Bringing Guantanamo Bay Home

Last night Rachel Maddow interviewed former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld in his first American television appearance. Vandeveld is the fourth prosecutor to resign his commission in protest to the conditions and methods used in pursuing "justice" against purported terrorists held in the Cuban prison. The evidence against many of his clients was shoddy, extracted by cruel, inhuman and degrading methods, and assembled in an unprofessional manner. As a career prosecutor, Lt. Col. Vandeveld ended up testifying on behalf of the defense in one of his own cases! His interview is serious, conscientious, and condemning of the treatment and prosecutorial methods. It's hard to watch, but do.

And then consider this: As the budget deficits increase around the country, 43 states are currently in deficit, we need to focus our attention on what is happening in our local jails and prisons. Cost cutting impacts the lives of the men and women held in custody as well as the working conditions of the men and women who work as correctional officers. In New York, we must, absolutely must, get rid of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which unfairly incarcerate too many young people, especially young people of color, for possession of small amounts of drugs. We need recovery not incarceration. Read The Nation's January 23, 2009 article responding to Gov. David Paterson's apparent retreat from his once strong commitment to reform.

Every time a young person is jailed because of drug and alcohol problems, we engage in intentionally turning depression, hopelessness, and fear, signs of dependency, into criminality that will last a lifetime.

Who Are We When We Are All Suffering?

The Pew Hispanic Center released a study this week that revealed that Hispanics living in America have the same concerns as everyone else: the economy, the state of public education, and health care top the list of most important priorities for the Obama administration. With Latinos amounting to half of the US population growth since 2000, we better start seeing our Hispanic residents as part of a whole, too, the whole of America. Latinos voted for Obama 67% to 31% for McCain. So now, even the Democratic Party has to pay attention to our neighbors.

Which brings me to Suffolk County, NY. Home of the hate crime as sport among young white teenagers with nothing much else to do. In addition to killing Marcelo Lucero, an Hispanic immigrant in Patchogue, a group of high school boys has been indicted for beatings of other Latinos. What is most disturbing is that Suffolk County police admitted that they didn't consider these other attacks as hate crimes, despite the fact that Latino men were the victims and the perpetrators were young white men. Ummmmm.

Words have meaning and the vicious xenophobia of Suffolk County executive Steve Levy has infected the Suffolk County police so that they are blind to the obvious.

We have a problem here.

Rosa Sat

Need to feel inspired?  Watch Rosa Sat by Amy Dixon-Kolar.  

Where Did All The Money Go?

The New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof in his blog has posted a listing, compiled by Daniel E. Smith, of the private foundations whose assets had been "invested" by Bernie Madoff, which means that they lost either a portion, or in too many instances, the entirety of their endowments.

This list of private foundations illustrates just how foolhardy rich folks have been. As Kristof points out, "A surprising number of the foundations invested in Mr. Madoff shared the same accounting firms, generally small ones at that. One wonders if they could have looked more skeptically at the kinds of trades that supposedly were being placed on the foundations’ behalf by Mr. Madoff."

The impact of the loss of this money will be felt by the nation's non-profit organizations who count on contributions from individuals and their private foundations. The Smith list also includes the major beneficiaries of each foundation's annual gifts.

As previously noted, Madoff's sons did not invest their foundations with their father and used larger accounting firms to file those returns.

Something for Nothing

The New York Times reports that Wall Street bonuses hit $18.4 billion last year despite the worst performing year in the financial services market since the Great Depression. Losses on Wall Street could hit $35 billion. Read more about these losses and the 44% decline in bonuses here.

It's unclear, according to Tom DiNapoli, NY State Comptroller, whether these bonuses were paid from the TARP money intended to make banks more liquid so that money would start flowing again to business, home owners, car buyers, and you and me.

One would think that bonuses are paid as a reward, not for getting the country and the world into this mess.

According to talkingpointsmemo.com, AIG, the once largest insurance company in the world, the one that the US government had to bailout because if it failed, everything would allegedly come piling down, paid bonuses to the unit responsible for selling the credit default swaps that started its plunge. $450 million in bonuses!

And Merrill Lynch, the failing brokerage giant that Bank of America bought at bargain prices to save the US economy distributed $4 billion in bonuses to its underperforming executives and brokers just before the sale was completed. The bonuses came after Merrill Lynch posted $15 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008. NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is launching an investigation into the timing. Click here to read Cuomo's statement.

According to John Thain, who just resigned as CEO of Merrill Lynch, you have to pay people to keep them. But are these the people we want to keep? TheDailyBeast.com has a list of the sixteen worst outrages attributed to John Thain.

Even if the exact dollars weren't paid out of TARP, the issue is that the TARP rescue money made these bonuses possible. Why did Congress ever give such broad authority to Henry Paulson so that he could feed the greediest industry in the world without restraints?

Promises, Promises

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter now backs Obama nominee for Attorney General Eric Holder, after questioning his independence, citing, among other things, his role in the Clinton administration midnight pardon of Marc Rich. Marc Rich was a fugitive, and his former wife, Denise Rich, was pouring money into the Clinton Library and Democratic National Committee.

Specter, in his criticism of Holder, wondered out loud if he would be merely another Alberto Gonzales, Bush's White House counsel who moved over to Justice and seemed to be the puppet of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney no matter where he was located.

Here's what Specter promised: "After our recent experience with Attorney General Gonzales, it is imperative that the Attorney General undertake and effectuate that responsibility of independence. Mr. Gonzales left office accused of politicizing the Justice Department, failing to restrain Executive overreaching, and being less than forthcoming with Congress …

"I am convinced that many of Attorney General Gonzales’ missteps were caused by his eagerness to please the White House. Similarly, when Mr. Holder was serving as DAG to President Clinton, some of his actions raised concerns about his ability to maintain his independence from the president."

On the same day Specter published a letter in the Philadelphia Inquirer, again promising tough questions, Specter agreed not to filibuster Holder's nomination, and announced that he would vote for him as the next Attorney General.

According to a post on talkingpointsmemo.com, there were enough assurances from Holder that there would be no prosecutions of intelligence officers for use of torture in interrogating suspects in the "war on terror."

"The gist of" Holder's stance on the issue, "is that if you have an authoritative legal opinion, that's a defense in terms of mens rea, of intent. That's a broad generalization. I don't think you can go any further than that until you examine the specific facts of a case."

