My uncle Bob, the smartest person I know, once explained to me his approach to the most sacred franchise of citizenship. I collect literature, he said. I consider endorsements, he went on. The Monday before the election I give everything I have read and heard careful consideration. And then on Tuesday I enter the booth and vote a straight Democratic ticket.
I continue to find Uncle Bob’s practice eminently sound. It should also be helpful to voters in New Jersey and Virginia in the week ahead.
After a campaign of barely five months duration (A cry of “is that all?” rings across the Garden State.), the choice facing New Jersey voters comes down to the fat one, the incumbent and the other one. Yes, Mr. Christie and his allies have spent tens of millions of dollars to persuade the people of New Jersey that Mr. Corzine is indeed the incumbent. While Mr. Corzine’s campaign has expended even larger sums to bring to the attention of New Jersey voters that Mr. Christie is fat. (Mr. Corzine and his staff have been gobsmacked to learn that ad hominem does not mean “false.”)
The other guy pretty much flew under the radar until two events changed his fortunes. First, the people of New Jersey, or at least 15% of them, discovered that they had a choice other than the incumbent and the fat one. Second, Mr. Christie realized that a candidate who couldn’t even get the endorsement of the Newark Star-Ledger might not be needing that gracious, funny, self-deprecating acceptance speech.
Since pointing at Mr. Corzine and shrieking “incumbent! Incumbent!” wasn’t doing the trick, Mr. Christie turned on the other guy, shrieking “other guy! other guy!”
As neither candidate is fat nor the incumbent, the people of Virginia would seem to face a more difficult and subtle choice. Nothing could be farther (or further, I don’t have my Strunk and White handy) from the truth. Any woman who votes for Bob McDonnell deserves to spend the rest of her life in a chador. As, of course, does any man.
Although there are many municipal elections being held across the country on Tuesday next, they aren’t worthy of your attention or mine as none of those candidates will receive endorsements from the paper of record or the second one, nor the benefit of campaign/fund-raising appearances from our latest Nobel-laureate. And, clearly, nothing brings out A-list checkbooks like a whiff of the Nobel-prize.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Oslo Syndrome
Thanks to the work of the Nobel Prize committee, this day will forever be remembered as the day the Obama presidency jumped the shark.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Bull Durham: The Metaphor
On Nov. 3 of this year, voters in Virginia and New Jersey go to the polls to elect their governors. These voters are inevitably thinking why couldn’t we be in one of the normal years? Then everyone wouldn’t be staring.
Virginia voters have a choice between a man who never met a position he could hold. Or couldn’t hold. Or could hold but not too tight. And one who advocates the imposition of sharia law. Although, he insists that the document in which these covenants were put forth was a youthful indiscretion. It seems to me that the indiscretions of a married father and army veteran of 34 are rarely characterized as youthful.
Most New Jersey voters are probably quoting Noel Coward for the first time in their lives: “If I had to choose between them I’d take hemlock.”
Regardless of the caliber of the candidates put before me I have never missed a primary or general election since turning 18 in 1974. This makes me ineligible to run for governor of California.
If you are Democrat holding office in Virginia, you may thank me for supporting your primary opponent. If you are a woman running for the state senate, Congress or the presidency and you see me approaching with an open checkbook run, run like the wind.
Now that I have relocated to Atlanta, the electoral politics before me is table rasa. Since I don’t know the players, I am starting with the candidates for City Council in my district. To that end, I recently attended a candidates’ forum.
The four men and two women sat at two long folding tables, facing the audience from a middle school stage. The whole thing could have been over in 20 minutes as little was revealed over the course of ninety minutes that changed the impressions created by their opening statements.
The first candidate seemed ill-informed and possessed of no particular platform. I would have been embarrassed for him had he not seemed so impervious, serenely confident and self-satisfied. He was only killing time until his inevitable election.
Next up was a young woman who was clearly quite intelligent, but also anxious and only marginally better informed. She was more excruciating to watch as she clearly knew how inadequate her answers were.
She was followed by an Ichabod Crane-ish fellow who had done his time in the trenches. He knew the community, he knew its issues and he had thoughtful proposals for addressing them. He even had responsible ideas for funding his initiatives. Unfortunately, his was not a legislative disposition. He was arrogant, impatient and given to hectoring. I couldn’t imagine him building the coalitions necessary to advance his good ideas.
