First Impressions

President Obama spoke to us as adults. Jindal speaks to us like we were children. I watched the speeches on MSNBC and noted on the graph below the picture how partisan the reactions of viewers were to the Jindal response. There will always be opposition. We need opposition to clarify, to define. Hopefully opposition will make the solutions finer. However, this opposition seems petulant, like a stubborn child, although with cameras rolling even John McCain was forced to leap to his feet in seeming approval of the President's words and ideas. Then why did all of those Republicans vote against the stimulus package, and Michael Steele, Chair of the Republican National Committee threaten to withhold funds from the three Senators who didn't?

It warmed me to see Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Congress tonight and to see the genuine affection extended to her by the President.

Obama is charming. He has substance. He seems to have aged already. Did you notice how gray his hair has gotten?

It doesn't seem possible to do it all: stimulate the economy, provide health care, and offer the best in education. I don't believe in American exceptionalism, which so infused the President's speech. But he is giving us hope, and for now, that is certainly an awful lot.

The Election Aftermath: How Women Might Feel

TheDailyBeast.com, Tina Brown's latest publishing enterprise, published a poll today on how women feel post-election. I don't have the credentials to discern whether the poll is accurate or conforms to the rigor of polling, like the polls analyzed by fivethirtyeight.com, the premiere election site. What it shows is an underlying dissatisfaction among women that women don't get a fair shake in the media, at work, at home, or anyplace.

"By an overwhelming 61% to 19% margin, women believe there is a gender bias in the media."

I agree. I believe that public women are still judged differently than men and often by bizarrely unconscious standards. It doesn't seem to matter whether the judging is coming from men or women. Take Maureen Dowd as an example. She seems to hate all women whether their name is Hillary or Sarah.

"48% of women thought Hillary Clinton received fair media treatment and only 29% believed Sarah Palin was treated fairly."

Hillary has never been treated fairly by the media. She has been portrayed as a bitch, a scold, a ball-buster. When she stood by her man, she was critiqued unmercifully for it by everyone, even the Christian Right. I've met her. She is charming, attentive, shrewd, and brilliant. She lost the primary for many complicated reasons, one of which might have been media bias. But let's not forget her husband Bill and her own reactionary political tactics.

The Sunday before the New York primary on Super Tuesday, I spent the day in bed with my laptop, trying to decide between Clinton and Obama. I didn't find much "dirt" on Obama that day, but a helluva lot about Clinton. Of course, she is married to Bill and had been First Lady under assault from the extreme Right for eight years. She wasn't being paranoid. She was attacked.

However, I disagree with the perception that Sarah Palin was treated unfairly by the press. She was the wrong pick; she didn't have the credentials, the knowledge, or the expertise to be vice president. She was treated as Dan Quayle had been during the Bush I run and presidency. Let's recall that Dan Quayle is best remembered for his attack on the morals of Murphy Brown, a fictional television character.

As reported then in Time: And yet the Vice President dared to argue last week in a San Francisco speech that the Los Angeles riots were caused in part by a "poverty of values" that included the acceptance of unwed motherhood, as celebrated in popular culture by the CBS comedy series Murphy Brown. The title character, a divorced news anchorwoman, got pregnant and chose to have the baby, a boy, who was delivered on last Monday's episode, watched by 38 million Americans. "It doesn't help matters," Quayle complained, when Brown, "a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid professional woman" is portrayed as "mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'life-style choice.' "

Quayle was cute and telegenic, just like Palin. He couldn't read a script as well and didn't have her fantastic comedic timing. But Palin didn't have to go on Saturday Night Live. She didn't have to sit through that degrading rap during the news segment. She chose to be a media hog and was properly criticized for her narcissistic desires for attention. If you haven't seen Amy Poehler's rap, click here.

I don't believe it was sexism that brought Sarah Palin down, but her own and McCain's incompetence.

Where I do see sexism, however, is on behalf of the McCain aides who chose to deflect criticism away from how the McCain campaign was run by picking on Palin. John McCain is responsible for his loss, no one else.

We are all weary of the hysteria of the election, yet strangely, I'm longing for the intensity. President-elect Obama is keeping cool in his Chicago transition office, making decisions behind closed doors. Joe Lieberman keeps his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, a decision I deeply regret. Eric H. Holder, Jr. is tapped, perhaps, as Attorney General, a decision I support. Hopefully, the Obama administration won't be Clinton III, although it is looking that way.

