Clean living
I saw Michael Dukakis on TV tonight. I couldn't believe how young he looked. He's 75 years old, for chrissakes. Anyway, here's a recent picture of him. Judge for yourself.
I saw Michael Dukakis on TV tonight. I couldn't believe how young he looked. He's 75 years old, for chrissakes. Anyway, here's a recent picture of him. Judge for yourself.
...the 1960 election. Draw from that what you will.
Footnote: this morning I found myself wondering, what is really new and different about Barack Obama? By this time in 1992, we'd seen Bill Clinton open up a can of whoop-ass on Sister Souljah (what the hell ever happened to her, by the way?) and declare "the end of welfare as we know it" (Bruce Reed's throwaway line that became preposterously famous). We knew he was a different kind of Democrat--a centrist.
So, what's different about Obama? What's new, fresh, interesting, exciting, different, other than the man himself? (Actually, he's already starting to tarnish. He gives a great speech, but he can be petty, gaffe-prone, halting, and arrogant in his less scripted moments.) And if the answer is "nothing," are we really prepared to elect a guy just because he's young, fresh, and new?
As I said, there are some similarities to 1960...
For years and years I've had arguments with gun control advocates over the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. I'm not a constitutional lawyer...and neither were they. One thing I knew to be true, however, was that inclusion of the word "militia" in the 2nd Amendment was not the beginning and end of the argument. There have been scores of books and journal articles written on the 2nd Amendment, many of which parse the language word by word--including "militia." I also knew that in the past 10 to 15 years, scholarly work on the 2nd Amendment had shifted such that the individual rights position was the dominant one. (When Laurence Tribe's constitutional law textbook adopted that position, you knew there had been a sea change.) I told all my gun-controlling friends and family members that the courts would catch up with the scholarship sooner or later.
Well, today is definitely later, but it's a very good day for individual liberty.
Footnote: nobody--not a single person--with whom I had those arguments over the years is a reader of this blog. Just in case they missed the decision, though, I might mention it the next time I see them.
Anklenote: in a separate decision, the Court invalidated the "millionaire's amendment," one of the many odious features of the Incumbent Self-Protection Act, er, the McCain-Feingold law, um, sorry, I mean the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.
Senator McCain's law is not aging gracefully. I suspected it wouldn't...so did George W. Bush, but he signed it anyway, saying the courts would take care of the constitutionally problematic provisions. Now that's what I call leaderhood. (You have to read that last sentence in the Will Ferrell-as-George W. Bush voice.)
There is a fascinating general election in the offing. It's often hard to tell why people vote the way they do, so we may never be able to say with precision that Obama or McCain won the election because of this, that, or the other thing. The election will, however, answer some of the following questions:
Are Americans prepared to elect a liberal president?
They haven't done so since 1964, but there's no reason they can't again.
Are Americans prepared to bear the costs of winning a winnable war in Iraq?
Most people would agree that the Iraq war is now winnable (by which I mean that we can get Iraq to a point where it has a stable national government that can successfully defend itself against internal and external threats). Most of the remaining debate is over timetables and cost. John McCain says that we should stay as long as it takes to win and bear the necessary costs. Barack Obama thinks that the costs have already been too high.
Are Americans prepared to elect a black president?
They never have, but they haven't had a chance until now.
How important is experience to Americans?
Barack Obama would be the least politically experienced president since Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, in turn, was the least politically experienced president since John Kennedy. Neither Carter nor Kennedy is considered a good president, overall, by academics. (To be fair, though, Kennedy only had two years, nine months in office.) Kennedy, however, is highly regarded by the public at large. So, will voters think of Obama as a potential Carter or a potential Kennedy? Or something altogether different?
Will evangelical Christians vote for a candidate who isn't one of them?
Christians have been spoiled by George W. Bush, so they're not enthused by John McCain. It's as if John Belushi were being replaced on SNL by his vastly less talented brother, Jim. How much excitement would that generate? Then again, McCain is right on the issue that matters most to conservative Christians (abortion), and on an intimately related issue (what kind of judges to appoint to the federal bench and the Supreme Court). So, will evangelicals be repelled enough by Obama to vote for McCain as if he were an evangelical Christian himself, or will their lack of enthusiasm for McCain cause them to stay at home during the campaign and on election day?
Will conservatives vote for a candidate who has defied them repeatedly?
John McCain is, basically, a conservative. But he's not a down-the-line conservative, and his deviations from conservative orthodoxy often seem politically motivated, ill-informed, unprincipled, and/or sanctimonious. Naturally, conservatives don't react well to this. The question is, again, will they be repelled enough by the prospect of Obamaism to vote for McCain, or will they stay home during the campaign and on election day (or vote for Bob Barr)?
Do Americans think we're still at war? If so, will it matter?
