the state of the nomination

The crypt of the Condes de Buenavista, in the Santuario de la Virgen de la Victoria, in Malaga, Spain. Really, this has nothing to do with the blog post -- I was googling "Santa Maria de la Victoria" to look for an image since Obama's winning, etc., but really that doesn't work for me because that devotion usually has to do with a bellicose and imperialist idea of Catholicism that's a wee bit distasteful, but at the same time I found this image and had to put it up because, dude, it is so cool...


So what's going on? Obama's people say he has won the majority of pledged delegates, Clinton's say she has won the popular vote. What does all this mean? Well, it's confusing as all hell, but let's take a look at it.

Pledged (and super) Delegates

Officially, the party's nominee is chosen at the convention. Each state party picks delegates that pledge to vote for a candidate based on results from the state's nominating process, either a primary or a caucus (I don't think any states pick delegates at state conventions any more, but I could be wrong). The results are rewarded proportionally (as opposed to what the GOP does -- winner-take-all), though each state has it's own (usually extremely convoluted) way of counting and rewarding them. Since the system is so complicated, no one knows exactly how many pledged delegates each candidate has, though the tallies are close. For example, RealClearPolitcs gives Obama 1652 and Clinton 1496 pledged delegates. The New York Times provides both their own estimation of delegates (Obama, 1625; Clinton, 1481) and the AP's (Obama, 1649; Clinton, 1497). The difference between the two candidates in the respective estimations are 156, 144, and 154. The remaining three primaries -- Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico -- offer a grand total of 86 delegates. So, according to party rules as they currently stand, even if Clinton were to get every single delegate from each of those primaries (practically impossible, especially since Obama does well in western states), she still couldn't win the majority of pledged delegates.

The wrench in the works here is the question of Michigan and Florida. These two delegate-heavy states held early primaries in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules, rules to which none of the candidates (including Clinton) objected at the time. When those primary elections were held, it was understood that their delegates would not be seated at the convention. The candidates agreed not to campaign in these states (Hillary followed through on this promise in letter, but her "fund-raising" trips to Florida make one wonder if she did so in spirit) and all the major candidates except Hillary took their name off the ballot in Michigan. It was not even possible to write-in Obama in Michigan.

On May 31, the DNC will meet with the campaigns to make a ruling on Florida (211 original delegates) and Michigan (157). The Florida results were: Clinton, 50%; Obama, 33%, and Edwards (who has since endorsed Obama), 14%. In Michigan, Clinton won 55% of the vote, while "uncommitted" won 40%. So, if these two states were given all their delegates, and if Obama was not awarded the "uncommitted" delegates from Michigan, Clinton may be able to barely overtake Obama in pledged delegates. Especially in the case of Michigan, it goes without saying how wrong this would be. Although the DNC has every right to exclude the delegates of the these states, I would like to see some time of compromise that allows their delegates to participate, but in a reduced way (the GOP, for example, cut their number of delegates in half). I cannot see a reasonable situation that would allow Clinton to take the lead in pledged delegates.

The superdelegate count -- that is, the delegates who have a vote in the convention because they are party insiders or elected officials and whose purpose is to keep the party from nominating an egregiously unacceptable candidate, the people's will be damned -- is somewhat fluid, since at this point they only state their intention and do not have to commit in any institutionally binding way. Still, almost all stick to their original endorsement. Right now, the count is estimated like this: RealClearPolitics -- Obama, 305; Clinton, 279. NYT -- Obama, 304.5; Clinton, 272. AP -- Obama, 307; Clinton, 279. Don't even ask me what that .5 delegate means. According to the NYT, there are only 181.5 superdelegates that are still uncommitted. The times has a nifty little interactive toy that you can manipulate to see different scenarios that would allow each candidate to win the nomination. Right now, if Clinton were to win 50% of the remaining pledged delegates, she would still need 96% of the remaining superdelegates. If, impossibly, she were to win 100% of the remaining pledged delegates, she would still need an overwhelming majority -- 68% -- of the undecided superdelegates, and the common wisdom is that superdelegates would be very unlikely to overturn the popular vote.

In short, at this point it really is next to impossible for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination. Even given more primary victories, even given an unlikely surge in superdelegate support, even given a way to include Florida and Michigan that would seem at all acceptable to all parties involved -- Obama will still be the nominee. When an Obama supporter claims that Obama has won the nomination, she or he is not being arrogant or democratic, or "dismissive" of Clinton's voters or the states to come, it's just the reality of the situation. It has been for some time, but at this point it's very hard to argue.