"[There may be] an opinion that allows an interrogator to go so far, and the conduct [in question] vastly exceeds that," Specter added, referring to the 2002 "Bybee memo" on torture that was later repudiated by the Bush DoJ. "It's really going to be fact-specific."

Prosecutions of the Bush administration officials who authorized and rationalized the use of torture on terrorism suspects should go forward. The White House influenced the supposed authoritative legal opinions coming out of the Office of Legal Counsel on the legality of excluding from domestic and international law the harsh and brutal treatment, amounting to torture, of terrorism suspects. Both Cheney and now Gonzales are using the same talking points: they have no liability because they acted on the basis of these legal memoranda, authored by Jay Bybee, now a federal judge and John Yoo, back as a Constitutional Law professor at US Berkeley. There is evidence, however, of David Addington's hand in these memos, which means that they were not independently authored.

America's stature in the world and the safety of our military personnel when captured by enemy forces depends on our repudiating the Bush era methods. Will we have the courage to do so?

Propublica.org published a listing of the memoranda that came out of the Office of Legal Counsel, and the ACLU is calling for the Obama administration to release to the public all of the memos so that they will become part of the public record.

Darth Vadar's Home Returns to the Map

While Dick Cheney was Vice President, he had Google Maps obscure the location of the Naval Observatory, the official home of the Vice President. With Joe Biden in office, the home has returned to this dimension. Click here to see how our world is being restored!

Self-Interest At Its Worst

Rod Blagojevich is making the rounds of the television talk shows while the Illinois legislature begins his impeachment trial.

By trying to equate himself with the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Gandi, Gov. Rod has revealed his true self: self interest. Now that isn't wrong in and of itself. But when it results in poor choices, choices that don't take into account his responsibility to the people of Illinois, then it's wrong. Plain and simple. And Blagojavich's appointment of Roland Burris, in order to play the race card instead of picking a candidate that would truly fill the shoes of Barack Obama in the US Senate, is why he is just a hack politician if not a corrupt one.

And turning to Governor David Paterson of New York. There was no reason to choose Carolyn Kennedy for the position after she revealed herself to be inarticulate and disengaged, and according to the New York Times, not willing to answer questions about her issue positions. I don't believe in dynasties, and certainly, although she might be fabulous in the private sector, Carolyn didn't show what we need for a tough, effective senator to plug for New York's interests in the Senate.

To pull Andrew Cuomo from the Attorney General's position at a time of financial crisis when New York is the heart of the financial crisis seems downright stupid, so I'm glad Gov. Paterson didn't go there.

But he could have gone for someone more inspired than Kirsten Gillibrand, whose efficacy in a conservative Republican district means one thing: Paterson might have more leverage in a re election campaign, his own.

That doesn't mean that Peter King has any moral or legal authority to demand access to Paterson's thinking process. The governor has the right to appoint a new Senator to run out Hillary's term, whether Peter King likes it or not.

But the worst of self interest came out in Alberto Gonzales' interview today about the possibility of the Obama administration prosecuting him and other Bush officials for authorizing torture of "war on terror" suspects. In an interview with NPR radio that was written up in the Chicago Tribune, Gonzales said: I don't think that there's going to be a prosecution, quite frankly. Because again, these activities.... They were authorized, they were supported by legal opinions at the Department of Justice.

Of course, those legal opinions at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel were written under the instructions of David Addington, counsel to then Vice President Cheney. Not exactly the independent legal opinions that the Office of Legal Counsel are supposed to be giving. Gonzales' statement follows the talking points that Cheney started in the last days of the Bush administration. There is too much evidence to show that the independence of the office was breached.

And Now For Something Completely Absurd

Coincidentally on the same day that Pope Benedict XVI reinstated a far-right previously excommunicated bishop--Richard Williamson--who just last week denied the World War II Holocaust, I went to see Defiance. Believe me, I rarely agree with anything Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, says. I find his paranoid belief that anything critical of anyone Jewish as not-so-veiled anti-semitism more than a bit much.

But at a time when religion seems to be at the root of too many regional disputes, what is our German-born Pope up to?

Defiance is the creative product of the guys--Edward Zwick and Marshall Hershkovitz-- who brought us the television series "thirtysomething," a show that seemed to chronicle the delayed maturation of folks my age who dragged out our adolescence, delayed marriage and childbearing, and who obsessed about everything. I loved the show.

Defiance is a true story about a band of brothers who hid out in the forests of Lithuania and harbored by the end of World War II, 1200 Jews who ran off rather than be massacred by the Nazis as they came through, rounding up Jews and slaughtering them in pits. This is a story we don't often hear: about militant resistance against the Nazis.

Daniel Craig, who is now playing James Bond, plays the older brother who believes in maintaining civility despite the thieving the band resorts to. Liev Schreiber plays his younger rival who before the war was already a smuggler and criminal. The film is a bit long, the relationship between the brothers could do with a better development (I suspect something got lost in the editing room), but overall the film is exciting (I couldn't watch several scenes) and adds another dimension to the story of the Holocaust. Is there an ethic to survival?

The screenplay is based on the book Defiance: The Bielsky Partisans by Necama Tec, which you can preview on the new Google Books feature. The two Bielsky brothers at the heart of the film's action and conflict both ended up living in New York. They never really publicized their role in saving 1200 Jews.

Liev Schreiber seems to have some profound connection to the Jews of Eastern Europe. He produced the brilliant visually elaborate film version of Everything is Illuminated, the first novel of Jonathan Safran Foer, starring Elijah Wood, that brings a young man back to the Ukraine to try to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis.

Not for the faint-hearted, Defiance is a powerful film about the ethics of survival. I often wonder what Israel would have become if it hadn't been settled after World War II by the survivors of the Holocaust, the ones who were wily enough and shrewd enough, or just plain lucky enough, to have stayed alive in secret apartments scattered throughout the Third Reich and its occupied territories and the annihilation camps of Auschwitz, Terezin, and Bergen Belson, to name a few.

On the Street--At The Hairdresser

I take measure of what suburban women think at my hairdresser's. I don't mean the customers, who usually just complain--about their husbands, children, housekeepers, doctors, children's teachers-- or talk about plastic surgery, jewelry, or decorating. I mean the colorist who dyes my hair, the stylist who cuts it, and the manicurist whom I've known for twenty years. After many years of working with me, they know what to expect: we talk about politics, film, and more politics.