What Obama will have to deal with is the rage of women, especially Democratic women, whose fury might have solidified and been named by the inadequate substitution of Sarah Palin for Hillary Clinton. Whether it was the press; the Democratic Party; the men we are living with ( 4 in 10 men freely admit sexist attitudes towards a female president. 39% of men say that a male is “naturally more suited” to carrying out the duties of the office.); our jobs, bosses, and colleagues at work, we know that something was let out of Pandora's Box, according to this survey, and we while we are dealing with our racism, let's deal with sexism, too.

Pallin' Around With a Terrorist--The Terrorist Bill Ayers Speaks

Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground Ayers, has something to say about the election, and about John McCain and Sarah Palin. Read his article that appeared in truthout.org.

As Bill Maher said Friday night, observing Barack Obama at his first press conference: It's nice to have adults back in leadership again.

Sarah Palin, definitely is not an adult, and can't seem to give up the limelight. The attention is obviously too addictive for her. In addition to defending her wardrobe, Sarah is claiming that if God calls, she's running in 2012.

"Putting my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I always do," she said. "I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door ... And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

Ah, that incoherence that seems to be part of the Republican Party's fundamentalist wing! Are Palin and Bush speaking in tongues?

With a strange and inexplicable voter turnout in Alaska that might be fraudulent, with oil prices down so low that she actually has to make hard decisions as governor of the state, and her own narcissism, hopefully, Palin will burn out soon and we won't have to listen to her for the next four years.

Then again, she is scheduled to appear today on CNN, The Today Show, and is a key speaker at the Miami Republican Governors Conference.

And there is always the possibility that she might appoint herself Senator to replace Ted Stevens, once he is expelled.

What This Election Means for Us As a Nation

The Sunday morning pundits are showing that Obama is ahead by as much as 10 percentage points nationally, but there is a troubling figure: among white voters McCain is ahead 50% versus 44% for Obama according to Gallup. Race remains a significant issue among certain segments of voters. The other issue that remains perplexing is the undecided vote. In most of the battleground states, undecided voters could change the direction of the win if they vote overwhelmingly for McCain last minute, if race is really the inhibiting factor for them, although pollsters insist that undecided voters usually vote in the same proportions as the existing divisions.

When I first started this blog just before Labor Day, I posted a piece called Why I am Voting for Barack Obama. Here were the reasons I gave, in short:

1. We need a president who understands the boundaries of the US Constitution and respects the Rule of Law.

2. We need a president who can restore our faith in the competency of government.

3. We need a president guided by a strong moral compass who can reclaim America's place as a beacon of opportunity and fairness.

These reasons remain important to me, even more so in the closing hours of this campaign. The nasty noise is the noise of business as usual in the Republican Party: John McCain and Sarah Palin calling Obama a socialist, someone leaking ICE documents that show Obama's aunt living in the country illegally, and surrogates trying to make this intellectual and earnest man with such discipline seem foreign and therefore untrustworthy. These tactics are the tactics of Lee Atwater, the smut peddler who created the strategy that electoral politics was about vanquishing the opponent, by labeling the opponent in a political campaign as the enemy. Lee Atwater died repentent, but his protegees remain active in the Republican Party.

Self government cannot operate under these rules. We have seen how dangerous and divisive these Atwater rules can be. Throughout this campaign, whether it was in the primaries battling Hillary Clinton or in the presidential election itself, Obama has never turned into a mocking, negative candidate. He has remained true to the belief that we have to come together, find common ground, and become engaged to solve the problems plaguing our nation, and our planet.

I am voting for Barack Hussein Obama because I want an America that is inclusive, that does not play bully in the world, that becomes a leader in resolving environmental and energy issues unlike the Bush policies that claimed they didn't exist. The result was a financial windfall for energy companies and American dollars pouring into the Middle East. I am voting for Barack Hussein Obama because I believe that politics is about negotiating differences and coming up with compromises. I am voting for Barack Hussein Obama because although he is young, his intellect, his capacity to organize a campaign, his ability to attract the best and the brightest as his advisers, and his steadiness throughout the 22 months of this campaign convince me that I want America to be under his direction.

It's about two things: will white voters pull the lever, punch the card, and touch the screen for an African American man and will new registered voters turn out to vote?

I can only hope that once in office Obama has the strength to maintain integrity; no one knows for sure what impact such power might have on any individual. To maintain a democracy here we need an engaged and informed electorate. Obama has inspired a new generation of young people to see themselves as part of the American community. We cannot win the hearts and minds of disillusioned men and women who have no hope, without living by example, making the United States once again the nation where people live "with liberty and justice for all."

Even McCain Country Isn't So McCain

Yesterday I flew to Tucson for a wedding, and during the drive from the airport to the resort, some forty minutes away, my husband and I only saw one McCain-Palin sign. We are in Arizona! At each intersection, there were lawn signs for all of the local races as well as competing signs for the various ballot initiatives, including one like Prop 8, which would ban gay marriage. But it was as if this wasn't a presidential election year.