The Popular Vote

Clinton's campaign keeps talking about how she won, or will win, the popular vote. This is very misleading for three reasons:

1. It wouldn't matter anyway, because that has nothing to do with the rules that everyone agreed upon at the outset. Obama's people have made a good point in saying that that if that were the case, they would have run a different campaign -- concentrating on running up the vote in Illinois, for example.

2. There is no popular vote tally. Because Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington have caucuses -- meetings across the state instead of primary elections with ballots -- they do not release a vote total. Results can be extrapolated, but it's not like a national election with countable ballots. The system doesn't work that way.

3. Only by the most tortured accounting involving Michigan and Flordia can Hillary Clinton claim to have a substantial lead in the popular votes. According to RealClearPolitics's analysis,
Obama wins the popular vote unless you count Michigan but do not count "uncommitted" as votes for him. Counting the popular vote total without caucus states or FL & MI, Obama wins by almost a half million votes. Extrapolate the caucus and that's over a half million votes. Even with Flordia (but without the 100,000 vote lead he has in the caucus extrapolation), he wins by almost 150,000 votes. Only by counting Michigan without "uncommitted" does Clinton win (by 181,000 votes) and if you take away the caucus estimation, it's more than 100,000 votes less.

So by the best-case scenario, Clinton comes out 181, 523 votes ahead. "Uncommitted," however, received 238,168 votes in Michigan. It's true that there are still three primaries ahead, including Puerto Rico which Hillary should win handily, but the math by any metric is not only not in her favor, but overwhelmingly against her.

Should Clinton give up? Well, that's up to her. Her campaign is in debt, she can't win, and it's essential that the Democrats win the White House this year. Her attacks on Obama have calmed down, but still her surrogates like Geraldine Ferraro are calling Obama "sexist" and questioning whether or not they would vote for Obama in the fall. I won't even go there, since this post has been long enough.

One more thing: I, like many Obama supporters, have often been very disgusted at how Hillary Clinton has run her campaign (just do a search on "Hillary" for my blog for details). Still it's been a very close race and it's time to relax a bit. It's also time to think back on the campaign and to realize that for all the race-baiting and sexism that have sprung up over the past year or so, it has been a close campaign between two ground-breaking candidates. Arianna Huffington, who has never been hesitant to criticize Clinton, had a nice column on what she has achieved in this campaign:

I have regularly criticized Clinton over the course of her campaign (and long before it, starting with her vote to authorize the war), but there is no question that she has forever altered the way women running for president will be viewed from here on out. In the words of the Times, Clinton has established "a new marker for what a woman can accomplish in a campaign -- raising over $170 million, frequently winning more favorable reviews on debate performances than her male rivals, rallying older women, and persuading white male voters who were never expected to support her."

Of course, I say this from the perspective of one who has supported the winner. Although I respect what she has achieved, I still deplore the Rovian methods she often used to achieve it. I hope this is that last time I will be writing about Hillary Clinton unless I am commenting on how she is throwing all of her support to the person who is without doubt the nominee.

UPDATE: Perhaps Arianna and I have gotten too sentimental. Via The Late Adopter, Allison Benedikt in Village Voice tears apart the idea of Hillary Clinton as a victim of sexism:

Here’s the thing: There is plenty of sexism—more than enough, thank you very much—in this country. Which is why it’s so sad to see Hillary’s supporters (and lately even her female detractors, and way too many column inches) elevate her to some kind of goddess warrior, symbolizing the decades-long fight for gender equality, absorbing the entirety of history’s catcall in one massive blow, and then standing tall again because that’s what women do. Powerful stuff, except that she’s a lying, race-baiting insult to our collective intelligence. Powerful, if she and her husband hadn’t sold out poor people in the ’90s or if she had stood tall like a woman against the war in Iraq or if she wasn’t right now trying to change the rules of the game and stir up the worst kind of identity politics. Powerful, if her most fervent supporters weren’t threatening to vote for John McCain out of spite, Supreme Court justices be damned.