I started going to this salon just before the 2000 election. The colorist had never participated in an election before, so I helped her find information on the web, and although she knew I was a Gore fan, she decided for herself whom she would support for president. By 2004, she was pretty appalled by the Bush administration, but I seem to remember that she didn't actually vote. She had a newborn infant then. Kerry did that for novices. Gave them no reason to pick themselves up and inconvenience themselves to drop their routines and baby to go to some elementary school and stand on line to vote.

However, for this election, both the colorist and the hair stylist were engaged. We had many lively discussions about Hillary or Barack throughout the primary season.

They both were Hillary fans, having been impressed with her as First Lady and then New York State Senator.

Who was this Obama, anyway? However, they both voted for him, won over, like most of us were to the different spirit that he brings to politics.

With Tuesday's inauguration fresh on our minds, the hair stylist and I immediately fell into conversation about how exciting it was for the country, for white people as well as black, to have elected a first African American to the position. We both got teary-eyed as we spoke: reviewing Beyonce's serenade at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball (why even Jon Stewart couldn't say anything cyncial about how beautifully in love Michelle and Barack looked as they danced while Beyonce sang "At Last"); the crowds on the Mall who withstood the cold to be a part of history; how well behaved Malia and Sasha were throughout all of these public events; and of course, what this means to us as a people to have elected this young, handsome, intelligent, creative bi-racial man.

She asked me what it felt like when JFK was elected. "Was everyone in love with him, too?"

I was in the seventh grade and surely I was. That was how I got hooked on politics, watching those afternoon press conferences: his wit, his charm, how he racked his fingers through that head of hair.

"And were you devastated when he was assassinated?"

The entire nation stopped. I was in biology class in the ninth grade when the news came over the public address system. We were let out early, and I almost ran home to get in front of the television set. Walter Cronkite, the most trusted broadcaster, cried along with us. My mother even let us eat snacks in her bedroom while our family--my father, mother, sister, and I--watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassination suspect, over and over again in the basement of the Dallas Police Department.

Then I spoke with the manicurist, whom I've known for twenty years. She and I are the same age, however, our stories are so very different. She was born Jewish in Russia, and came here in her twenties to start a new life. She spoke about how concerned she was that blacks as well as whites were treating Obama like some kind of messiah. She feels our expectations of the man are insane, far too enormous to do anything other than disappoint. (In a fabulously funny "commentary" on The Daily Show, John Oliver spoke with a German man on the Mall during the inauguration. "You have experience with charismatic leaders," he quipped.)

I agree with her: our expectations are insane. But then, I added something I feel deeply: For someone like me who isn't religious, these last months have taught me about the enormous power of hope.

And about that we both agreed.

Appointments--and--Disappointments

So, the appointment of George Mitchell as Middle East envoy is great news for possibilities of peace. After his success in Northern Ireland and his amazingly fair and balanced, the real kind, report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 2001, there might be hope for peace. It seems that Obama is willing to speak with everyone.

The disappointment comes from NY Governor David Paterson: the appointment of Kirsten Gillibrand to Hillary Clinton's US Senate seat.

This is another Democrat in the Senate who is anti-gun control and until just a few weeks ago, anti-gay marriage. However, I admit I made a mistake: Gillibrand is supposed to be pro-choice. However, when running she was less than clear as to her views on abortionand access to birth control and medically accurate information.

She did vote against the TARP. Twice.

Unfortunately, Paterson went for a political choice instead of an inspired one. He made a choice so that his re election campaign was more important than having a strong advocate to match Hillary Clinton's views in the Senate.

Getting it Right

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. flubbed the presidential oath of office yesterday when he misplaced "faithfully" within the 35 word Constitutional requirement and used the wrong preposition, substituting "to" for "of" when referring to the President of the United States.

Being a strict constitutionalist, and molded by The Federal Society, Roberts gave President Obama, gosh I love writing that, the oath of office again tonight in the Oval Office.

The question I ask is why Roberts didn't have a copy of the oath in front of him at the inauguration: Arrogance, arrogance, arrogance.

Of course, President Obama did the right thing in stopping all military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay for at least 120 days to permit review of the processes. Hopefully this will be the end of these kangaroo trials that make a sham of American law and ideals.

Just announced: President Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow closing Guantanamo Bay within a year!!!!

Texas Senator John Cornyn is holding up the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General, allegedly wanting assurances that Holder will not prosecute intelligence officers for engaging in torture.

I suggest that this delay in confirmation is murkier than that. First, Cornyn is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which means he is responsible for raising lots of money. So he has to raise a lot of smoke so it doesn't look like Obama is getting his way on everything without resistance.

But more cynically, Holder stated at his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture, simple and clear. Cornyn, acting as a proxy, is afraid of prosecutions of Bush administration officials, like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, for authorizing torture. It isn't the intelligence community he's protecting. It's his fellow Texan!

It would be absolutely inappropriate to ask for assurances from Holder as a condition of confirmation that he won't prosecute anyone, whether a CIA officer or the former President of the United States of America, for violating domestic and international prohibitions against the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading tactics against any suspects.

The Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama

We watched the inauguration today with friends at someone else's home. We were about thirty people. The ages ranged from 85 years to 18 months, and my husband and I were among the younger folks there. Some of our friends had marched with Dr. King and heard him give his "I Have a Dream" speech. Another friend's father served in President John F. Kennedy's honor guard. Everyone believes in community service. Most everyone had campaigned for Obama in some way: some went to Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio; others made phone calls and organized house parties.

There were some people there who still preferred Hillary Clinton, but were willing to give Obama a chance. One man had been a devoted Republican most of his life, until Barack Obama threw his hat into the ring. Then despite his years, he went to Obama Camp and worked tirelessly for months walking from house to house, talking with strangers, gathering names and addresses.

We were white, African American, Caribbean American, Indian--Catholic, Hindu, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, and nonbelievers, too.

We booed when George W. Bush was introduced and snickered that Dick Cheney was looking too much like Dr. Strangelove in his wheelchair.

We admired Michelle's ensemble and cooed at the loveliness of the two little girls, Malia and Sasha.

We listened skeptically to Rick Warren's invocation, which we found too long, but less offensive than it could have been.

We sang along to Aretha Franklin's spirited "My Country Tis of Thee." (What a great hat!)

We understood that Joe Biden had to be sworn in first just in case something unmentionable happened.

The music was sensational, perfect, professional and mesmerizing. John Williams, composer/arranger with Itzhak Perlman, (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet).