Then came his mirror image, mild, amiable, a bit cuddly looking, with occasional flashes of a surprising edge. He gave the impression of a man who thought enough to get by and not one iota more. He didn’t so much have fire in the belly, as a few glowing embers of ego. He struck me as someone whose name was frequently preceded by “good ole.”
The other woman running was tall and patrician, with a natural graciousness that made it possible for her to put all and sundry, from the largest donor to her housekeeper, at ease. She seemed to know every organization mentioned, and several she brought up herself, intimately and authentically. She was, however, the only candidate to pull a gimmick. The other five candidates sat through their opening statements while she made a rather ostentatious point of standing. And her solution to most municipal concerns was outsourcing. I might have respected her if she had offered to put her own position first.
The final candidate was the most intriguing. A successful entrepreneur with roots in the community, but not the history of civic engagement of Ichabod or Lady Bountiful. The most poised and articulate speaker. He knew the issues facing the district and the city cold. His proposed solutions were a little vague and his funding mechanisms even vaguer. Both his vagueness and his hint of charisma made him seem a natural.
And aren’t city councils and county commissions and the like really political farm teams? They provide most players with their final stop and a chance to parade before small, but intense legions of followers. A few players are groomed for bigger things. Sometimes a natural talent will emerge; sometimes the most disciplined player will advance. We all think we can pick ‘em, but really we only know in retrospect.
In fairness, someone should tell Lady Bountiful if she sees me approaching with a check book to run, run like the wind.
Virginia voters have a choice between a man who never met a position he could hold. Or couldn’t hold. Or could hold but not too tight. And one who advocates the imposition of sharia law. Although, he insists that the document in which these covenants were put forth was a youthful indiscretion. It seems to me that the indiscretions of a married father and army veteran of 34 are rarely characterized as youthful.
Most New Jersey voters are probably quoting Noel Coward for the first time in their lives: “If I had to choose between them I’d take hemlock.”
Regardless of the caliber of the candidates put before me I have never missed a primary or general election since turning 18 in 1974. This makes me ineligible to run for governor of California.
If you are Democrat holding office in Virginia, you may thank me for supporting your primary opponent. If you are a woman running for the state senate, Congress or the presidency and you see me approaching with an open checkbook run, run like the wind.
Now that I have relocated to Atlanta, the electoral politics before me is table rasa. Since I don’t know the players, I am starting with the candidates for City Council in my district. To that end, I recently attended a candidates’ forum.
The four men and two women sat at two long folding tables, facing the audience from a middle school stage. The whole thing could have been over in 20 minutes as little was revealed over the course of ninety minutes that changed the impressions created by their opening statements.
The first candidate seemed ill-informed and possessed of no particular platform. I would have been embarrassed for him had he not seemed so impervious, serenely confident and self-satisfied. He was only killing time until his inevitable election.
Next up was a young woman who was clearly quite intelligent, but also anxious and only marginally better informed. She was more excruciating to watch as she clearly knew how inadequate her answers were.
She was followed by an Ichabod Crane-ish fellow who had done his time in the trenches. He knew the community, he knew its issues and he had thoughtful proposals for addressing them. He even had responsible ideas for funding his initiatives. Unfortunately, his was not a legislative disposition. He was arrogant, impatient and given to hectoring. I couldn’t imagine him building the coalitions necessary to advance his good ideas.
Then came his mirror image, mild, amiable, a bit cuddly looking, with occasional flashes of a surprising edge. He gave the impression of a man who thought enough to get by and not one iota more. He didn’t so much have fire in the belly, as a few glowing embers of ego. He struck me as someone whose name was frequently preceded by “good ole.”
The other woman running was tall and patrician, with a natural graciousness that made it possible for her to put all and sundry, from the largest donor to her housekeeper, at ease. She seemed to know every organization mentioned, and several she brought up herself, intimately and authentically. She was, however, the only candidate to pull a gimmick. The other five candidates sat through their opening statements while she made a rather ostentatious point of standing. And her solution to most municipal concerns was outsourcing. I might have respected her if she had offered to put her own position first.