Benedikt refers to a NYT article I had already read that shows some remarkable views of certain Clinton supports:

Cynthia Ruccia, 55, a sales director for Mary Kay cosmetics in Columbus, Ohio, is organizing a group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, of mostly women in swing states who plan to campaign against Mr. Obama in November. “We, the most loyal constituency, are being told to sit down, shut up and get to the back of the bus,” she said.

"Get to the back of the bus." Interesting choice of words, considering the context. There are more, including Ferraro's comments.

st francis of assisi church, manhattan

Last Wednesday, I took the day off (I had finished grading the night before) and decided to take walk through midtown. I started my day with Mass and Confession at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street. St. Francis is quite an institution in Manhattan. As you can tell from the picture, it's right in the middle of the city, surrounded by tall buildings. They have a number of daily masses and it's a popular site for confession. The Franciscans there do what Franciscans have done for eight hundred years -- they go to the middle of urban spaces, preach, and hear confessions. They also have a daily breadline, legal help for immigrants, a bookstore, a spirituality center, etc. It's a nice little island of prayer in the center of midtown madness. Their website features a story from the National Catholic Reporter that really gets the spirit of the place. An excerpt:

Where in the world (shrines apart) is there another church with no registered parishioners that has a pastor and 20 assistants, offers confessions 13 hours a day and utilizes 520-plus volunteers -- 250 for liturgical duties, 270 for social outreach? and has Br. Sebastian Tobin, a non-ordained friar, making sandals in the basement. This is a commuters' church such as is possible only in New York.

Daily at 7 a.m., as it has since 1929, the St. Francis Breadline -- a $600,000-plus-a-year project -- welcomes the hungry and homeless for coffee and sandwiches.

This St. Francis complex is as much beehive as parish. There are Franciscans everywhere. The friars are fire department and union chaplains, physicians, psychotherapists, canon lawyers, teachers, treasurers, magazine editors and the all-essential fundraisers. The parish has adult education programs, seniors groups and self-help meetings, Filipino Fellowship, Masses in Korean, devotions, novenas, stations, lecture series and outings. Catholic to the core.

At Br. William Mann's West 31st Street bookstore, even the thieves are Catholics. One elderly soul dropped an unpaid-for videocassette into her pocketbook. Mann asked her to replace it on the shelf. A hopeless case? The video was, "How to Make a Novena to St. Jude."

Hey, this is New York. If people rub St. Francis' bronze heels on West 32nd Street, someone knocked off most of the animals' heads on the St. Francis sculpture on West 31st Street.

St. Francis was also the home of Father Michal Judge, OFM, the NYFD chaplain who was the first official victim of the attacks of September 11th. I saw the first half of a documentary about him called Saint of 9/11, and he seems to have been quite a remarkable man. The film was good, too, and you can watch it on your computer if you have Netflix. In one chapel of the church there's beautiful stained glass memorial to the victims of 9/11. It shows a dove circling the base of one the WTC buildings while angels comfort two firefighters. A cross is imposed on the building and beams of light proceed from the cross. To the right, placed a position that is appropriately, for a minor friar, understated, is Father Judge, contemplating the light. A very moving tribute in a unique sacred space.

radio sententia -- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- "More News from Nowhere"

The second video from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!. I already blogged the first here. In this video, Nick and the boys play a strip bar where old businessmen eye the girls and meanwhile, hints of human drama throughout the club...

pentecost, mother's day, confirmation

St. Anne teaching the child Mary to read, from a book of hours.

It's a busy day for celebrations! Happy Mother's Day for all you mothers out there, and happy birthday of the Church for all you Christians out there. Things are even more joyous chez nous, since Filius imperatricis pulcherrimae Africae occidentalis is getting confirmed today. He's taking the name of Augustine for many reasons, but especially because his mother took the name of Monica when she was baptized and confirmed a few years ago. Only recently did I remember that Augustine's father's name was Patricius, that is, Patrick, which was my confirmation name when I received that sacrament so long ago.

Pentecost, from a sixth-century manuscript.

fellowship

Thomas Aquinas, holding a wee church and a book containing his fellowship application.

I received some very good news last week. I was awarded the Dolores Quinn dissertation-writing fellowship, which means I won't have to teach next year and can concentrate on my own work. So I should be able to finish up next year -- hooray for me!

Coming soon: tattoo update.

mouse

Cats and mice, from a thirteenth-century English bestiary.

