
Here's what I mean...
Every Saturday morning during the Fall, I pick up my Dallas Morning News to discover a special "High School Football" section. Apparently, every Friday evening, the Morning News is able to dispatch dozens of reporters to small and obscure stadiums all over the great 100-mile radius of the Metroplex. Apparently, they find it important enough to devote 6-8 pages of coverage every Saturday morning to local high school football.
I am not questioning the wisdom of this. I am simply asking:
If they can do it for High School football, why can't they do it for local elections?
Why can't they --for the entire length of the election season (say mid-September on...)-- devote similar space (6-8 pages) once a week to local elections?
Imagine how well informed the voters could be with that kind of coverage!!!
They could create charts to explain the difference between a "County Court at Law" and a "State District Judge." They could print maps, showing the different state representative districts. They could literally run at least ONE story on just about every local race!!! Not just editorials (and I am NOT dissing their fine editorials), but real stories, focusing on the issues and the differences between local candidates.
I know, I know....everyone will say, "But nobody wants to read that stuff."
To which I have two responses:
1) The media should have no higher calling, and public service goal, than enabling voters to be informed, and
2) If you don't read that kind of stuff, then how can you ever be informed enough to vote for anyone?
It can be done. You can be informed. More than 70,000 voters during this election voted a non-straight ticket for either party. In fact, looked at from a certain perspective, no candidate won any election in Dallas County without some of these clearly discerning voters.
We need more of them, not less.
But to vote well, you've got to vote informed. And that takes effort, but it can be done.
You can argue the merits of "partisan" vs. "non-partisan" judicial elections, and I will not be able to respond nearly as forcefully against the latter. But I know that however we elect our judges, an elected system beats an appointive system any day, because it leaves the crucial job of selecting one whole branch of our government's leaders in the hands of "we the people."
And at the local level, that's never bad.
Why do we elect judges? Isn't there a better way?
Well, in short, there may be a better way to elect judges, but there is not a better way to get judges than through elections. As Churchill once said of democracy: It's not perfect, but it's better than all the other options.
The truth is, there really are only two good options:
1) Elections of some sort.
2) Appointments of some sort.
And while there are flaws to the first method, there are grave problems with the second.
When people complain about judicial elections, they do so for two main reason. They say:
1) "The judicial elections are controlled by 'special interests.'"
Then, they say:
2) "We don't know anything about these judges, the ballot is too confusing. How can we know who to vote for?!"
(This is the view Steve Blow took in a column a week or so before election day...)
As to the first concern....
Lawyers do contribute to many judicial campaigns. But they contribute in varying amounts, and some judicial races get almost zero dollars. Some of the most recent judicial campaigns were run on shoestring budgets funded only by the candidate's family and close friends. Others did get more total dollars from lawyers. However, I believe you will find is that --like many corporations on the national scene-- many lawyers eventually contribute money to both side of many campaigns. (And some will probably do so even more in the next election cycle...)
My own sense of most judicial elections is that there is little control or influence by the funders, whoever they are. Most of the candidates I know put up their own yardsigns, set up their own fundraisers, and used their own close family and friends as their "staff." If there were cookies to be baked, their Mom's baked them. If there were envelopes to be stuffed, their childhood friends stuffed them. Far from being manipulated by donations from lawyers, most campaigns were seriously grassroots efforts with little frills.
In fact, the grassroots nature of them can actually restore your faith in democracy.
I will wait to comment on the second "concern" about judicial elections ("the ballot is too long, and we don't know these people") until later in this essay. For now, let's turn to the other option: appointed judges.
Not A-Political, Just Differently-Political
Getting judges through an appointive system is seen by its proponents as an "a-political" solution. The idea is that some small group of people would recommend names to the governor --perhaps three-at-a-time for each open post-- and that the governor would then do the actual appointing.
Sounds good on the surface. But the truth is there are serious political concerns in this model too. This model, contrary to the myth around it, is not "a-political," it's just political in a different way.
And anybody who doubts it should remember what is currently going on in our state surrounding the issue of new coal burning electric plants proposed by the Governor and TXU. This process is overseen by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). As you can see here, the TCEQ is run by three political appointees, nominated by the Governor.
Surely, you have read the stories: local and county municipalities around the state worry that the green light is about to be given to dozens of coal plants without any "vote" by them or their local constituents. (a story in today's DMN estimates that the East Texas plants would result in more than 250 premature deaths each year..)
In other words, a highly controversial, seriously and long-term environmental decision, possibly affecting the health of millions of Texans, is being left up to the oversight of a group appointed by our governor, with no "vote" from the people.
That's what would happen if we to move to the appointment of judges.
The opponents of judicial elections complain about the problems inherent in lawyer's contributing to judicial campaigns. But think of what would be the case with appointed judges: The appointing body (even if their task is just to send three names up to the governor...) would, in all probability, be made up of...whom?
Lawyers!!!
Talk about undue influence!!! And just who would the governor appoint to this body? Do you really trust the governor to be non-partisan? Are you willing to take that risk?