One would surmise, of course, that this being McCain country, he was a shoe-in. However, that is not true. According to fivethirtyeight.com this morning, although Arizona remains a "red" state, McCain is only ahead between 1-8%, depending on which poll and how recent. The two most recent polls, from October 29, put McCain only 1% or 4% in the lead.

Which led some of us to conclude that maybe we should be canvassing here this afternoon!

The Cruelty of Desperation

Pennsylvania seems to be the lightning rod for racism in this presidential campaign. First, Hillary Clinton began to effect a hillbilly accent while campaigning there during the primaries. Then John Murtha insulted his own constituents by calling them racist, and John McCain got tongue-tied trying to use the Murtha insult to ingratiate himself with another crowd of Pennsylvanians.

Then Friday rolls along and a young, unhinged McCain campaign worker self-mutilates herself with a backwards "B" and the McCain campaign shows its true colors.

Peter Feldman is the McCain Pennsylvania communications director who went to two television stations with the story that the worker had been mugged and mutilated by a vengeful Obama supporter, who just so happened to be black. Click here for the talkingpointsmemo.com story.

The McCain campaign pushed back and claimed the hoax story was spread by bad reporting, and could not be linked to the campaign. However, Keith Olbermann found to the contrary.

Now this same Peter Feldman appears to be connected to an outrageous email distributed to 75,000 Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The email suggests that a vote for Obama is a vote for a second Holocaust.

Although the GOP tried once again to distance itself from the email blast, the consultant responsible for creating it, says otherwise, and the "otherwise" includes reference to the same Peter Feldman.

This is why I adore talkingpointsmemo.com: Josh Marshall is a determined journalist working through the medium of the Internet.

Which leads me to conclude that the cruelty inherent to feeling desperate is another one of those human traits that make self-rule and participatory democracy very difficult, indeed. Using fear to persuade, the legacy of Lee Atwater, who regretted these very tactics on his deathbed, has been kept very alive by Karl Rove and his protegees. It's a dreadful way to campaign and rule. The Democrats under Obama's leadership have resisted this streak this time. We have to figure out a way to return politics to a less devisive tone, so that it isn't about vanquishing the enemy, it isn't about pro-America and anti-America. It's about making a better and sustainable future for ourselves, as one nation on a very crowded and stressed planet. It's about balancing individual and community, and enlarging the definition of community to encompass the world.

A Map of Sleaze

Although McCain is complaining that he doesn't have much money left, he is certainly spending his war chest on sleaze. And thanks to Josh Marshall at Talkingpointsmemo.com, there is now an interactive map that exposes the tactics in each of the battleground states.

Click on Florida, and one learns that flyers distributed in the state have these themes: Obama kills babies and botched abortions. Robocalls shout about Bill Ayers, Hollywood, and just who is Barack Obama, a thinly veiled code for "do we trust the unfamiliar?"

Click on Indiana and the fear tactics include kids in danger and the flimsy connection between Obama and Ayers. Somehow McCain forgets that Ayers is a professor of education and has associated with many Republicans.

My favorite is a campaign in Pennsylvania that characterizes Sarah Palin as a moderate.

Click through all of the states and one sees that McCain is concentrating his efforts in North Carolina with ten separate flyer and robocall themes.

Is it Election Day yet?

Remembering That Obama is Bi-Racial

According to fivethirtyeight.com, Obama has a 92.5% chance of winning the election. One person close to the election suggested that Obama could lose for two likely reasons: white people once in the privacy of the voting booth can't pull the lever, touch the screen, or punch the card for a black man, or African Americans don't turn out to vote. A combination of the two would surely defeat him.

McCain's use of nasty robocalls and Palin's speeches that continue the slimy insinuation that Obama has a more than passing acquaintance with Bill Ayers are coded messages: don't trust him, he's unknown because he is unfamiliar. Whereas McCain's negative ads are attacking Obama's character, Obama's ads that have been labeled "negative" are attacking McCain's policies, including the Obama ad that has McCain bragging that he voted with Bush 90% of the time. Sorry Andrea Mitchell from NBC, these aren't the same!

Now that Obama is taking time off the campaign trail to visit his ailing grandmother, perhaps Americans who are confused by the Republican slime will be reminded that Obama is bi-racial. His mother and grandparents raised him, and the complex creation of character that Obama traced in his first memoir "Dreams From My Father" comes from a bi-racial heritage. As Amin Maalouf writes in "On Identity" which I have been discussing here, we must leave behind single identities. They are the cause of genocide and violence. When I see the Obama crowds in West Palm Beach and St. Louis, most recently, I see a wave in my country that makes race less important, and a future together more important.