I walked into the kitchen yesterday afternoon and nearly jumped when a small brown animal dashed out from behind the dishrack and into the stove via one of the burners. Now, mice are more appealing than certain vermin one might come across in this city (New York rats usually weigh about 200 pounds and have prison tattoos), but it's not the most hygienic beast to share a home with, so I went into the bedroom to consult with the cat, where she sat calmly and regally on the bed.

"Mishea, there's a mouse in the kitchen."

She absentmindedly licked her paw.

"Are you going to do something about that?"

She yawned.

"Heck of a job, Brownie!"

She put her head down and went to sleep.

I guess we have two pets now.


(By the way, the image comes from a wonderful site called The Medieval Bestiary that looks like it can provide hours of fun and manuscript descriptions.)

(Tattoo update coming soon).

indiana and north carolina

The baptism of Clovis (doesn't really have much to do with the primaries, but it's cool).

I think anyone who has read my blog at all over the past few months knows that I have been supporting Obama. So it will come as no surprise that I ask the gentle citizens of the great states of Indiana and North Carolina to vote for him in the primaries today.

A word about Hillary Clinton. The blogosphere has grown bitter with attacks from all sides against all the candidates. And yes, I count as one who has not always moderated his language when describing the junior senator from my state (I confess to having compared her to the devil in two posts -- I'm not sorry). I would like to explain my extremity of expression.

When the race for the Democratic nomination began (sometime in the fifth century, at least it seems that way to me), although I considered Hillary as intelligent and capable, I did not rush to support her. One reason was that I felt that dynasty politics are very bad for the country and that a continued Bush-Clinton alternation should be avoided. The other big question was, of course, the war. I was against the war from the beginning. I was one of those who shivered in the cold in the big February demonstration. I knew the accusations against the Hussein regime made no sense and I could see that an invasion would have horrible consequences. This war has been a massive disaster politically, diplomatically, and most importantly, morally. Of course, almost all Democratic politicians cravenly bowed to the administration's warlust, and Hillary is not the only one at fault. Yet her attitude towards the vote has been brazenly unapologetic. I have no idea whether John Edwards was sincere in his apology for voting for the war or not, but at this point at least a gesture is required. To tell the truth, until everyone who enabled this war -- from Bush and Cheney to Kerry and Clinton to Judith Miller and Rupert Murdoch -- engage in the equivalent of a barefoot pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Santiago, I will not be convinced that they are even aware of the enormity of the crime they have committed.

That said, at the beginning of the whole process I was uncomfortable with much of the criticism leveled at Hillary Clinton, especially from the right. Her "ambition" was constantly cited as a negative factor, as if anyone who was running for president were not ambitious. It seemed to me that what really motivated these attacks was blatant misogyny felt by those threatened by a strong women.

Of course, much of that was true, and the examples of sexism coming out of various pundits and talking heads during this campaign are legion. Still, I have become aware there are different kinds of ambition, and some are extremely destructive. Samantha Powers was forced to resign from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary "a monster" who "is stooping to anything," but at this point I have to agree with her. Of course, Hillary's senate record is not void of silly/nauseating pandering (the flag-burning amendment, the Kyle-Lieberman amendment), but hey, a politician's a politician. What she has done in this campaign, however, has been
toxic. I've already discussed this in earlier posts, so I won't go into detail, but the truth is that there is nothing her campaign hasn't sunk to -- race-baiting, lying, changing the rules mid-game, discounting a large portion of the electorate, threatening nuclear war, etc. It's unpleasant and destructive for her party.

In the end, it's destructive for the res publica on the whole. Hillary has used every Rovian tactic available -- the echo chamber of slander, the appeal to patriotism, the "with us or against us" accusation, the dismissal of her opponents as "elites." The gas tax holiday is really the last straw. Every economist, even the Hillary-worshiping Paul Krugman, have said that it's a bad idea. Many do not hesitate to use terms like "stupid." Clinton's response? She's for the common people, not those elite economists! Does this sound familiar at all? Think about George W. Bush and his rejection of elite scientists. Apart from whatever policy differences they have, Clinton, like Bush, depend on the dumbing down of the electorate to achieve and hold onto power. Clinton says things she knows aren't true hoping that we're stupid enough not to really check into them and rather rely on a complacent and lazy media more interested in sound-bites than in real information. She is using the tried and true GOP method to appeal to ignorance against knowledge. Whether or not the GOP and Hillary are right about the general electorate (and I pray they aren't, despite the evidence of the last eight years), they are insulting our intelligence. I'm sure Hillary really does believe she can do good things for the country and help people, but she comes from a political culture that sees the average citizen as nothing more but something to be manipulated and bamboozled at election time, and then thrust out of the way. Who is the true elitist here?