Is the TCEQ acting in a non-partisan way toward these coal plants?
No way.
In fact, an appointive system would simply take control of judicial elections AWAY from the people, and put it INTO the hands of a few special interest lawyers, handpicked by the sitting governor. In a truly paradoxical way, it would not eliminate "special interests" from being a part of judicial selection, but instead guarantee it!!!
For all its flaws, at least with elections, we all get the chance to say our "yea" or "nea" to these candidates.
If you are a Republican in Dallas, right at this particular moment in time, perhaps appointing our judges seems like a good idea. But how will you feel in ten years, when a Democratic governor is in charge? That will happen at some point. (Impossible, you say? Two words: Dallas County).
Here's the bottom line on appointed judges:
Appointing judges is only a good idea if you happen to agree with the politics of the current governor.
And that's why they're a bad idea, no matter you may feel right now.
So, what about the second complaint about elections: that there's too many names on the ballot, and that no one can know about all these candidates?
I will turn to that issue now...
Turn Out, Tune In
First off, a word to voters. You complain that the ballot is too long, and that no one can know all these folks.
Well, me ask you this:
Do you take the time to get to know all the other candidates on your ballot?
Did you know all the candidates running for State Representative in the Dallas area (or, even in your district), before you stepped in the ballot box?
Could you name the candidates for Railroad Commissioner before the moment you saw the touch screen?
Do you even know what a Railroad Commissioner does?
One a Tuesday this Fall, when I was guest hosting the radio show with my friend, Charles Geilich (before it was bagged by KNON) we decided to do an electoral quiz. We asked our listeners to name the candidates for US Senator in the State of Texas. Somebody finally did. But it was probably five or six callers before anyone actually knew the answer; more than enough time for them to "Google it" and call in.
The point is, our ignorance of our electoral process extends far beyond our local judicial elections. And it's disingenuous for anyone to act as if this problem has somehow become horribly worse over night because of them. We were ignorant of our elections, and our duty as voters, long before the 42 judicial races of this cycle. Their appearance this time just put a hard spotlight on a problem that was already there.
And this time, candidates were out there, and candidates were available for you to get to know. At least on the Democratic side (all I can speak to), candidates attended hundreds of local events --parades, conventions, neighborhood meetings, elementary school forums, church and mosque services, bar associations, even the Greek Food Festival-- and were around for any normal human being to meet, greet, and question in the flesh. If you wanted to know about candidates, there were plenty of chances to do so over these past months.
So, in part, I blame ALL OF US for allowing ourselves to become so ignorant, and for then believing that the solution is to take a vote away from us, and give it to some "special interest group."
Yes, I blame us for not being more informed. But I blame one other group too.
I Blame the Media
Usually, this is something you hear conservatives doing. But I actually DO blame the media for a part of why we're so dissatisfied with our system of electing judges. And I'm frustrated with several of our local opinion columnists for blasting the idea of judicial elections (in columns and blogs), when the very paper they work for is part of the problem and part of the unrealized solution.
Here's what I mean...
Every Saturday morning during the Fall, I pick up my Dallas Morning News to discover a special "High School Football" section. Apparently, every Friday evening, the Morning News is able to dispatch dozens of reporters to small and obscure stadiums all over the great 100-mile radius of the Metroplex. Apparently, they find it important enough to devote 6-8 pages of coverage every Saturday morning to local high school football.
I am not questioning the wisdom of this. I am simply asking:
If they can do it for High School football, why can't they do it for local elections?
Why can't they --for the entire length of the election season (say mid-September on...)-- devote similar space (6-8 pages) once a week to local elections?
Imagine how well informed the voters could be with that kind of coverage!!!
They could create charts to explain the difference between a "County Court at Law" and a "State District Judge." They could print maps, showing the different state representative districts. They could literally run at least ONE story on just about every local race!!! Not just editorials (and I am NOT dissing their fine editorials), but real stories, focusing on the issues and the differences between local candidates.
I know, I know....everyone will say, "But nobody wants to read that stuff."
To which I have two responses:
1) The media should have no higher calling, and public service goal, than enabling voters to be informed, and
2) If you don't read that kind of stuff, then how can you ever be informed enough to vote for anyone?
It can be done. You can be informed. More than 70,000 voters during this election voted a non-straight ticket for either party. In fact, looked at from a certain perspective, no candidate won any election in Dallas County without some of these clearly discerning voters.
We need more of them, not less.
But to vote well, you've got to vote informed. And that takes effort, but it can be done.
You can argue the merits of "partisan" vs. "non-partisan" judicial elections, and I will not be able to respond nearly as forcefully against the latter. But I know that however we elect our judges, an elected system beats an appointive system any day, because it leaves the crucial job of selecting one whole branch of our government's leaders in the hands of "we the people."
And at the local level, that's never bad.
Judge Dennise Garcia Video
Oct/23/2006 01:22 AM | Permalink
Wanted to
give you a heads up about the new campaign video from
my wife, Judge Dennise Garcia. It's a website video,
intended for you to:
1) watch for yourself, and then
2) send off to your friends with a note about Dennise and why they should vote for her.