If you were a single-issue voter, and your one issue was the war on terror, it would be hard to justify a vote for Barack Obama. If Obama said, "A vote for John McCain is a vote for a continuation of the policies of George W. Bush," then McCain could say, "You mean the policies that have kept Americans free from another terrorist attack since 9/11?" Obama would then say, "No, I mean the policies that got us into Iraq." Then McCain could say, "Ah, but I've supported a different Iraq policy since 2003. Since 2003, I've supported the policy that has turned around the situation in Iraq. You, on the other hand, rejected that policy. Said it wouldn't work. Said it couldn't work. You were wrong, and I was right. And I was right at a time when support for my position was less than the margin of error in most national polls. When have you ever risked anything for the sake of your country?" (Two-fer here: McCain refers both to the political risks he took by supporting the surge AND the mortal risks he took by refusing release from the Hanoi Hilton.)
Thinking that this sort of debate would matter, though, assumes that Americans give a crap about this kind of substance when it comes to foreign policy (as opposed to "kitchen table issues"). It also assumes that they don't have "war fatigue," and that 9/11 still resonates as a political issue, even though we haven't been attacked since 2001. Is that true? Just another one of those things this election will help us figure out...
Footnote: I don't think many lefties read this Web page, but I know that they could trot out a bunch of examples of things that George W. Bush--and by extension, John McCain--has done to weaken our security (putatively, anyway). The problem is that Barack Obama isn't better on any of them. One could, for example, argue that this administration's immigration policy has potentially endangered our national security. But can Obama credibly claim to be tougher on border security?
I was watching O'Reilly tonight, and he was talking about Don Imus' latest racially inflammatory remarks. The subject of O'Reilly's own remarks about Sylvia's restaurant came up. And all over the radio today, too, were Barack Obama's comments that Republicans would try to remind everyone that he's black.
All of this got me thinking about race relations in America. As I've noted before, I don't have any black friends. I have black acquaintances from graduate school, but I'm not in touch with them any more. These particular acquaintances are quick to find racial insults in remarks that I would consider benign. They also tend to adopt a fairly patronizing attitude toward people like me ("poor, benighted white boy; thinks he's a conservative, doesn't realize that means 'racist'"). And they DEFINITELY do not like to be "interviewed" about what it's like to be black. (I made that mistake once or twice. These particular acquaintances talk and write so much about race, I figured, "What the hell. I'll admit my ignorance and ask them to enlighten me." That's what I did. I was told, "It's not my job to enlighten you. Do I ask you what it's like to be white?" My response: "No, but you could...")
So, anyway, you see the limits of what I've been able to learn from black people I know. Having experienced those limits, I'd be very reluctant to explore issues of race with any new black friends or acquaintances I might make.
I've actually learned much more from black people I don't know and wouldn't consider friends or acquaintances. These are people I've had a chance to interview, hang around with, and/or observe in my work. (If your work involves antipoverty policy, as mine does, and if you want to talk to the people who make that policy, who administer it, and who are on the receiving end of it, you're going to talk to a LOT of black people. Unless you live in Utah.) The perspective gained from this, though, is only a little slice of the whole pie.
So, what to do next? I'm asking for real. There should be a way for white Americans to learn more about black Americans without offending them, without befriending someone just so you can pick their brain, without hanging out in places where blacks hang out and "studying" them like some sort of guilt-ridden anthropologist.
But what are the alternatives? Reading? Watching BETV? I'm serious! Looking for suggestions here...
For some
reason today I had a flashback to the 2006 Virginia Senate race between George
Allen and Jim Webb. You may remember that Webb had dispatched a kid to film all
of Allen's campaign events, hoping to catch him in a screw-up. Annoyed by this,
Allen referred to the kid at one campaign stop as "Macaca, or whatever his
name is," and later said, "Let's give a welcome to Macaca."
This caused a flap when it was revealed
that the word "macaca" is used as a racial slur in certain parts of
the world, and that the kid filming Allen was of Indian ancestry.
When asked about his use of the word
"macaca," Allen said that it was just a "made up word," one
that he had "never heard before."
Now, I can understand making up a word for a guy, or
a nickname, but "macaca"? That sounds like baby-talk; it has no
meaning. If you were going to make up a name you'd come up with something like,
"Sneaky Pete." If you wanted people to make note of his dark skin,
you might come up with something like "Haji" or "Apu." You
wouldn't come up with "macaca," precisely because it's meaningless.
Ah, but you might come up with "macaca" if you knew it had racist connotations in certain cultures. Yes, very clever... Here, though, is Wikipedia's explanation of the word:
Macaca[1] is a pejorative epithet used by francophone colonialists in Central Africa's Belgian Congo for the native population.[2] It may be derived from the name of the genus comprising macaque monkeys. The word macaque has also been used as a racial slur. The macaque's genus name, Macaca, is a latinization of the Bantu (Kongo) ma-kako,[3] meaning "monkey".