More on Identity

While waiting to see how Sarah Palin presents herself on Saturday Night Live, I want to return to Amin Maalouf's "On Identity." He wrote this essay because identity appears to be the cause of the great genocides of the twentieth century; Germany and the Holocaust, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Darfur, Iraq among the Shiites and Sunis, India and Pakistan. His examination of identity illuminates how dangerous each of us becomes when we get stuck in a primary identity.

After each ethnic massacre we ask ourselves, quite rightly, how human beings can perpetrate such atrocities. ...When an otherwise normal man is transformed overnight into a killer, that is
indeed insanity. But when there are thousands, millions of killers; when this phenomenon occurs in one country after another, in different cultures, among the faithful of all religions and among unbelievers alike, it's no longer enough to talk of madness.

Add threat to the situation, add threat to the tribe, and what happens:

...if the men of all countries, of all conditions and faiths can so easily be transformed into butchers, if fanatics of all kinds manage so easily to pass themselves off as defenders of identity, it's because the "tribal" concept of identity still prevalent all over the world facilitates such a distortion.

We can slice our identities, or we can view ourselves, like the vast number of people who have moved from their origins, as a combination of identities, molded and changed by experience.

[Tribal]... is a concept inherited from the conflicts of the past, and many of us would reject it if we examined it more closely. But we cling to it through habit, from lack of imagination or resignation, thus inadvertently contributing to the tragedies by which, tomorrow, we shall be genuinely shocked.

By the way: While flying back from Chicago, I watched Barack Obama's speech at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner on Thursday night. He looked adorable in his white tie and tails, but more importantly, he was so cool and endearing in his delivery. Contrast that to how uncomfortable McCain was in trying to respond to Obama's jokes without exploding from his anger.

An Observation About McCain's Attitude Towards Palin

An interesting observation from my friend Cece to a comment made by John McCain about Sarah Palin during the last presidential debate:

I had a reaction to something in this last debate that I haven't heard from anyone else. When McCain was praising Palin and kept saying, "I'm so proud of her," I found it to be very paternalistic, as if he was speaking about his grown-up little girl. I thought it betrayed his inner knowledge that she's basically a weak candidate, that she needs special handling, and that she's under his protective wing. She's a brazen woman in many ways, but shows an immaturity in her hostile over-confidence, and he has to know that.

On Identity

Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born writer who moved to France when he was 27 years old. He writes in French although he speaks fluent Arabic. He is a Christian, not a Muslim. With the incisiveness of a philosopher, Maalouf discusses the inquiry into and the dangers of identity. I am reading his short, but intense book “On Identity,” because in this wildly coded presidential election, we are experiencing America’s brand of identity politics.

“The identity a person lays claim to is often based, in reverse, on that of his enemy.”

Every time John McCain or Sarah Palin asks the question: Just who is Barack Obama? in essence they are questioning his identity. They are eliciting caution, fear, and racial hostility from their white audiences. (There were only 36 African American delegates at the Republican National Convention.) As the son of a white woman and an African father, a man who left the family when Barack was only two, does Obama consider himself white, having been raised by a white mother and her white parents, or black, as he is seen by the world? In his first memoir, “Dreams from my Father,” Obama explains how he journeyed to his sense of self, to his identity as an African American man in the true sense of the word.

“…each individual identity: it is complex, unique and irreplaceable.”

Yet he has carefully avoided the issue of race throughout the campaign. With the one exception during the primary when he responded to the revelations about his then pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose fiery sermons appeared on YouTube and then repeatedly on every major news network. That speech, as eloquent and touching as it was, appears to be his only major statement on race.

According to Maalouf, one of the dangers of identity, especially since most of us have complex and specific sources of identity, is that no matter what we say, we are questioned as to what is our one true self.

“It presupposes that ‘deep down inside’ everyone there is just one affiliation that really matters, a kind of ‘fundamental truth’ about each individual, an ‘essence’ determined once and for all at birth, never to change thereafter.”

By asking repeatedly who is Barack Obama, McCain and Palin are piercing into the depths of white distrust of African Americans, unleashing a rabid violence that is associated with the foreign, the unknown, the stranger, especially the dark skinned stranger.

For us to move forward, we must examine our attitudes towards race. We must understand how much we limit our potential, and the potential of others through our labeling.

"For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free."