The final candidate was the most intriguing. A successful entrepreneur with roots in the community, but not the history of civic engagement of Ichabod or Lady Bountiful. The most poised and articulate speaker. He knew the issues facing the district and the city cold. His proposed solutions were a little vague and his funding mechanisms even vaguer. Both his vagueness and his hint of charisma made him seem a natural.
And aren’t city councils and county commissions and the like really political farm teams? They provide most players with their final stop and a chance to parade before small, but intense legions of followers. A few players are groomed for bigger things. Sometimes a natural talent will emerge; sometimes the most disciplined player will advance. We all think we can pick ‘em, but really we only know in retrospect.
In fairness, someone should tell Lady Bountiful if she sees me approaching with a check book to run, run like the wind.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Bang. Bang.
Bang.
Perhaps you are aware of the great kerfuffle this week regarding Facebook? You’re not?!? Bless your heart. May I please come live on your planet?
The rest of us know that a poll was posted on the social networking site Facebook last weekend with the title, “Should Obama Be Killed?” This set off a firestorm of self-righteous indignation among the sort of people whose fourth grade motto was “I’m telling.” These people seemed to fall all over themselves to be the first to report the perpetrator(s) to the mother superior at Facebook and loudly denounce the right-wing hooligan(s), indisputably racist, who must have devised such an affront to decency.
Boy must their faces have been red when the Secret Service reported that the perpetrator was a juvenile, that no threat to the president had ever existed, and no charges would be filed.
Of course the poll never, ever posed any sort of threat to the president. Not even a little, bitty, teeny, tiny one. “Should Obama Be Killed?” does not pose a threat. “Obama should be killed.” poses a marginally greater threat. “I am going to kill Obama with the Gluck I have in my storage locker when he speaks in Sheboygan on Tuesday.” Now that’s a threat.
Not only does “Should Obama Be Killed?” not, in and of itself, constitute a threat, the four possible answers, "yes," "maybe," "if he cuts my health care" and "no," make clear that the whole exercise was a satire. The technical term for anyone who misses the fact that this is satire is “moron.” Hint, it’s the third answer that gives it away.
But let’s say that the poll hadn’t been posted by a child with a wicked sense of humor, but rather by the prissocracy’s worst nightmare. Let’s say that the poll was posted by a disaffected thug in fatigues and a wife beater who was way, way, way off his or her thorazine and who believed Obama was not legitimately president because he was born in Kenya otherwise he would be able to produce a birth certificate. Would I still see it as harmless and humorous?
Absolutely not. But I would argue with greater urgency that he or she had every right to post it and that we all lost something immeasurable when it was taken down. I acknowledge that Facebook is a private enterprise with the right to remove any application or expel any member. But with over 300,000,000 members Facebook has more than ordinary influence in determining how freedom of speech is construed in our society.
I’m also going to pursue this line because much of the commentary I have read and been directly subject to hasn’t made a distinction between Facebook and America. The poll was not right, it was offensive, things like that just shouldn’t be allowed. My favorite was directed at me as part of a discussion thread on, yes, Facebook: “But this is just not an issue one debates...a poll like this is disgusting and entirely inappropriate. Free speech gets trumped by safety...you just do not talk about killing the president...period.” The ellipses are the writer’s not mine.
In a democracy, in a constitutional democracy, in a constitutional democracy with our particular constitution, free speech should be trumped by safety only very rarely, with great regret and after careful deliberation.
Disgusting and inappropriate speech has the absolute protection of the first amendment. Ask George Carlin or his estate. Ask the folks at Westboro Baptist Church (of “God Hates Fags” at funerals fame). Ask those given to cross burnings. Now the last two give me great pause. Hatred that virulent is not an easy thing to contemplate. I have to take a deep breath before going on to say that I believe that speech or expression that repugnant should be protected. But I do. I believe it requires vigilant protection.
Free speech doesn’t exist on a continuum. Or, when it does, it’s a downward slope. Once we say speech can be limited, speech can be restricted, then each subsequent limit, each subsequent restriction is only a matter of degree. The fundamental premise that speech can be limited or restricted has already been established. History does not offer much evidence of rights being restored incrementally, but they can be dribbled away.