We wondered what happened when Obama, ordinarily so confident, misspoke during the oath of office. Click here for an explanation of what happened.

And then the inaugural speech. We missed his joyful smile, we missed seeing those white teeth and the mixture of shyness and confidence. Instead we saw a grim Barack Hussein Obama, a man upon whose shoulders we have hoisted far too much. His words touched our hearts, and once again revealed our common values, and aroused our cognitive selves. Obama spoke to the world, our friends, our enemies, and hopefully ended America as Bully.

Ah, to be thinking, grown ups again!

Elizabeth Alexander brought us a poem about us, a poem that we could understand. Praise Song for the Day.

And the humor and healing of Rev. Joseph Lowry's benediction.

Everyone, except for my husband, rose when the National Anthem was song. Some people who had not put their hands on their hearts since FDR or JFK, put their hands over their hearts. And there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Because we were proud, once again, to be Americans.

And then the pragmatism began: immediately after the inauguration, Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff, issued an order that halted all federal agencies from enforcing last minute Bush-era regulations, pending review by the new administration.

As my friend Vanessa said as the inauguration began today: What will happen in the next 400 years?

I Have a Dream -- MLK and Tomorrow's Ironies

Tomorrow Barack Hussein Obama will take the oath of office on the West side of the Capitol, often called the "Temple of Freedom," which was built by enslaved people. The 19 foot high Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol was forged in bronze by Philip Reid when he was still a slave, but hoisted on top of the Capitol dome after he had been freed in 1862 by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today is the official day of celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, a day after delivering his last speech: "I've Been to the Mountaintop." Today I listened to Justin James Gietschier, a fifth grader, deliver that speech with surprising passion to an audience of several hundred at our local MLK celebration lunch. We rose to our feet and wildly applauded his oratory. Justin wants to become a baseball player and a preacher! He has dreams because of Dr. King. He has dreams because of Barack Obama. He didn't know it, but he has dreams because of Joseph McNeil.

A special civil rights award was given today to Joseph McNeil. He told the story of driving around the back roads of North Carolina with his father delivering auto parts. Back then in the 1950s, he was acutely aware that in addition to being required to eat in separate restaurants, use different toilets, and drink from separate water fountains, Mr. McNeil and his father could be lynched.

When he was seventeen years old, Joseph McNeil enrolled in North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, an historically Black college in Greensboro. During his freshman year, he and three of his friends engaged in an act of defiance: they sat at the lunch counter of the local Woolworth's and ordered apple pie and coffee. They weren't served that day. Their act of defiance continued. The next day 25 students entered the Woolworth's and went to the lunch counter. They weren't served. By day four there were 125 students, and within days, there were boycotts of Woolworth's across the south.

The Greensboro Four began their acts of defiance on February 1, 1960.

An interview with Joseph McNeil can be seen and read here.

Mr. McNeil went on to the Air Force where he helped diversify the American military.

These acts of defiance were done without ever believing that anything other than arrest would result. So the thankfulness and joy that infused Mr. McNeil's acceptance speech today was felt throughout the room. We all sat there--men and women of good will, of all colors, ages, nationalities--rejoicing in a hope that American democracy might be revitalized under the leadership of President Obama. If his presidency is anything like his political campaign, he might once again bring out the best in Americans. Barack Obama is showing us what we might be if we engage in civic life, something beyond shopping and passively watching television.

CNN posted an interesting poll today. 69% of African Americans polled believe that Dr. King's dream has been fulfilled. That number is astounding, and reflects the great hope and pride Obama's election has brought. Whites are not so optimistic. Only 46% of whites who were polled agreed.

That made me optimistic. I believe the difference in the polling is the recognition whites have that indeed America remains a racist country, that too many opportunities are available based on race, and more importantly, a recognition by whites of the racist feelings we might still harbor.

It's only when we feel vulnerable that we are capable of seeing ourselves for who we are--flawed and fragile--and not who we think we are.

This is our moment when most everyone feels vulnerable to uncertainty, financial chaos, and the potential for war. This is our time to be defiant: to face our history, to face our worst so that we can become our best.

Just for Laughs

As only Robin Williams can do: Watch this video as we prepare to say goodbye and good riddance to Bush.

And just in case you feel a little sympathy for George W. in the waning hours of his administration, read through these articles on Truthout.org and remind yourself just how horrible it's been, not just for us, but for most of the residents of the planet. And don't miss this annotated "Bush Farewell" by William Rivers Pitt, columnist for Truthout.org.

I'm off to an MLK celebration lunch today.

US Airways Flight 1549

During the Bush administration, the landing of stricken US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, averting any loss of life would be characterized as a "miracle."

In the Obama administration, the landing of the plane in the Hudson with all 155 passengers and crew safe (one passenger suffered two broken legs, others experienced hypothermia from exposure to the wind and freezing water) is called "professionalism" and "competence."

Welcome to the new administration!

Waiting for the End, Finally

While waiting to see what George W. Bush might do with pardons as the hours tick off to the end of the 43rd administration, not surprisingly, Israel and Gaza have reached a seize fire. That Israel began this assault into Gaza in the waning days of the rule of the Neo-Cons and ended it just before the inauguration of the Obama administration, where such actions might not have been tolerated, is banally predictable. Too many lives have been lost, too much hatred has infected a new generation of angry, alientated Palestinian youth.

As Obama and Biden took their historic train ride yesterday, stopping to greet thousands of well-wishers, I called friends to see what they were doing for the inauguration. My friend Vanessa is taking her seven year old son to Washington so that he can be a part of this history. Her preparation is meticuous: laminated cards with the telephone numbers of her companions on this historic journal, colorful hats and scarves, stratgically located hotel rooms, and prepaid Metro cards with Obama's face printed on it as a souvenir. Her son has his notebook and new camera so that everything will be turned into a school assignment.

Another friend turned 93 on Saturday. He grew up in a different world than we have now. Happy Birthday, Arthur! He will be watching at home with a close friend, although there was a moment when he thought maybe he and his son could make the journey together.

Washington is expecting 2 million people. No inauguration has gone higher than 1.5 million. The Mall is open from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capital. Much of DC will be closed to traffic after 9:00 am on Tuesday. 22 jumbotons will be placed on the Mall, so everyone who gets there by 11:30 will be able to see and hear.

Slate.com has a gallery of Obama paraphenalia that will be sold on the streets to make this a truly American experience! Thongs We Can Believe in!