The Last Presidential Debate

We are sitting in our home--a group of friends, all educated, diverse, all informed--watching the debate and although there is still one person here who might vote for McCain, we definitely believe that Obama is showing a calm, presidential attitude that we miss. George Bush has been an embarrassment to this country. To watch and listen to Barack Obama speak brings some hope back to each of us. McCain is not just out of touch, he doesn't have the flexibility, creativity, or the lustre of ideas needed to solve the problems plaguing this country, especially after eight years of mismanagement.

Health care, energy sustainability, economic vitality, housing, education, alternative fuels, a woman's right to reproductive decisions.

We have noticed that Obama has gotten very gray during the course of this campaign. Given his background and health, we might wonder what is happening in McCain's body during these grueling months of the primary and presidential campaigns.

Finally McCain is looking at Obama, the first time, in the three presidential debates.

Our friend Runi's question--about the level of math and science education of US students--was included in the debate! And she is sitting here in our home!!!

There is nothing admirable about McCain as a presidential candidate. He might have once been a brave man who fought against the conventional in Congress. But he isn't there anymore, because he is too old, he is too brittle, and he wants this job too much. Therefore, he has made too many compromises that make his message murky and rigid.

Obama is young, inexperienced, but clearly the intellectual of the two. I have said this more than once: No one can take the ring of power without being affected by it. Obama is a student of Reinhold Niebuhr, the Christian theologian who wrote about the need for politics, and the limitations of reason, to press for social justice. Niebuhr wrote extensively about power. Even Frodo was tempted when he finally had his hands on the ring. Obama, will you resist the corruption of power? I hope so.

Obama's Ohio Speech and Rescue Plan

While John McCain was busy complaining that the "liberal" media is portraying his campaign rallies as ugly--his rallies certainly are--and his character assassination of Obama as relentless--it is, Barack Obama was delivering a powerful speech in Ohio laying out his plans for an economic recovery.

For the full text of the speech, click here.

This morning in Virginia Beach, signs at the Palin rally said: Obama bin Lyin'. But that's just funny, right? NO! Later in the day at another Palin rally in Richmond, the signs called Obama a Communist and a Marxist.

Back to "it's the economy, stupid: the Obama plan is quite detailed:

• Real tax relief and incentives for investing in small businesses, the engine of American prosperity
• Jobs for Growth to reinvest in American infrastructure
• Investments in fuel efficiency technology for American carmakers to retool cars
• Tax cuts for seniors and middle income families
• Extend unemployment insurance benefits
• Suspend withdrawal penalties from IRA and 401 (k) accounts for folks under the age of 59.5 who are in need of cash now
• Suspend penalties for not withdrawing from IRAs and 401 (k) s for seniors who don't need to take the money out
• Homeowner mortgage foreclosure relief and assistance

The document is only seven pages long, and it deserves our attention. Read it.

After all of these years of Bush dumbing down the American public, we must begin to take the time and invest the effort to become better informed. Fear kept the American people ignorant and gave too much power to Bush and Cheney.

We have a choice: the tone of the Obama campaign appears to say that an Obama presidency would rely on the abilities of the American people, all of the American people, to discover and implement new and creative solutions to the problems facing this crowded and troubled planet.

Wouldn't that be a nice change? Are we willing to work together again?

The Real Meaning of the Word Elitism

OK, let's look at a dictionary definition of the word "elitism." American Heritage Dictionary states:

1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
3. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.

With this in mind, note that the key to understanding the meaning of elitism is "entitlement" resulting from membership in an advantaged group.

Let's look at George W. Bush: the third generation of service to the federal government. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Senator from Connecticut. His father was president. He went to Phillips Academy, an all-boys boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, then Yale University where he was a member of Skull & Bones society. Bush then went to Harvard Business School to become the first MBA president.

Despite the fact that Bush bought a ranch in the very un-chic area of Crawford, TX and built himself a very unluxurious house so that he could set up his photo-ops on the tractor and clearing brush, Bush was able to first run for governor and later for president because his father had been Number 41. That's elitism.

Now let's look at John Sidney McCain III. He, too, is the third generation to graduate from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His grandfather Adm. John Sidney "Slew" McCain earned his four stars commanding a U.S. carrier force in World War II. His deeply ambitious father, Adm. "Junior" McCain, reached the same rank, commanding America's forces in the Pacific during Vietnam. McCain, like Bush, has been chasing the reputations of his father and grandfather, not quite making it.

This is elitism. No matter how much they pretend not to be, they have had the access to power, position, and money that only birthright provides. Barack "who is sane" Obama is the son of a teenage white mother, an African student father. He floundered, then began to take himself seriously, arriving at Columbia University where he received a bachelors degree, then Harvard Law School where he became the first African American editor of the prestigious law review. He earned everything.