Click here to watch the video.
Here's the link if you want to copy it and send it along to your personal friends, with an email note from yourself:
http://www.dennisegarcia.com/page7/page15/movies/2006movie.html
Click here for a quick comparison of the two candidates for this race. (pdf format) As you can see, Dennise is far superior to her opponent in terms of being qualified for a Family Court bench.
Here's that same link, in case you want to send it around to people too:
http://www.dennisegarcia.com/candidatecomparison.pdf
Thanks for doing what you can to spread the word about Dennise.
1) watch for yourself, and then
2) send off to your friends with a note about Dennise and why they should vote for her.
Click here to watch the video.
Here's the link if you want to copy it and send it along to your personal friends, with an email note from yourself:
http://www.dennisegarcia.com/page7/page15/movies/2006movie.html
Click here for a quick comparison of the two candidates for this race. (pdf format) As you can see, Dennise is far superior to her opponent in terms of being qualified for a Family Court bench.
Here's that same link, in case you want to send it around to people too:
http://www.dennisegarcia.com/candidatecomparison.pdf
Thanks for doing what you can to spread the word about Dennise.
Yard Signs: We've Got 'Em, and You Need One.
Sep/27/2006 11:34 PM | Permalink
The
Re-Elect Judge Dennise Garcia
campaign continues to roll
along through September. The big push this month
for the Judge is to attend a lot of campaign
events. The big push for her many volunteers and
friends has been to get out the yard signs.
Several of you have told me that you have seen Judge Garcia's large 4x4 signs around town. And, in fact, there are a lot of them around town. In fact, we've sorta lost count, because so many folks are taking them and putting them up themselves. We estimate that there are probably 70-80 throughout Dallas County.
The campaign website is getting requests for regular sized yardsigns almost every single day. In fact, even with all our volunteers, it's getting hard to keep up with the demand.
And so, we've arranged for friends around the city to help out by keeping some on their porch. In fact, you can now pick up a yard sign at one of fifteen convenient locations scattered throughout Dallas County. To find a location near you, click here.
If you can't get a distribution site, or if you need a bunch of signs, just drop us an email. Also, our 4x4 signs may run out sometime next week, but if you know of a good location, let us know.
And, as always, thanks for all your support of Judge Garcia's campaign.
Several of you have told me that you have seen Judge Garcia's large 4x4 signs around town. And, in fact, there are a lot of them around town. In fact, we've sorta lost count, because so many folks are taking them and putting them up themselves. We estimate that there are probably 70-80 throughout Dallas County.
The campaign website is getting requests for regular sized yardsigns almost every single day. In fact, even with all our volunteers, it's getting hard to keep up with the demand.
And so, we've arranged for friends around the city to help out by keeping some on their porch. In fact, you can now pick up a yard sign at one of fifteen convenient locations scattered throughout Dallas County. To find a location near you, click here.
If you can't get a distribution site, or if you need a bunch of signs, just drop us an email. Also, our 4x4 signs may run out sometime next week, but if you know of a good location, let us know.
And, as always, thanks for all your support of Judge Garcia's campaign.
Judge Garcia Gets the Dallas Morning News Endorsement
Sep/18/2006 08:38 AM | Permalink
The buttons
are popping off my shirt today, and not because I
haven't been exercising.
This morning, the Dallas Morning News has come out with it's editorial endorsements for the Family District Courts in Dallas County. My favorite Judge, Dennise Garcia, gets the nod for her court, the 303rd State District Court.
Every now and then, I brag about her on this blog. But, being married to her, you'd expect that, right?
So, why not take the word of Dallas' leading newspaper instead?
Here's what they said about her:
"Judge Dennise Garcia seems a rising star, having caught her stride during her first term on a bench that has seen a fair amount of turnover in recent years and could use stability. Judge Garcia, 38, a Dallas Democrat, is respected by her peers and is developing a solid courtroom demeanor. The fact that she brings ethnic diversity to the family courts, where she is the only Hispanic judge, is an added plus...
We recommend another term for Judge Garcia."
For more info about this "rising star," visit her campaign site. Early voting starts in late October. There's still plenty of time for you to get a yard sign, and to tell your friends. I hope you will.
This morning, the Dallas Morning News has come out with it's editorial endorsements for the Family District Courts in Dallas County. My favorite Judge, Dennise Garcia, gets the nod for her court, the 303rd State District Court.
Every now and then, I brag about her on this blog. But, being married to her, you'd expect that, right?
So, why not take the word of Dallas' leading newspaper instead?
Here's what they said about her:
"Judge Dennise Garcia seems a rising star, having caught her stride during her first term on a bench that has seen a fair amount of turnover in recent years and could use stability. Judge Garcia, 38, a Dallas Democrat, is respected by her peers and is developing a solid courtroom demeanor. The fact that she brings ethnic diversity to the family courts, where she is the only Hispanic judge, is an added plus...