Come on Indiana and North Carolina, let's end this circus.

ADDENDUM: As usual, Jon Stewart explains it best:

going up!

Chapel of the Ascension, Jerusalem.

Happy Feast of the Ascension, everyone!

injustice in new york

Lady Justice, from the Seven Virtues, by Giotto, 1306.


In Queens in November 2006, three police officers shot fifty bullets into a car occupied by three unarmed young men. One policeman emptied his gun and reloaded. Sean Bell died from his wounds the night before his wedding. Today a judge cleared the officers of all charges of manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

Apparently it's all right to kill people in New York City.

St. Akepsimas and other things Persian

St. Akepsimas.

Today is the feast of St. Akepsimas, a fourth-century Persian bishop who was martyred during the persecution of King Shapur II.

Speaking of that part of the world, it seems that Hillary Clinton is as much of a hawk as her votes on the Iraq war and the Kyle-Lieberman amendment have indicated she may be. She said today that if Iran were to attack Israel using nuclear weapons during her presidency, "we would be able to totally obliterate them." This continues what she said last week concerning the same hypothetical situation would result in "massive retaliation," which she clarified last night by saying, "their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States."

Now, I agree that a nuclear-armed Iran is far from desirable, and I deplore Ahmadinajad's rhetoric about Israel. Still, if Iran were to have that technology and were to use it against Israel, Israel would be both capable and willing to respond itself. Iran knows this, so it's unlikely that they would attack Israel. At any rate, there's no need for a US guarantee of any sort. Even if we had to retaliate, do we want to speak so easily about "totally obliterating" a large country?

Iran has a population of 65,875,223. Almost a quarter of that is fourteen years old and under. "Totally obliterate." Makes me feel sort of sick.

Pennsylvania, are you listening?

In related news, an indignant response condemning 9/11 conspiracy theories: Al-Qaeda tells Iran to knock it off.

St. Akepsimas, pray for us.


Coming soon: tattoo update.

st anselm and six words

Today is the feast of St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), who was both a great churchman and a great theologian. I am particularly fond of his ontological argument for the existence of God. He also put forward his form of atonement theology, and although I know it hasn't been that popular in this corner of the blogosphere, and though I don't accept it fully, I still think it's brilliant intellectually and, taken in its context, should still give us food for thought.

William tagged me for the six-word meme, and I promise -- I have thought about it a little bit. Of course, the joke is that my life in six words is "dissertation, teaching, dissertation, teaching, dissertation, teaching." Apart from that, I don't know. My life has been somewhat crazy, and now the things that fill it up -- my wife and stepson, my scholarly career, my newfound devotion to God, my friends -- seem to spill out at the seams of a six-word sentence. That's not even taking into account things I have parked on the side right now, like poetry. The sad truth is that grad school leaves me very little time to reflect deeply on myself and what I am. That's okay -- I'm going through a kind of boot camp and it's almost over. But right now, my life is "dissertation, teaching, dissertation, teaching, dissertation, teaching," with an occasional break for other valuable things. I will return to this question in about a year and a half.


Coming soon: tattoo update.

our parish in the times

The Church of the Ascension.

We still need to cast "W." (See below). But meanwhile, there' a good article in the New York Times about our parish, where Imperatrix pulcherrima Africae occidentalis and Filius eiusdem were baptized, and where the former and I were wed. Check it out.

oliver stone is loose again

No idea where this picture is from.

Kevin has been following the casting for Olivers Stone's biopic about George W. Bush, "W." Kevin dixit:

Dubya gets his damsel: Elizabeth Banks will play Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's forthcoming W, with Josh Brolin in the title role. W starts shooting next month in Shreveport. As a admirer of Stone's Nixon, I for one am looking forward to the finished product.