So how does the corporate media allow the Republican National Committee, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to get away with calling Barack Obama an elitist?

How does the corporate media allow the Republican National Committee, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to get away with calling Barack Obama a terrorist? Remember it's Sarah Palin with ties to the radical Alaska Independence Party. Her husband was a member for years and she addressed its convention in 2008 via videotape hookup.

Ask yourself these questions, and then get angry: Call and email friends to make sure they vote; contribute to the campaign; send letters to the editor complaining about coverage; be informed.

The Thorn That Nicked Him--McCain Quiets His Followers Inadequately

After weeks of going negative, according to one source, 100% of McCain's national ads are now negative, the tone of McCain-Palin rallies this week turned brutal. One reporter, yes, I heard him on MSNBC, on Keith Olbermann's Countdown, said that only "wingnuts" were showing up at McCain-Palin rallies now. He is attracting the angry and the ignorant.

But this is what is frightening me. When an older woman took the microphone yesterday and said that she was afraid of Obama because he was an "Arab," McCain didn't try to correct her misunderstanding at its core. Check out the CNN footage on YouTube. He retorted by saying that Obama is a "decent man," implying that Arabs aren't decent people. He never even thought to correct her racial profiling, her use of the word "Arab" as a synonym for "terrorist." Yet this is the kind of hatred that is coming out as a result of the negative campaign, the insistence that Obama's full name, including the dreaded "Hussein" be included, every time they speak, compounded by saying that Obama pals around with domestic terrorists.

In the past, when rumors went flying around the Internet, aimed at Jews, especially Jews living in Florida, that Obama was Muslim, no one in either campaign stopped to say: Hey, there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim. We can't use shorthand to condemn an entire religion because of its most extreme branches. That's what infuriates me, and as you can see, from my post on Religulous, Bill Maher's new film, I understand the problems with faith held with too much certitude.

A Nation Gone Mad

Enough of this hysteria! "Blind ambition, bad judgment:" that is what McCain is saying about Obama. Obama is calling McCain "erratic."

I care about the fact that I can't retire, my cousin Edie can't retire, my husband can't retire, and everyone I know is suffering personally: unemployment, immobility, insecurity, health care consequences, and general fear.

After 911, this country could have launched an initiative to explore new energy sources so that we weren't sending all of our money to the "erratic" Middle East while at the same time infusing our economy with new goals and producing new ideas to send abroad to keep the planet liveable. Instead Bush and Cheney chose to keep people disengaged through constant and escalating fear, and proving to people that government is indeed incompetent. We could have used the force of government for true leadership and direction. They instead assured that their oil company buddies, and themselves, would get richer.

We know that fear makes us stupid. We know that our country's current leaders, rather than inciting us to new commitments to excellence and devotion to our community, have been appealing instead to our lowest common denominator. (Remember that Bush only asked us to Shop for America after 911!)

Barack Obama talks to our higher selves. Listen, no one knows what to do now. We can agree that we got to this low through a combination of poor choices: deregulation (forgetting that greed is one of the deadliest sins and remains as one); cleverness (the debt swap, the sloppy bundling of high risk mortgages; hedge funds; and sub-prime mortgages); exploitation (mortgage brokers targeted poor, communities of color just to make commissions, despite the knowledge that many of the homeowners could not afford the monthly payments or even the upkeep of these homes); and delusion.

All of this celebrity worship has led too many people into believing that somehow they are entitled to live like they, too, are rich and famous. Delusion has resulted from incessant advertising and marketing of everything, and a lot of available credit. The bombardment of "desire" is too much for most people. It causes rich, middle class, and the poor to live beyond their means. It's cruelest to those who don't have a lot of hope, education, or access to opportunity.

Wishful thinking and spending beyond our means is not the way to get ahead anywhere, and never has been. The lottery and gambling casinos don't help either. Neither does the proliferation of "designer" off the rack clothes, made in China and in sweatshops across the developing world. These coveted items are mass-produced and then inflated in value because of someone's logo flashed across it. We don't need any of this.

What we need is a commitment to integrity, community, and creativity. Um, sounds more like Barack Obama.

It's the Economy, Stupid: The Second Presidential Debate

We are watching the debate from Nashville, and among us, yes, there isn't a McCain supporter. Our one holdout from the first debate has switched and now is voting for Obama. So we are listening skeptically, voicing our doubts without inhibition. Certainly this debate is not the surreal entertainment of the Biden-Palin debate of last week.

At least this one is serious, seriously looking at how the economic failures have affected individual men and women and families.

Just a very catty observation: we are watching on HDTV, and I never noticed how bad Tom Brokaw's bottom teeth are!