We recommend another term for Judge Garcia."
For more info about this "rising star," visit her campaign site. Early voting starts in late October. There's still plenty of time for you to get a yard sign, and to tell your friends. I hope you will.
Five Years Later: Remembering the hole in my heart,
and the question on my mind
Sep/11/2006 11:34 PM | Permalink
Last night,
Dennise and I watched a 911 documentary on CBS. If
you haven't seen it, I highly recommend
it. It's from two French
film-makers who, in the summer of 2001 shadowed a
FDNY unit in an attempt to tell the story of a
"rookie's coming of age." But late that summer, on
the morning of September 11th, they just happened
to be out filming a routine call --a report of a
gas leak-- when a plane flew overhead, slammed
into the World Trade Center, and they found
themselves as ground-zero videographers for the
worst day in our nation's history.
The rest of the film chronicles their short two-minute ride to the site, the heroism of the FDNY, and the way they cheated death when the first tower fell, encasing them all in toxic white powder.
It's riveting footage. And, to my way of thinking, an incredibly appropriate way to honor the heroism of those incredible men and women...and to remember that terrible day.
As I watched the show, I bawled like a baby. I mean bawled. You see, it's been several years since I saw some of those visual images:
the burning buildings...
the people looking up in disbelief...
the horror of the buildings crumbling to the ground, and people run for their lives in terror...
And, like you probably did today, I remembered back to where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news, and it suddenly all came back. The weekend before 911 had been a good one. I had actually been down in Kerrville at the SWERFA Conference. What a great time that was...hanging out with friends, playing music till early in the morning...
I arrived home and had intended to write some thank you notes to folks, telling them how great it had been to see them. In fact, I was probably going to do that on Tuesday morning. But then, early that morning, Dennise called back home on her way to work. She told me a plane had hit the WTC, and she told me to turn on our TV. Like most of America, I then turned on our TV to see the smoking buildings in a scene that seemed completely surreal.
The idea of planes hitting the buildings was surreal.
The idea that they could collapse to the ground just an hour later was surreal.
The idea that a small group of terrorists could have pulled it off was surreal.
There was just nothing about that day that seemed real.
But it was. It was all-too horribly real. And, like me, you probably cried off and on for weeks. Someone has put up Jon Stewart's first post-911 monologue. Somewhere between 911 and now, I became a huge Jon Stewart fan. Until today, I'd never seen this monologue before. And somehow, seeing a guy who excels at comedy having a hard time making jokes and speaking from his heart, reminded me how broken-open my heart was during that time:
Doesn't that bring it all back for you too?
Of course, no matter where you were in America those next few days, surreality followed you. Those of us who live in big cities walked outside to empty skies for almost a week. Almost nobody got any work done for days. We were all glued to cable TV networks, searching for some sense of something that made ...well, sense...
...maybe a survivor would be found
...maybe we would find who had done this
...maybe we would find an answer to the question why.
But as the months passed and the "pile" of debris was removed, a just-as-gaping "hole" was created in our souls. No matter how deeply those first-responders dug, they only turned up dust. And now, five years later, we continue to sift through the dust of that day, and we continue to find nothing but emptiness.
And the mastermind behind it all is still walking around a free man today. And as I remember 911, I cannot help but remember this too. So, while I remember five-years-ago, I also have one question. It's a question I ask on this blog a lot because, to me, it's the hanging chad of the entire 911-experience:
Where is Osama Bin Laden?
So-called experts say he's no longer a threat.
The President told us a few years back that he really didn't think about him much anymore.
The CIA unit, put together to hunt him down, has been dismantled.
Pakistan has cut a deal with the tribal warlords who are believed to be sheltering him to keep their troops out....effectively creating a buffer zone where he can operate with impunity.
And WE? We apparently haven't even blinked an eye about any of this.
I just don't get it. I really don't.
Look, I don't care if Bin Laden never launches another attack again. I don't care if he is so isolated that he can't harm a field mouse. I don't care if he's living in a cave, eating cockroaches, and drinking his own urine.
The point is, he's the greatest mass murderer of our time. The point is, he's directly responsible for the greatest terrorist attack in our country's history. The point is that, if justice has any meaning at all, he deserves to be brought to it.
From what I've heard, ABC chose to mark the five years since 911 with a docu-drama that blames it on President Clinton. Allegedly based on the 911 Commission Report, the show has been panned by several of the 911 Commission members for its unfair portrayal of events during that time.
Unbelievable.
Clinton actually launched missile attacks to try and TAKE OUT Bin Laden, and got blamed for "wagging the dog." (Remember who stood up on the House Floor to denounce him for this? Hint: Think recently-resigned Congressman from South Texas, who goes by the nickname, "Hot Tub") But somehow, Clinton didn't do enough and somehow, in some people's twisted minds, it's all his fault.
OK. I'll cede that he could have done more; and I'll be happy to do this, so long as I get to ask MY question:
Why, five years later, has Bin Laden not be captured?!!!