I will be watching the inauguration with my husband and a group of friends with whom politics, literature, film, and food are paramount. We will be close to 30 people at a dear friends' home, Wini and Mike. The oldest person there will be 85 year old, the youngest 18 months old!

As we wait for Tuesday at noon, I am also waiting for the last minute announcements of pardons from the Bush administration. Will he attempt preemptive pardons for Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Bybee? Will Libby get more than commutation of his sentence for taking the fall for Cheney and Rove in the Valerie Plame affair? With Eric Holder under fire before the Senate this week over his role in the last minute Clinton pardon of Mark Rich, will Bush continue to be stingy with pardons, especially after his goof last month with the pardon of Isaac Toussie that was immediately revoked?

Countdown!!!!

Just One More Thing About Bernie Madoff

Jon Stewart interviewed Bethany McLean on The Daily Show Thursday night. She is the reporter who broke the Enron story, and her words of wisdom should be abided by us all: if you don't understand how it's making money, it probably isn't.

Today's New York Times reports about a 1992 investigation into the business dealings of Frank Avellino, an accountant who had been funneling clients' money to Madoff since the 1960s. According to the Times: The documents show that Mr. Avellino and Michael Bienes, his business partner, kept almost no records at Avellino & Bienes, a firm that oversaw $440 million. When court-appointed auditors asked Mr. Avellino to prepare a balance sheet, he responded that “my experience has taught me to not commit any figures to scrutiny.”

Imagine saying that to an IRS auditor!

In addition to curtailing the audit quite quickly, the S.E.C. also took at face value Mr. Avellino’s depiction of the deal he offered investors, which guaranteed returns of up to 20 percent a year while requiring him and Mr. Bienes to make up any shortfalls.

I'm curious, aren't you, just why that investigation went nowhere!

The Times also reported this morning about a Thursday night discussion at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research about the Madoff scandal.

The evening was called "Madoff: A Jewish Reckoning."

Mort Zuckerman, chair of Boston Properties who lost some $30 millions to Madoff, questioned the theme. According to the Times, Zuckerman objected to the name of the panel: Kenneth Lay of the Enron Corporation was not referred to as a “prominent Protestant energy fraudster,” he noted, nor is Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois referred to as a “prominent Serbian-American politician.”

However, I have to disagree. Jews have always been clanish, the reasons why have to do with anti-Semitism and their exclusion from landowning, office holding, and many forms of trade and commerce in Europe after the Diaspora. Yet this clanishness has also been the way Jews have survived. Many ethnic groups admire the recirculation of money within the Jewish community, as Jews tend to be clients and customers of other Jews.

So I believe the Jewish community has to take responsibility for Madoff's preying on fellow members of the clan. It was perceived as a privilege to have enough money to invest with Madoff, and that insecurity, shared by Madoff and his victims, unfortunately is part of the outsider nature of being a Jewish person living in America. However, as I've said before, the returns on Madoff investments were so wildly unrealistic that people should have suspected that something not quite kosher was making these returns possible. That is the complicity that connects the perpetrator to the victim in a ponzi scheme.

There are a lot of questions about how some of the charities that lost endowments through Madoff were run. There are a lot of questions about this scandal, but as Bethany McLean suggested in her Daily Show interview, the real questions aren't about the Madoff scandal, but about how Bank of America, Citibank, and Wall Street are operating. Where is that money going?

Michelle Obama--Our New First Lady

The fashion pages are abuzz with speculation about just what Michelle Obama will be wearing at the inauguration ceremony and the balls afterwards. No one knows. It's a deeply hidden secret. This tall, lanky, athletic woman who looks elegant in everything, well, except for the "uterus ablaze" black and red dress she wore Election Night in Grant Park designed by Narciso Rodriquez, our eyes are on her because she is now our First Lady.

On the campaign trail, she has worn J. Crew, Thakoon, Isabel Toledo and Maria Pinto. She even wore a little number from the mall store White House Black Market.

Vogue has a slideshow of designers' suggestions. It's fun to go through.

Does she wear a hat? What kind of coat? And the balls? What colors, how much of her dynamite shoulders should she show?

We are obsessed about what Michelle might wear because we are hungry for a First Lady who will once again reflect the intelligence of American women of the twenty-first century, our potential, and the potential of our daughters and granddaughters. We are hungry for a moral compass, not silence like we had in Laura Bush, who just sat there and smiled vacuously, allowing people to speculate that her views were more somehow "liberal" than her husband's.

We are hungry for a first family with the charm and spontaneity of young children and the demands that they make on busy parents. We are hungry to see ourselves in the First Family. And more. We want them to be glamorous, smarter than we are, better than we are. Because we want to believe that through hard work, collaboration, creativity, and leadership, yes, leadership, and sacrifice, we can get out this global rut.

I want Michelle Obama to look elegant, proud, competent, charming, beautiful, and the representative of American women: all colors, sizes, shapes, and ages. I won't be disappointed by her either. Because I recall the speech she gave in Wilmington, Delaware, early in the primary fight, when Barack Obama was still little known outside of Illinois and those who had seen his meteoric speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

In that speech, given in a high school gymnasium and broadcasted on C-Span, Michelle told the story of her life, how a girl from the South Side of Chicago got to Princeton, Harvard Law School, to Sidley Austin, the law firm where she supervised a cocky, brilliant young associate named Barack Hussein Obama, and eventually became counsel for the University of Chicago Medical Center. Her honesty and authenticity, it isn't an easy story, because it wasn't easy being a woman of color attending Princeton University, but she told the story without making it an easier story for us to hear. She caught my attention because she wasn't hesitant to speak about the opportunity given to her to attend Princeton and the incredible hard work it took to graduate with honors.

What I admire about both Barack Obama and Michelle is that they don't make anything easy. Unlike George Bush who sees the world in simplistic terms--good and evil--the Obamas understand the nuance of living in this complex world. We have much to learn from them about nuance, complexity, and patience. As we wait to see this elegant, intelligent, young new President and his First Lady, as he takes the oath of office and then as they enter the inaugural balls, perhaps take a moment to watch that wonderful will.i.am video, the one that came out just before Super Tuesday, Yes We Can.

Yes We Can if we work together.

Getting Ready to Say Goodbye

The Center for American Progress sends out a daily email to those of us who like to remember what the American ideal is all about. Today's alert was perfect, in the glowing aftermath of Bush's farewell speech last night: It's titled "The 43 Who Helped Make Bush the Worst Ever."