I like Obama's calm. I am feeling so anxious that I need someone to speak to me with deliberation, not pandering, but calm. He seems so sensible. I just lost thousands of dollars in a carefully planned 401K that was divided 50-50 between stocks and bonds. I am not gambler. Despite my conservative investment, my retirement has been put off by years. I need someone who speaks to me as an intelligent person who is part of the solution. McCain condescends to me, he wants to decide, not us.

Challenges are opportunities. Isn't that what we have learned as we have aged? That whenever we are confronted, we have this moment when we can open our eyes and open our possibilities. Obama speaks to that level of thinking. I like that.

23 votes against alternative fuels by McCain. This is a failure of leadership. America has 3% of the world's oil reserves. We can't drill our way out of the problem. We can't use more fossil fuels to get a hold on global warming. We had a chance to be the leaders for going green, and delusion and denial under Bush prevented that from happening. And now Palin speaks about regulation as if it isn't what moves the economy forward.

We can be leaders in developing alternative technology and then exporting it to China and other nations so that we don't smoke over the planet.

Health care is tied to Social Security. We won't bankrupt the country if we have affordable health care.

Ronald Raygun is no hero in this household!

McCain is no maverick. Be sure to read the Rolling Stones article that tells a story about John McCain that will make you shiver.

Is health care a commodity? This is a good question. I was just at the doctor after a cardiac incident. He checked my pulse, heart beat, and did an EKG. Then he told me that my insurance was so bad that he had to wait for another incident before he could order the next round of tests.

I'm a woman nearing sixty. The most likely cause of death for a woman my age is heart disease.

What is the purpose of health insurance?

We need government to impose regulations, because without regulation, we are reduced to our worst: greed, indifference, and bias.

I wish Obama would mention that by having no state regulation over health insurance, companies could easily stop paying for reproductive health, including birth control and abortion. That is what the conservatives want the Supreme Court to do, to make reproductive health protections a state issue, not a federal one. Once it is solely state controlled, we could lose everything. Our daughters could lose control over their bodies. Margaret Atwood wrote of such in The Handmaiden's Tale.

Obama hits McCain on foreign policy!!! Iraq has put an enormous strain on our troops and we owe them gratitude. But what a failed policy!

What about the Iraqi $79 billion surplus? I've never heard McCain answer that charge.

Use of U.S. combat forces: can either fathom a humanitarian use of US force where there are no national security issues at stake.

Moral issues might be at stake. Holocaust, Rwanda: looking back should we have acted? Standing by idly diminishes the US. We need to work in concert with our allies, not alone, we can't sustain unilateral action.

McCain shouldn't be calling us "my friends." It's patronizing. He isn't answering the questions.

What are the limits of America's abilities to make a difference in interventions? Somalia, Lebanon? We have to temper our decisions, is this McCain speaking? I don't think temperament with McCain, do you?

McCain still isn't looking at Obama. He is blinking and smirking a lot. Again, it is an anger management issue, according to Leslie who is an analyst and leadership trainer. It could be misinterpreted as racism or arrogance, at least.

McCain is criticizing Obama about announcing an invasion of Pakistan, yet what did Bush do in invading Iraq? Day by day, hour by hour, warning Iraq before the bombs fell.

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!!! Obama is punching back with elegance and grace.

An acceptable dictator in Afghanistan? An acceptable dictator in Iraq? Is this refreshingly honest about American foreign policy, finally?

However, the surge was not the reason for the calm in Iraq, lately, at least according to Bob Woodward. According to Woodward, as he finally admitted on Friday night's Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO, it is a secret strategy of "exploding baskets" that has brought the calm, not any increase in the number of American troops stationed there.

Is McCain saying we should go to war with Russia? Is he mad? At least Obama is speaking about assisting the economic strength of former economic satellites, not just seeing everything in military terms. But I'm not happy about either candidate's response here. Petro dollars increase the influence of Russia.

Notice that the microphones are just for show as a way of diminishing McCain's stiffness and handicaps.

The Israeli question is clearly pandering to Florida. For a laugh, watch Sarah Silverman's thegreatschlep.com. Jews are 2% of the population, but 4% of the vote. It's an important factor in winning Florida, fair and square, and not the way it was won in 2000 or 2004.

Yes, we need to talk directly with our friends, and more importantly, with our enemies.

Last question: What don't you know and how will you learn it?

Obama: Michelle could give a much longer list. The nature of the challenges is immense. We never know what the challenges will be. Are we going to pass on the American dream to the next generation?

McCain: We don't know what challenges we will be facing around the world or at home.

We think Obama did well.