See, eventually this cannot be Clinton's fault. Eventually, it has to be the fault of those who have put all our resources into Iraq, and taken their eyes off the ball.
---------------------------
As I do every night, I watched Keith Olbermann's show tonight. At the end, he delivered a stinging and strident commentary. Using that still-empty hole at ground zero as a backdrop, he spoke with an anger that many of my friends have carried in their hearts for five years. Using the same metaphor of an empty, ground-zero hole, he also talked about the hole in our nation. But he's a lot angrier than I am. (At least tonight...)
Crooks and Liars already has the video. Those of you who are frustrated by the war, frustrated by the administration, and pained by the memory of 911, will probably like it. Those of you who still support the President probably won't. But here's the link.
I can't agree with everything he says or seems to advocate. But I understand the anger. I really do. And I hear that anger from a lot of people these days. And, love him or hate him, Olbermann's critics do well to realize that he doesn't so much make this stuff up, as he channels things that many people in the country --maybe even the majority-- are feel and believe right now.
So, I watched Olbermann tonight.
I watched CBS last night.
But I did not watch ABC's trash.
And in my way, five years later, I remembered.
I remembered 911.
I can promise the loved ones of those who gave their lives that day, that I remembered and I always WILL remember. I may not remember each and every day of my life. But the experience of this fifth anniversary reminds me that, when I open myself up just a little, those tears come rushing back, as if it happened just yesterday.
What I will choose to remember is the incredible heroism of the FDNY.
I will choose to remember how, for one brief and shining period after 911, our country was more unified than it's ever been in my lifetime
And tonight, I will remember how our nation's heart broke that day, in ways that will likely never heal. I will allow myself to remember the hole in the ground, and the hole in our hearts, that we all carry still.
The rest of the film chronicles their short two-minute ride to the site, the heroism of the FDNY, and the way they cheated death when the first tower fell, encasing them all in toxic white powder.
It's riveting footage. And, to my way of thinking, an incredibly appropriate way to honor the heroism of those incredible men and women...and to remember that terrible day.
As I watched the show, I bawled like a baby. I mean bawled. You see, it's been several years since I saw some of those visual images:
the burning buildings...
the people looking up in disbelief...
the horror of the buildings crumbling to the ground, and people run for their lives in terror...
And, like you probably did today, I remembered back to where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news, and it suddenly all came back. The weekend before 911 had been a good one. I had actually been down in Kerrville at the SWERFA Conference. What a great time that was...hanging out with friends, playing music till early in the morning...
I arrived home and had intended to write some thank you notes to folks, telling them how great it had been to see them. In fact, I was probably going to do that on Tuesday morning. But then, early that morning, Dennise called back home on her way to work. She told me a plane had hit the WTC, and she told me to turn on our TV. Like most of America, I then turned on our TV to see the smoking buildings in a scene that seemed completely surreal.
The idea of planes hitting the buildings was surreal.
The idea that they could collapse to the ground just an hour later was surreal.
The idea that a small group of terrorists could have pulled it off was surreal.
There was just nothing about that day that seemed real.
But it was. It was all-too horribly real. And, like me, you probably cried off and on for weeks. Someone has put up Jon Stewart's first post-911 monologue. Somewhere between 911 and now, I became a huge Jon Stewart fan. Until today, I'd never seen this monologue before. And somehow, seeing a guy who excels at comedy having a hard time making jokes and speaking from his heart, reminded me how broken-open my heart was during that time:
Doesn't that bring it all back for you too?
Of course, no matter where you were in America those next few days, surreality followed you. Those of us who live in big cities walked outside to empty skies for almost a week. Almost nobody got any work done for days. We were all glued to cable TV networks, searching for some sense of something that made ...well, sense...
...maybe a survivor would be found
...maybe we would find who had done this
...maybe we would find an answer to the question why.
But as the months passed and the "pile" of debris was removed, a just-as-gaping "hole" was created in our souls. No matter how deeply those first-responders dug, they only turned up dust. And now, five years later, we continue to sift through the dust of that day, and we continue to find nothing but emptiness.
And the mastermind behind it all is still walking around a free man today. And as I remember 911, I cannot help but remember this too. So, while I remember five-years-ago, I also have one question. It's a question I ask on this blog a lot because, to me, it's the hanging chad of the entire 911-experience:
Where is Osama Bin Laden?
So-called experts say he's no longer a threat.
The President told us a few years back that he really didn't think about him much anymore.
The CIA unit, put together to hunt him down, has been dismantled.
Pakistan has cut a deal with the tribal warlords who are believed to be sheltering him to keep their troops out....effectively creating a buffer zone where he can operate with impunity.
And WE? We apparently haven't even blinked an eye about any of this.
I just don't get it. I really don't.
Look, I don't care if Bin Laden never launches another attack again. I don't care if he is so isolated that he can't harm a field mouse. I don't care if he's living in a cave, eating cockroaches, and drinking his own urine.