Of course, Bush isn't on the list, because he gets to be the worst president ever.

Not surprisingly, Dick Cheney tops the list, followed by Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, and Michael Brown. Surprisingly, Paul Wolfowitz betters David Addington, whom I believe is downright evil. Of course, you will recognize most of the names. However, it's important that we keep these people's names familiar. We have to watch out for where they end up. Hopefully some of them will end up in jail, many will never be able to travel outside the United States, and remember, don't buy their memoirs.

Yet as my anger begins to ebb, just a bit, I spoke with a friend today who is going to the inauguration with her seven year old son. I spoke with another young woman who is going to DC, too. Neither has tickets to anything. They are pulled, like we all are, to be a part of history, to resurrect the American spirit during these hard, hard times. Hope is powerful, more powerful than I ever understood, until now.

What Me Worry, Bush?

I decided to watch George W. Bush's farewell address. Within a minute or two, he mentioned 911. Did you see Jon Stewart's interview with Fareed Zakaria last night on The Daily Show?

Zakaria made a point of talking about how quickly the people of Mumbai returned to their ordinary lives, refusing to belabor the attacks, the involvement of Pakistanis, or the prolonged firefights. Here Bush and Cheney are almost like necrophiliacs with their obsession with 911.

I am listening to Bush and he is defending himself. This is not a farewell speech. This is an attempt to rewrite history. Only thirteen minutes long. This isn't about being disappointed about not finding WMD in Iraq. This isn't about making hard decisions. This is about making the right decisions!!!

Why hasn't he aged as much as past presidents? Because he hasn't felt the impact of the decisions made by his administration. The lack of reflection is criminal. Look at the presidents as they have aged, and notice that Bush's toll is far less dramatic. ABC News: Before and After.

The End, This is the End, My Friend

The question is: Do we watch Bush's Farewell speech tonight, or just the deconstruction of it afterwards by Keith, Rachel, and Jon?

The question is really a matter of my nerves.

Do I shout out contradictions and obscenities in response to Bush's delusional denials? Or do I wait to listen more passively to Keith's, then Rachel's, and tomorrow to Jon's bemused reactions?

I will miss the humor of Bush. At least so far, Obama and his cohorts are far less absurd.

Will my nerves be able to take it? Watching just a minute of Cheney last night made me ill. He was talking about his cardiac disease, and suddenly I realized that he looks better now than he did when he squirmed his way into the vice presidency back in 2000. And I personally am going to be paying his medical bills, pension, and body guards for the rest of his life.

I'd rather be paying the costs of his trial and prison sentence.

Obama's People

The New York Times is running a photo gallery, with commentary, of the chief advisors to the incoming Obama administration. It's worth the time to go through it, both as a way of becoming familiar with the "players" and seeing how these men and women behave under the floodlights of a portrait photographer.

Of course, what is most gratifying is how diverse the group of advisors is: gender, race, and age are all more representative of America than we have ever seen before. Certainly the Obama administration is not an administration of aging white men.

We are not yet at a point of post-racialism. Race is still important and will remain so until there is no such thing as "block voting," as there was in this most recent election. When 95% of African American voters, 78% of Jewish voters, and 66% of the Latino voters all elected Obama president, we can still see that primary identity politics are in large part operating in the psyches of voters. What happens in our heads is still racism and the reaction to racism.

Gwen Ifill's new book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama is being highlighted in the Wall Street Journal today. She suggests that Obama was able to get white voters to convince blacks to support him, and to get young voters to convince their elders that Obama was the right man for the job.

Nate Silver, the guru behind fivethirtyeight.com, does an analysis in Esquire that Obama's votes came from urban voters and suburban voters who began to vote like they were still living in the city.

Is There No Such Thing As Progress?

At the same time Hillary Rodham Clinton was testifying at her Senate confirmation hearings to become the next Secretary of State, after being the first viable woman candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency (not to belittle Shirley Chisholm's 1972 candidacy), the clerics in Saudi Arabia announced that girls at 10 and 12 are not too young to marry. To deny them those rights, according to these Saudi religious scholars, is unfair to the girls. Check this out!

The concept of progress is intellectual, mostly a progressive Western ideal, and has never equated with reality. Otherwise we wouldn't have had such things as the Third Reich, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, the Palestinian -Israeli wars, I think you get the picture.

More from this amazing book The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick, as it relates to the Bernard Madoff scandal. The Forger's Spell is about how a third rate artist fooled Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering into paying big, big bucks for obviously forged Vermeer paintings. Han Van Meegeren didn't even try to copy Vermeer paintings, but instead painted in the style of Vermeer, using Bakelite to set the paints to make they appear old.

Dolnick observes that a forger's success has scarcely anything to do with his skill as a painter. "Buyers want to believe they have found something extraordinary; the forger's task is to find ways to bolster that belief."

The same is true of Bernard Madoff. Like the purchaser of a forged painting, the victim of a ponzi scheme sorta knows that he is getting too good a deal. Insider trading, something not quite kosher, is behind the profits. Forgers often create such elaborate paper trails for paintings so that their pedigrees look much better than the actual work. So, too, the returns on the Madoff investments were too good to be true, but greed allowed the victims to pretend they didn't see.

Civil Rights in the Age of Obama

Today the New York Times reported that an investigation by the civil rights division of the Justice Department will be opened finally, looking into attacks on Latinos in Suffolk County.

Maybe Steve Levy, Suffolk County's xenophobic county executive, will be forced to take responsibility for the tone he has set during his rise to power.

Unlike other administrations before Bush, the civil rights division of the Justice Department used to be an honorable division, with some of the best and the brightest working there. Bill Lann Lee, who headed the division from 1997 through 2001 during the Clinton Administration was just one of those honorable attorneys. Investigations and prosecutions by the civil rights division fell precipitously during the last eight years.

From 2003 until 2007 Bradley Schlozman politicized the civil rights division, dissembling the bureau and moving its mission away from protecting civil rights and into pushing an agenda that preferred to seek out alleged discrimination against fundamentalists. Check out the New York Times article.

According to internal investigations, Schlozman hired Federalist Society lawyers, avoided hiring anyone who looked or smelled like a "liberal," and transferred experienced attorneys out of the department because of their liberal bent. Over three quarters of the staff were transferred or left during Schlozman's tenure. In addition, Schlozman lied before the Senate. But Mukasey won't prosecute him! On January 14, The Times published an editorial about the Schlozman debacle and the failure of the Justice Department to prosecute him for such blatant law violations, including perjury.