In closing, I want to bring it the heaviest of guns – my betters. The great linguist Noam Chomsky who understands the power of language on many levels reached the conclusion: If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
A few words from E.M. Forster, dedicated to the multitudes who couldn’t wait to drive the offending poll from Facebook: We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.
Finally, because we have the rule of three, because he was there at our creation, and because he’s Mr. Jefferson: We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Perhaps you are aware of the great kerfuffle this week regarding Facebook? You’re not?!? Bless your heart. May I please come live on your planet?
The rest of us know that a poll was posted on the social networking site Facebook last weekend with the title, “Should Obama Be Killed?” This set off a firestorm of self-righteous indignation among the sort of people whose fourth grade motto was “I’m telling.” These people seemed to fall all over themselves to be the first to report the perpetrator(s) to the mother superior at Facebook and loudly denounce the right-wing hooligan(s), indisputably racist, who must have devised such an affront to decency.
Boy must their faces have been red when the Secret Service reported that the perpetrator was a juvenile, that no threat to the president had ever existed, and no charges would be filed.
Of course the poll never, ever posed any sort of threat to the president. Not even a little, bitty, teeny, tiny one. “Should Obama Be Killed?” does not pose a threat. “Obama should be killed.” poses a marginally greater threat. “I am going to kill Obama with the Gluck I have in my storage locker when he speaks in Sheboygan on Tuesday.” Now that’s a threat.
Not only does “Should Obama Be Killed?” not, in and of itself, constitute a threat, the four possible answers, "yes," "maybe," "if he cuts my health care" and "no," make clear that the whole exercise was a satire. The technical term for anyone who misses the fact that this is satire is “moron.” Hint, it’s the third answer that gives it away.
But let’s say that the poll hadn’t been posted by a child with a wicked sense of humor, but rather by the prissocracy’s worst nightmare. Let’s say that the poll was posted by a disaffected thug in fatigues and a wife beater who was way, way, way off his or her thorazine and who believed Obama was not legitimately president because he was born in Kenya otherwise he would be able to produce a birth certificate. Would I still see it as harmless and humorous?
Absolutely not. But I would argue with greater urgency that he or she had every right to post it and that we all lost something immeasurable when it was taken down. I acknowledge that Facebook is a private enterprise with the right to remove any application or expel any member. But with over 300,000,000 members Facebook has more than ordinary influence in determining how freedom of speech is construed in our society.
I’m also going to pursue this line because much of the commentary I have read and been directly subject to hasn’t made a distinction between Facebook and America. The poll was not right, it was offensive, things like that just shouldn’t be allowed. My favorite was directed at me as part of a discussion thread on, yes, Facebook: “But this is just not an issue one debates...a poll like this is disgusting and entirely inappropriate. Free speech gets trumped by safety...you just do not talk about killing the president...period.” The ellipses are the writer’s not mine.
In a democracy, in a constitutional democracy, in a constitutional democracy with our particular constitution, free speech should be trumped by safety only very rarely, with great regret and after careful deliberation.
Disgusting and inappropriate speech has the absolute protection of the first amendment. Ask George Carlin or his estate. Ask the folks at Westboro Baptist Church (of “God Hates Fags” at funerals fame). Ask those given to cross burnings. Now the last two give me great pause. Hatred that virulent is not an easy thing to contemplate. I have to take a deep breath before going on to say that I believe that speech or expression that repugnant should be protected. But I do. I believe it requires vigilant protection.
Free speech doesn’t exist on a continuum. Or, when it does, it’s a downward slope. Once we say speech can be limited, speech can be restricted, then each subsequent limit, each subsequent restriction is only a matter of degree. The fundamental premise that speech can be limited or restricted has already been established. History does not offer much evidence of rights being restored incrementally, but they can be dribbled away.
In closing, I want to bring it the heaviest of guns – my betters. The great linguist Noam Chomsky who understands the power of language on many levels reached the conclusion: If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
A few words from E.M. Forster, dedicated to the multitudes who couldn’t wait to drive the offending poll from Facebook: We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.
Finally, because we have the rule of three, because he was there at our creation, and because he’s Mr. Jefferson: We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
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