You think George Allen knew that? Again, it defies
belief. The brainiest, most well-read people I know had never heard the word
"macaca." You think George Allen--who has all the brains and
worldliness of a fruit fly--knew the origins and meaning of this word? Even if
he did, his audience clearly did not, so why use it? He might as well have told
a joke in Swedish...not a single person in the crowd would get it.
So, we're left with a mystery. "Macaca"
can't have been some randomly generated, meaningless nickname. At the same
time, though, Allen couldn't possibly have known the meaning of the word among
"francophone colonialists," or, on the exceedingly slim chance that
he did, there would have been no reason for him to use it with an audience that
could only hear it and say, "Huh?"
As I said, a mystery.
Footnote: my own theory is that "macaca"
had some meaning within the campaign...it was an inside joke of some sort, the
meaning of which was too embarrassing or damaging for Allen to share with the
press once the scandal erupted.
You probably read today that Barack Obama has reversed himself on an earlier pledge to accept public funding--and the associated spending limits--for his fall campaign. Instead, he will continue to accept private donations, which will allow him to raise and spend vastly more than he could under the public system.
Indisputably, this is a broken promise. How does Obama explain it? Here's how:
It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.
This is nonsense on soooooo many levels. If you doubt that, drop a note in the comment box. I will overwhelm you with evidence.
The question is, will this broken pledge matter at all?
On one level, no it won't. It's seriously inside baseball. Your average voter won't understand the details, and won't care enough to get educated on the details. McCain will say "X" on this subject, Obama will say "not-X," and voters will shrug.
On another level, though, I expect it will matter. That other level involves mainstream media coverage.
To this point in the campaign, Obama has gotten fairly affectionate press coverage. Now that he's defeated Hillary, it's time for that tide to turn. It's a natural cycle in media coverage. And just as that new cycle is set to begin, Obama serves up this decision...a decision that puts the lie to his whole argument about mending the broken politics of Washington, about change you can believe in. This is a cynical, purely political, purely self-interested decision, supported by an explanation that is insulting to the intelligence of anyone who follows politics at all. That "anyone" includes political reporters, who from this day forward are going to think that the black Jack Kennedy is perhaps just another ambitious pol who's interested in winning first, everything else second.
That will show up in the media coverage of Obama. And that will filter down to the masses.
I'm reading a book called The Iron Wall. It's about Israel's foreign policy toward its Arab neighbors over the past 60 years. It's part of a revisionist school of thought among Israeli historians that says, basically, "You know, the Arabs haven't always offered us lemonade and cookies over the fence, but in some respects we've been rotten neighbors, too." I decided to read the book because most of the stuff I had read before was highly sympathetic to Israel (as I am). This book, while not overly sympathetic to the Arab countries, has no hesitation in criticizing Israel's foreign policy.
So, anyway, here's what I've concluded about why the Arabs and Israelis can't settle their differences. One side says, "We don't like you, we don't trust you, and we'll always be angry at you because you did X." Then the other side says, "But the only reason we did X was because you did W." Then the first side says, "But the only reason we did W was because you did V." Then the second side says, "But the only reason we did V was because you did U."
And so on. Eventually it loops back around to the original X.
Footnote: sure, it goes much deeper than this, and there are lots of other factors at work. Some Arab Muslims, for example, just hate Jews, and some Israelis look at the history of the Jewish people and think, with some justification, that all threats are existential ones. But I think what I've described above, while simplistic, has been a big part of the problem.
I love politics, but every so often I get seriously exasperated with what's going on in our national political life. The last time this happened was in 1998, when Bill Clinton got busted fooling around with Monica Lewinsky, and then lied about it, and stonewalled for almost a year, and demonized Ken Starr, and...you know the rest. The result was not humiliation, disgrace, and resignation, but instead an increase in his approval ratings, Republican losses in the mid-term elections, and the resignation of both Newt Gingrich and his designated successor.
At the time I thought, "If American politics is really this backwards and upside-down, it's not worthy of my time, interest, or attention any more. I'm going to raise miniature horses instead." Unfortunately, as my boss at the time informed me, my livelihood depended in part on my continuing to pay attention to politics. So, I was forced to continue paying attention. But I didn't like it.
I almost went over the brink again in 2000, when Al Gore tried to steal the presidential election. But everything worked out okay, so I was good for a while.
Unfortunately, I'm now reaching a crisis point again. I see so much that is wrong with America, and the Democrats, and the Republicans, and President Bush, and the two parties' nominees-in-waiting, and with our politics in general...it's gotten so that politics is more a source of anger and frustration for me than enjoyment. For the first time in my life, I've actually thought about moving to another country. I'm not talking about renouncing my citizenship or anything. I'm just talking about living in a place in which politics makes better sense...in which it's not so ridiculous...in which politicians are not cowards...in which government isn't such a foolish enterprise...in which the citizenry does not need or want to be coddled.
Does such a place exist? No answers yet, but I'll keep you posted.