The point is, he's the greatest mass murderer of our time. The point is, he's directly responsible for the greatest terrorist attack in our country's history. The point is that, if justice has any meaning at all, he deserves to be brought to it.
From what I've heard, ABC chose to mark the five years since 911 with a docu-drama that blames it on President Clinton. Allegedly based on the 911 Commission Report, the show has been panned by several of the 911 Commission members for its unfair portrayal of events during that time.
Unbelievable.
Clinton actually launched missile attacks to try and TAKE OUT Bin Laden, and got blamed for "wagging the dog." (Remember who stood up on the House Floor to denounce him for this? Hint: Think recently-resigned Congressman from South Texas, who goes by the nickname, "Hot Tub") But somehow, Clinton didn't do enough and somehow, in some people's twisted minds, it's all his fault.
OK. I'll cede that he could have done more; and I'll be happy to do this, so long as I get to ask MY question:
Why, five years later, has Bin Laden not be captured?!!!
See, eventually this cannot be Clinton's fault. Eventually, it has to be the fault of those who have put all our resources into Iraq, and taken their eyes off the ball.
---------------------------
As I do every night, I watched Keith Olbermann's show tonight. At the end, he delivered a stinging and strident commentary. Using that still-empty hole at ground zero as a backdrop, he spoke with an anger that many of my friends have carried in their hearts for five years. Using the same metaphor of an empty, ground-zero hole, he also talked about the hole in our nation. But he's a lot angrier than I am. (At least tonight...)
Crooks and Liars already has the video. Those of you who are frustrated by the war, frustrated by the administration, and pained by the memory of 911, will probably like it. Those of you who still support the President probably won't. But here's the link.
I can't agree with everything he says or seems to advocate. But I understand the anger. I really do. And I hear that anger from a lot of people these days. And, love him or hate him, Olbermann's critics do well to realize that he doesn't so much make this stuff up, as he channels things that many people in the country --maybe even the majority-- are feel and believe right now.
So, I watched Olbermann tonight.
I watched CBS last night.
But I did not watch ABC's trash.
And in my way, five years later, I remembered.
I remembered 911.
I can promise the loved ones of those who gave their lives that day, that I remembered and I always WILL remember. I may not remember each and every day of my life. But the experience of this fifth anniversary reminds me that, when I open myself up just a little, those tears come rushing back, as if it happened just yesterday.
What I will choose to remember is the incredible heroism of the FDNY.
I will choose to remember how, for one brief and shining period after 911, our country was more unified than it's ever been in my lifetime
And tonight, I will remember how our nation's heart broke that day, in ways that will likely never heal. I will allow myself to remember the hole in the ground, and the hole in our hearts, that we all carry still.
Connecting the Dots on the Cost of Immigrants
Aug/25/2006 10:13 AM | Permalink
Take city taxes, for example. Migrant workers pay virtually the exact same amount as you and me to the City of Dallas through the sales taxes they pay. Like us, they shop at Wal-Mart and Target. They shop at NorthPark and Gaston Bazzar. And every time they make a purchase, they are paying taxes to the City of Dallas, just like we do. They are helping to pay for services such as police, fire, libraries, sanitation.
But also, take county taxes. And this where the aforementioned story about Parkland comes back into the picture. The story starts off by stating the following:
"Illegal immigrants got more than $22.4 million worth of nonemergency medical care at Parkland Memorial Hospital this year, officials said Tuesday. The cost estimate was the first time Parkland has quantified how much Dallas County taxpayers are paying for such care for illegal immigrants. "It's a significant amount of money," said John Gates, the hospital's chief financial officer."
Sounds pretty scary. Sounds like a terrible free ride, on the backs of all of us.
However, what this screaming factoid fails to account for is that a slice of Parkland's revenue comes from property taxes that are, most surely, paid for by these same migrant workers themselves. Every property owner pays property taxes to Dallas County. (The story says that, on average, it's about $370/house, and $348 million to the Parkland system...) And every landlord worth his or her salt passes that cost on to their tenants in the form of rent. It's not a broken-out, special cost. But it's in there. They'd be a fool not to include it. (Unless for some reason they are intentionally trying to take some kind of business loss on a particular property...)
The point is this:
A) Most migrant workers in the greater Dallas area pay rent
B) Most landlords pass their property tax amounts on to them as part of their monthly rent, and therefore:
C) Most migrants pay about what most other apartment dwellers pay for services at Parkland Hospital.
I was disappointed that the story by the DMN didn't connect these dots together. In fact, it felt like the story was trying to do two things at once. Actually, it was a pretty good story about how Parkland is trying to get reimbursement from the federal government for the cost of migrant care. As, Parkland board member Richard Kneipper was quoted as saying: "We're trying to stop Dallas County from paying more than its fair share."
Can't blame them one bit.
What I do blame them for, however, is not connecting the dots. Because while there is a helpful breakdown in this story of how homeowners pay taxes into the Parkland system, there was no admission that some of this revenue comes from the pockets of migrant workers themselves.