So it's about time, in the last week of the Bush administration, that the civil rights division might do what it is supposed to be doing: investigate the degradation of civil rights based solely national origin.

A Perfect Storm--Of a Book

There is nothing more intriguing to me than the history of the Nazis, mostly because I came of age, meaning I was able to read Leon Uris's Exodus (1958) and Meyer Levin's Eva (1959) at the tender age of 10. That an entire society, Germany, could subordinate its history, culture, and morality to hatred and fear and stay in that state of hatred and fear, despite the awful starvation they, too, would suffer, fascinates me. One revolt, that was it: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose.

Now that there is literature coming out of Germany dealing with how ordinary Christian Germans dealt with World War II, the final solution, and the despair, my interest is sparked once again. Some examples: The Book Thief by Markus Zusek; The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith H. Beer; Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Judd Newborn and Annette Dunbach; and Let Me Go by Helga Schneider

Add to my fascination with Nazis, my love of art and the titillation of scandal and I'm engaged, fully engaged.

So "The Forger's Spell: The True Story of Vermeer, the Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century" (Harper's) by science writer Edward Dolnick is fulfilling all of my desires.

Han van Meegeren was a third-rate painter, extravagant and pompous, who lived in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, during World War II. He pocketed the equivalent of $30 million by forging Vermeer paintings, and not doing it very well. Rather than paint replicas of the 35-36 actual Vermeers that still existed then, van Meegeren painted images only vaguely reminiscent of Vermeer. Placing the originals next to the knock offs, one could immediately tell how poorly crafted the forgeries were.

How did he manage to sell these horrendously obvious fakes to the likes of Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering during World War II?

I suspect the same way that Bernard Madoff was able to sell his investment services: hype, hysteria, and the complicity between the perpetrator and the victim.

Who had the balls to make Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering into victims?

Read the book. It's fascinating, as is the magistrate's decision today not to revoke Bernie Madoff's bail after he mailed out several million dollars worth of heirloom jewelry and the likes to friends and family.

And if his skin weren't white?

More on Accountability

American law is built upon adoption of substantive principles as well as requirements of due process. This is the essence of the rule of law. We look to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as laws and treaties for the substance of law: the right to free speech and assembly; freedom to believe in god or not; the right to vote in elections; the right to a trial by jury, etc. And before the government may take away life, liberty, property, or options, there must be due process: a series of steps that require notice, hearing, sometimes the right to counsel, confrontation of witnesses, and a deliberative process based upon rules of evidence.

This is not the exception, this is the rule of law.

So when I hear Attorney General Michael Mukasey defend the unlawful actions of the Bush administration as defensible good people, because each was acting to “protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful,” frankly I don't find this a legitimate reason not to use the American system of law to learn why and how these Bush officials, acting under oath to uphold and defend the constitution, instead subverted the constitution.

Motive although an important plot point on television trial dramas is not relevant in the real law.

Yesterday the New York Times published three opinion pieces on whether the Bush administration should be held accountable for the authorization and use of torture, wiretapping, and other unambiguous violations of the laws and treaties of the United States. Each of the authors--Charles Fried, former solicitor general of the US and current Harvard Law professor, Dalia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, and Jack Balkin, Yale Law professor articulate different remedies for the abuses of the last eight years.

These essays are worth reading. Americans do need to weigh in on how important cleansing our international image is to the future of our country.

This week I attended a conference of law faculty, which was why I am in San Diego. I attended a discussion about holding not just Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, and Gonzales accountable. At this one brown bag lunch, the conversation shifted to holding the lawyers who justified these illegal acts of torture, wiretapping, renditioning, often retroactively, accountable for willfully manipulating legal analysis to illegal ends, a real subversion of the rule of law. These lawyers include John Yoo, back as a tenured law professor at UC Berkeley, Jay Bybee, a judge on the federal appellate court, and David Addington, counsel to the Vice President.

One speaker, Jordan Paust, a current law professor at University of Houston Law School, former JAG lawyer, and therefore someone intimidately familiar with how military justice is supposed to work, and it's a rather esoteric arena, well, to listen to his earnest indignation about the perversion of the rule of law is quite convincing that truth and reconciliation hearings with promises of immunity just won't cut it.

It is somewhat comforting that unlike the Bush administration which dissolved the procedures of government in favor of the secret cabal, "President-elect Barack Obama is reported ready to fill one of the more obscure but powerful posts in his administration — the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — with Cass Sunstein, a friend and former faculty colleague at the University of Chicago Law School." According to the Times, "Mr. Sunstein will be responsible for overseeing the Obama administration’s ambitious plans to overhaul a raft of regulatory principalities. His purview will range from financial services to workplace safety to environmental protection and consumer products. In effect, Mr. Sunstein will be reversing the office’s use in the Bush administration as a citdel of deregulation."

But moving forward isn't enough. In order to be a country devoted to the rule of law, we must enforce it. By letting Bush and Cheney and their lawyers escape accountability, we are doing nothing to reinstate the rule of law, just leaving a blank in the history of America post-911.

Accountability for Nothing

Added to the hubris of admitting that he authorized waterboarding, a form of torture prohibited by international and domestic law, now Dick Cheney is defending Bush by saying that no one saw the financial crisis coming.

How come I did? Last spring I woke up in the middle of the night and informed my no-longer-sleeping husband that we had to pull our money out of the stock market. From everything I had been reading about the banking industry, mortgage market, and the state of the credit card industry, I figured we were in for a big fall. The next day we moved much of our savings, although unfortunately not my 401(k) out of the market.

I'm not that smart. I was just paying attention, as were most of the progressive press, the not so progressive Kevin Phillips, and many other writers. Well, everyone except for the president and vice president who remain with less than two weeks less, far from apologetic for what they have done to this country and the world.

I am becoming less optimistic that Barack Obama is going to hold this current administration accountable for the policies that led to torture, renditioning, and the excesses of the war on terror. However, this isn't about moving forward. This is about reinstating the United States as a lawful nation. This is also about making sure that we don't have these kinds of abuses in the next administration.

The Power of Hope

If I were a list maker, and I'm not, there would be more things to worry about than I've ever worried about before: Israel and Gaza, the financial crisis, unemployment, the disintegration of the tax base for local government, homelessness, a health care system that just doesn't work even for those with insurance, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Somalia, Russia cutting off natural gas to all of Europe, the collapse of portions of the progressive philanthropic community, Guanatanamo Bay, renditioning, torture, tainted food imported from other countries, and tainted food processed here in cruel and inhuman conditions like those in the Agriprocessor Plant in Postville, Iowa.