Rolling Stone Magazine's Expose of John McCain

As a group of us gathered around the hotel lobby television to watch the spectacle of Saturday Night Live's parody of the vice presidential debates, we realized that a McCain-Palin win would definitely give America better comedic theater, but aside from that, an Obama defeat would be a disaster for the nation and the planet.

Now Rolling Stone magazine has posted on its website a story, Make Believe Maverick, dated October 16, 2008, by Tom Dickinson, profiling a John McCain who is not fit for the presidency.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

This is must reading, along with its posting of Matt Taibbi's October 2, 2008 piece Mad-Dog Palin.

American electoral politics has never been polite or constrained. This election season is reaching new lows, however. I'm not sure how to combat the latest lies being spread by the McCain-Palin campaign, but after seeing the damage done by the Swift Boat ads to John Kerry, Obama has to fight back. According to one source, nearly all of McCain's national ads are now negative.

Obama wants to raise the level of discourse. Obama's newest ad is a preemptive strike.

All of this negativity is, of course, a distraction from the real issues: the economy and how it has punched the breath out of most of us; our stature among the community of nations; and whether as a country we will help solve the problems facing this troubled and crowded planet or whether we are the trouble itself.

Anger Management

Among the guests at our debate party was a psychologist who specializes in leadership training. Her comments about both candidates' anger management skills are instructive.

Obama, as you recall, looked directly at McCain throughout the debate and acknowledged that McCain was correct in his analysis several times, probably more than his handlers wanted to count. Six, seven, maybe eight concessions. We imagined McCain’s people cutting and splicing a new Internet ad while the debates were still airing. According to Leslie, this was Obama’s way of managing his anger. In addition, he was trying to do before our eyes what McCain was claiming he wanted: bridging the gap between Republicans and Democrats.

McCain, however, could not look at Obama. He didn’t look at the camera either, so although he might have been looking at Jim Lehrer or at the Mississippi audience, it looked weird from our perspective.

“Anger management issues,” declared Leslie.

According to our expert, McCain couldn’t look at Obama because if he did he would have exploded.

Yesterday, John Marshall posted a possible reason why McCain was so angry, based on a Saturday story by Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post, about that bi-partisan meeting at the White House on the bailout called by George W.:

Pelosi said Obama would speak for the Democrats. Though later he would pepper Paulson with questions, according to a Republican in the room, his initial point was brief: "We've got to get something done."

Bush turned to McCain, who joked, "The longer I am around here, the more I respect seniority."

McCain then turned to Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to speak first. Boehner was blunt. The plan Paulson laid out would not win the support of the vast majority of House Republicans. It had been improved on the edges, with an oversight board and caps on the compensation of participating executives. But it had to be changed at the core.

He did not mention the insurance alternative, but Democrats did. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again. No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice.

Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: "What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?" he asked repeatedly.

McCain did not answer. One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a "game plan" aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. "They had taken McCain's request for a meeting and trumped it," said this source.

McCain’s attitude towards Obama could easily be categorized as racist, or at least arrogant, in refusing to look at the younger man. He had better be careful, since this election requires that both parties pay attention to the increasing numbers of Latino and Asian voters. According to Professor Federico Subervi, who spoke this weekend at a fascinating conference at St John’s Law School about Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Election, there are now 10.4 million registered Latino voters, representing a 10% growth during this year’s primary season. Latinos are now 9% of the electorate, and their likely turnout on November 4th is the same as non-Latinos.

Asian Americans number over 14.4 million nationwide. 38.5% of all Asian Americans were born in the U.S., and 33.7% were foreign-born, naturalized citizens. In AALDEF’s November 2006 exit poll on the 2006 Congressional elections: Chinese American (38%), South Asian American (27%), Korean American (14%), Southeast Asian American (8%), and Filipino American (7%). Asian Americans are pretty evenly split between Republican and Democratic affiliations, and are important voters in several swing states.

Naturalized citizens have higher turnout than native born. They take their citizenship obligations very seriously.

Watch out McCain, your attitude could easily be misinterpreted.

Obama Looks Like the Leader We Need

Everyone just left after watching the debate, a little MSNBC, CNN, and Fox for color commentary. We thought Obama was very presidential and he wasn't afraid to look at McCain. McCain came off a bit weird in that he couldn't look at either Obama or into the camera. However, Obama probably shouldn't have admitted so many times that he agreed with McCain. We figure the Republicans are already splicing the tape to make a new commercial that uses Obama's words to make it seem like everything McCain says and does is right.

Christine commented on how hard it must be for Obama to straddle parallel universes: the world of his beliefs and what the public needs to hear him say in order for them to have the confidence to vote for him.

That's profound.