Common sense tells us they most assuredly pay these taxes. Just as they pay sales tax to the City of Dallas. Just as the story the next day showed that they pay taxes into the Federal system too.
By the way, they are paying a LOT into the Federal system. It's surely not the total amount they would pay, were all migrant workers given legal documents and status. But it's billions of dollars. And these are dollars that --because the underlying personal documents are fraudulent-- none of these workers will ever see. As I mentioned earlier, the DMN story the very next day cited one expert who, using the Federal Government's own numbers, believes that there is one billion dollars in the Social Security system for every one million migrant workers.
Read that last line again.
And get this thought into your head: This is a gift to you, me, and everyone else in our country.
It is a gift from these migrant workers to the American government and economy. A gift they will never see, and that can only go to help our economy and our government's bottom line.
And can you imagine if this gift came to us another way? What if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that they were giving billions of dollars to the US Government?
What if they did it and said, "Use it any way you wish. It's our free gift to you."
I guarantee you, that story would be on the front page of every news channel for at least the next day. Everyone would be complimenting them on their generosity and magnanimity.
Friends, that's exactly what migrant workers are doing every day, right now. Except almost nobody's talking about it.
Again, I don't fault Parkland for seeking reimbursements any way they can. But I do question them singling out the migrant worker population, as if these workers pay nothing in to the Parkland system. And, if Parkland has done the analysis on what migrant workers contribute, it would've been nice to hear about it in the context of a headline that screams about how much migrant workers cost.
To my mind, migrant workers pay-in just about the same amount (proportionally, not in total dollars) as any apartment-dweller living in "The Village," or in the swanky new "W." As I said, certainly not the same dollar amount as these folks but, proportionally, about the same share. (Again, because of the cost is passed on the form of rent...)
Is Parkland going to seek reimbursement for the care of those who live in the "The Village?" If they were actively seeking reimbursement for the care of folks who live in "The Village," I wouldn't have single problem with their strategy. But since I haven't heard that this is what they're doing, it makes me wonder:
Why single out immigrants, and why now?
Without a clear answer, it feels like pandering to a hot button political issue. So, I'd love for Parkland to prove me wrong, and go after reimbursement for ALL apartment/tenant patients in the City of Dallas. Until and unless they do this, their strategy feels like pandering to the people who scream about how much immigrants cost our society.
-----------------------------------
Speaking of that, I haven't written about the furor in Farmers Branch.
What a bizarre story!!
I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand, I want to be deeply offended by the racism of the comments of Tim O'Hare of the Farmers Branch City Council. On the other hand, the argument is so completely ludicrous, that I'm left wondering: how does any thinking person take him seriously?!!
On the third hand (?), I'm also left wishing someone would connect the dots of his argument and ask him some tough questions about his proposals too.
Lemme get this straight: EVERY single major problem in Farmers Branch is attributable to a rise in immigrant population?
Oh, come on. Surely nobody with a brain takes this seriously!
Actually, the scary truth is that lots of folks probably will take him seriously.
Paradoxically, one of the provisions that O'Brien wants Farmers Branch to pass is to make it illegal to rent property to migrant workers.
Wow, now that will solve the problem!! Take away the tax base by not allowing landlords to collect rents from tenants!! If he thinks he's got a problem of a shrinking tax base now, just wait until that idea passes.
I haven't spent a lot of time in Farmers Branch lately. But my hunch is that the situation there is pretty much the same as the situation in every suburb on the northern side of town: The booming growth has moved to the North...to places like Frisco, the Colony, and even beyond. That's not the fault of immigrants. That's just the way it happens.
Twenty-five years ago, when I was growing up in Far North Dallas, we secretly cursed the success of Plano (OK, maybe not so secretly...) because it was clear, even then, that the excitement and energy of growth had moved past us.
It doesn't feel good when that kind of shift happens. But it's relatively inevitable, given the growth patterns of North Texas these past thirty years.
What's happening to Farmers Branch mirrors what happened to old, downtown Richardson fifteen-years-ago. In and around that time, dozens of Asian businesses moved in and set up shop. Now, when you drive down Beltline, you see dozens of shops (and even churches) with Chinese lettering on the storefronts.
Did some folks complain? I'm sure they did. But most folks seemed glad that someone was willing to move in, set up shop, and revitalize the area. And most of the City of Richardson today is glad to collect the taxes from all those successful businesses.
Again, I don't know the exact situation in Farmers Branch. But my hunch is, the same kind of demographic shift is happening there too. And it has very little do to with migrant workers, and everything to do with the average age of Farmers Branch residents and the folks who own properties there.
Picking on the immigrant population may make Mr. O'Brien and his friends feel good. But at the end of the day, every major problem they identify in Farmers Branch will still be there. And, if they pass their law about renting to migrants, they'll certainly see a drop in their tax base. So, here we come back to the "connecting the dots" issue again. It would be nice for the DMN and others to ask Mr. O'Brien just what his plan is for replacing that tax revenue.