Oh, right, I said I don't make lists, and I seem to be making them.

Maybe it's that I am in San Diego and looking out over the marina, or maybe it's because no one else is panicking that I'm not panicking either.

This is the power of hope.

Barack Obama will surely disappoint me and many others, because he wants to be a great president and in order to do that he will have to appeal to the largest possible portion of America and the world that he can.

That is why people voted for him. He has that intention to bring people together, like he did at the White House today, at the luncheon with all of the living presidents.

I also know that the worst hasn't happened yet. We haven't hit bottom yet.

The power of hope is amazing me and so many other people I meet. At least we have hope.

What More Can Happen in the Next Two Weeks

Yes, I'm cynical about anything in the Middle East. I can still taste the suffering I witnessed during my visit to Jerusalem this summer when I stayed in East Jerusalem and wandered through the Old City.

It doesn't seem grotesquely cynical that the Israeli attack into Gaza occurred just weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney "let's let the Jews be in charge of Jerusalem so that all of us Christians can rise to heaven" era, because Bush either encouraged it or did much more to sanction the barbarity of these last ten days.

No matter how insane the Middle East gets, the suffering of the men, women, and children of Gaza cannot be justified. They are being used as tools by Hamas and by the Israelis. And I fear a new generation of hatred is brewing.

This invasion isn't about ending missiles coming into settlements. Let's look at the legality of these settlements. This morning I heard this figure: the number of settlements in the West Bank and other captured territories has risen by 45% since Bush came into office.

Now just as the American press wasn't allowed to record the invasion of Iraq, the Israeli government has taken another tact from Bush-Cheney and clamped down on media coverage in Gaza.

However, news that Israeli strikes hit a UN school today, killing 30 Gazans was not suppressed.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is aiming to become the next prime minister of Israel, is certainly showing how tough and inhuman she is. What a way to make a name for yourself!

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz on Tuesday that Israel has no interest in a prolonged offensive on the Gaza Strip, with 600 Palestinians dead already, the length of the siege and its ferocity are not necessarily linked.

A cease fire would not, as Livni claims, legitimize Hamas, which did, by the way, win an election.

A cease fire is the only ethical, humane, and responsible course of action.

I Just Don't Get It

Bernie Madoff was investigated eight times in the last sixteen years by the SEC and never once did anyone uncover the ponzi scheme? That's according to the Wall Street Journal.

While SEC officials had their guts ripped out of them by Congress today, Harry Markopolos, a former investment manager, declined to appear at the last minute. He's the guy who wrote to the SEC three times, telling them that Madoff couldn't be making the profits he claimed by investing legally. According to Markopolos' lawyer, he is ill with a sinus infection and will eventually testify voluntarily.

Meanwhile in New York, Bernie and Ruth Madoff appeared before a federal judge after prosecutors asked to have their bail revoked. While you and I were forgoing holiday shopping--car sales alone were down 35%, it seems the Madoffs were sending out packages filled with mittens, inexpensive cufflinks, along with heirloom jewelry valued at $1 million. This is chutzpah, because they sent the valuables to their sons, brother, and other family members, all of whom might be implicated in the scandal although Bernie claims he did it alone.

But my favorite Madoff story comes from the maven of plastic surgery, Joan Rivers, in her interview Sunday in the New York Times Magazine.

Deborah Solomon's interview with Rivers ended like this:

I love my life, except for losing all that money with Ruth and Bernie. I’m pleading with you, please say, “She lost a bundle with Bernie Madoff.”

Did you?

No, but everybody is walking around now saying that, and that shows that you used to be very rich.

Sloppy Analogies

Just weeks after her name appeared as a possible replacement for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Caroline Kennedy is being smeared by all sorts of pundits and big mouths as the Democratic equivalent of Sarah Palin.

Give me a break!

Caroline might be a novice to politics, and exempted from too many requirements of public service just because of who her father was, but she is no Sarah Palin.

I'm not sure that I want Caroline to become my senator. I'm not sure she has the steel needed to fight for the people of the state. And certainly, after watching the debacle of this waning administration, dynasties should not become a part of American politics. Dynasties happen when no one else has the nerve or the inner corruption to run for public office. No one should be born into public office, not here. We aren't a monarchy for a reason.

However, Caroline Kennedy has an impressive resume. She is a graduate from Radcliffe College, then the women's college of Harvard University. She then attended Columbia Law School and graduated in the top ten percent of her class. Unlike her younger brother, John, now deceased, she passed the bar exam on the first round.

She has raised money for the Fund for New York Schools--$65 million--and in 1989 created the Profiles in Courage Award, which has honored folks both renowned and less known for standing up to authority and changing the course of history. She serves as the president of the Kennedy Library board and as a member of several others.

She can deliver a speech, but has none of the charisma of her father.

According to the New York Times on January 3, 2009, Kennedy didn't have to disclose her finances when she became chief executive of the Office for Strategic Partnerships. She has managed to keep her life more private than most children of assassinated presidents.

All of this creates a mixed picture of who Caroline Kennedy is and what she has to offer the people of the State of New York. But clearly, she is intellectually rigorous, more than aware of the structure and function of American government, and what probably makes her so attractive to key Democratic Party leaders, is her ability to raise money. She has star power. Or seems to if she doesn't open her mouth. According to news accounts of her first interviews after throwing her hat into the ring for the nomination, she says "you know" and "um" too many times to sound as intelligent as her education presupposes. Check out this synopsis of New York press coverage of her first interviews. But unlike Sarah Palin, it's not that Kennedy doesn't know, it's that she is unaccustomed to the unscripted interview format.

Does that mean she is ill-prepared for the rough and tumble of the Senate?

Sarah Palin is ill-informed, and from her record at multiple colleges, intellectual rigor isn't a part of her character. She is ignorant. She is a great speech-giver, but who wrote the speeches? Delivering a punch line and devising policy are very different things. That Palin was a commuications major says a lot about who she is: a telegenic face reading a script written by someone else.

My eighth grade English teacher would never allow such sloppy analogies.

For an interesting discussion about what constitutes "experience" in the work place, although toned decidedly for educated, middle and upper class women, see Lisa Belkin's piece in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.