Finally, it's ironic that Mr. O'Brien raises these concerns now. Because just two weeks before, the Morning News also reported that a new study shows no impact on local jobs due to migrant populations. The study is from the Pew Center, and here's a quote from that story:
"One of every six workers in Texas is foreign-born, but that hasn't hurt job prospects for native-born workers, says a Pew Hispanic Center study released Thursday.
The study comes as debates over immigration policy heat up on Capitol Hill, in congressional hearings around the nation and in political campaigns.
The nonpartisan center said that during the booming 1990s, native-born workers in Texas had above-average employment rates and the foreign-born population had above-average growth rates.
The study, based on census data, also didn't find a link between foreign-born workers and employment rates for native-born workers in 2000 through 2004, when the economy slumped.
"There is no clear relationship between trends in immigration and employment outcomes for native workers," said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the Pew center.
"Others can draw the connection, but we find no relationship.""
I'd love for someone to connect those dots and ask Mr. O'Brien about this too. And given all these realities I've been discussing here, I'd love for someone to ask him: how are his proposals a good idea for his city? How will they actually fix the ills he says that they will?
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The bottom line is this:
If we are going to have a serious debate about the affect of the migrant population on our city and region, we must not only complain about the costs of having migrants among us, but we must also be willing to carefully analyze what they are giving back to us. We must take into account the gifts they are giving us in Social Security taxes. We must take into account the city and county taxes they pay.
We must honestly connect the dots, and look past screaming headlines or screaming politicians.
Questions that Keep My Up at Night (After a Foiled
Terrorist Plot)
Aug/11/2006 10:35 PM | Permalink
Why is our "Homeland Security" Department still wasting so much money?
Despite this stunning and deft capture of terror suspects, the facts are that our government is wasting billions of dollars in a so-called War on Terror. I say "so called" not because we shouldn't fight terrorism --we should. But some of the ways we're spending money to "fight" terrorism defy all logic and credulity and make me question whether we're really serious about it or not.
For example, as I write these words, and since its creation a few years back, our Homeland Security Department has spent close to half a trillion dollars. Some of this, I am sure, has done great good. But, our government is also wasting billions of dollars to catalogue targets that can't possibly have anything to do with terrorism.
As just one example of how bad it's gotten, Indiana (not exactly the first state that leaps to my mind) apparently has more terrorism targets on the government's official list than New York or California. Seems a little odd, no?
The folks at the Daily Show thought so, and as usual, they are right on the mark with their lampoon of this insanity.
And, as if it couldn't get any more surreal, there are stories that some of the pork-barrell projects coming out of Homeland Security may actually go to benefit the regime of Hugo Chavez. I kid you not. Read for yourself.
The Washington Post recently ran a story that detailed much of these same issues too.
It said:
"In the years since Bush stood atop the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center and pledged retaliation against "the people who knocked down these buildings," the federal government has undergone an unprecedented expansion and reorganization.
Yet the counterterrorism infrastructure that resulted has become so immense and unwieldy that many looking at it from the outside, and even some on the inside, have trouble understanding how it works or how much safer it has made the country."
We've spent almost half-a-trillion-dollars on this stuff.
Do you feel half-a-trillion-dollars safer?
Why have we not caught Osama Bin Laden?
Incredulously, earlier this year, the CIA disbanded its group that worked exclusively on tracking Bin Laden. They did so because they argued that the terrorism threat had expanded so exponentially that it was useless to simply focus on him alone.
But terrorism experts are saying that this week's foiled plot looks an awful lot like a foiled Al Qaida plot from the mid-90s. And, whether he's still a threat or not, he's still he guy most responsible for the most horrendous attack in our history. And yet, almost nobody talks about him anymore.
How is that possible?!!!
And why are we still fighting a War in Iraq that has nothing to do with stopping terrorist attacks like this?
As the hot days of summer roll on, hotter news has pushed the war right out of our minds. The situation in Israel/Lebanon is "hotter." This foiled terrorist plot is "hotter."
But lest we forget, there's still a war going on in Iraq.
We're being told that our top generals now admit that "civil war" there is a distinct possibility. There's absolutely no question that Iraq is now the world's largest crucible for new-terrorist-creation. Iraq is churning them out at a rate that will surely astound us all.
And, just this week, my own hometown newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, came out with a scathing editorial about the conduct of the war by our administration. Titled "What We're Doing Isn't Working" here's a part of what they said:
"Three years after the overthrow of Saddam, the American military is still fighting to control Baghdad. Whatever this is, it's not progress.
Facts on the ground are rendering President Bush's vision of a united Iraq increasingly untenable. The forces of sectarian hatred tearing the country apart are growing stronger than the forces keeping it together. The U.S. military is being asked to reconstruct a nation that's apparently more interested in deconstructing itself.
What we're doing isn't working, and this late in the game there is little reason to assume things will change. It's time for Plan B – which probably means working out, in conjunction with regional powers, some credible and enforceable partitioning of the country."
You know it's bad when the DMN will print this kind of editorial.
Cindy Sheehan is back in Crawford, Texas because the President in on vacation there too. And whether you love h