Update: Here comes 41. Stone casts James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn as George H.W. and Barbara Bush respectively.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Stone's work, but I then again haven't seen much of it. I remember liking Salvador, and I thought The Doors was a great musical comedy (though I don't think that was the director's intention). I saw about two minutes of Natural Born Killers, and that was enough to give me the idea that it was a monumentally self-indulgent and sensationalist piece of garbage. So I don't know if I'll see W., but I am intrigued by Kevin's observation that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove have yet to be cast. The possibilities dizzy me. I want my readers to offer some nominations of actors for each of these parts, and then we'll have a poll. Any ideas?

too busy

I'm too busy to blog -- but here's a picture from my last trip to Spain. It's the seventeenth-century church of San Gines in Madrid.

in memoriam

Hillary Clinton is both...

Satan and Beelzebub, from Gustave Dore's "Paradise Lost," 1870.

As I have argued below, the accusations against Obama for a few statements by his pastor are troubling in their implications. Obama himself, in an historic speech, addressed these accusations and explained their context in a subtle and insightful way. He turned a moment of political necessity into an opportunity to bring difficult questions about race into a sane and tolerant dialogue. Of course, we know that some people would refuse to join this dialogue and instead continue to exploit a bad interpretation of the situation for demagogic ends. Bill O'Reilly, yes, Pat Buchanan, yes, but also:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was "hate speech."

UPDATE: Apparently several people from the Clinton campaign are making similar comments, even going as far as comparing Wright to David Duke. This is foul. In my opinion, it's much worse than the Geraldine Ferraro comments.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I've been sick as a dog, so I haven't been able to respond to everyone's comments on the last post -- I hope I will have a chance soon. In the meantime, a blessed Easter to everyone.

Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum exsultent divina mysteria et pro tanti Regis victoria, tuba insonet salutaris.

race and America, part one

There has been a bit of dust raised in the media and the blogosphere concerning the leader of Barack Obama's church in Chicago, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Tapes of his sermons have been combed for polemical soundbites, and polemical soundbites have been found. Rev. Wright's patriotism and opinions on race have been questioned. Some of Obama's supports in blogspace have been concerned, and his opponents have leaped on Rev. Wright as the silver bullet against Obama's seemingly unstoppable rise.

Of course, if we want to know how Obama feels about race and his country, we can consult the two books and a number of speeches he has written. So is there a need to investigate his preacher? He has been clear about how he feels concerning Wright's declarations. Still, I think the interpretations of Wright's statements (which were cherry-picked from forty years of preaching) can be revealing.

One of the claims is that Rev. Wright is unpatriotic and anti-American. I personally am careful before I call an ex-Marine unpatriotic, for more than one reason, but here's the headline from the ABC News webpage story on Wright: "Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11." Well, that sounds pretty bad. Let's take a look at the first part, as reported by ABC, in context:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

This is passionate rhetoric, and it seems to be in the tradition of Old Testament prophets who denounced Israel when it was unfaithful. To me, it questions how frivolous and empty statements such as "God bless America" can be when not followed by a desire to create a more just society. It also follows a tradition of African-American thought that addresses the marginality of the black experience and the awareness that experience creates, the awareness that America is an unfinished project that needs a critical self-examination in order to fulfill its promise of liberty and justice for all. From Kevin, a similar passage from Frederick Douglass:

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn...your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

Wright has also been criticized for seeing the attack of September 11th as a result of U.S. policies from Hiroshima to Palestine. The biggest problem I have with this is the timing -- only a few days after the attack. At the same time, I remember how after 9/11 any discussion of the motivations of hijackers that was more reflexive than "they are evil" or the vacuous "they hate our freedom" was greeted with tremendous scorn, as if even trying to understand what had happened would be to question the obvious evilness of the act. Once again, what is patriotism, flag-waving or a search to improve the country?

Another common refrain about Rev. Wright is that he is "hateful" and "racist." (While I was writing this post, I happened to see a "talk radio debate" on CSPAN. Some right-wing talk radio guy used both these words, and when Al Sharpton asked him to explain what Wright had said that was racist, the right-wing guy could only quote the two statements above, confusing the context of each one, neither of which had much to do with "hating white people." Sharpton called him on it and his only answer was to shout incoherently. Nice.) I've seen this over and over again in blogland, from Republicans and some Democrats (mainly Clinton supporters).

Not everyone has been clear about why Rev. Wright is supposedly racist, though some have pointed to the mission statement of his church:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

The arguments goes, "well, if you substitute 'White' and 'Europe' for 'Black' and 'African,' the church would rightly be condemned as white supremacist and racist. Doesn't that make the church racist against whites?"

This is an important point, because it reveals the way many, if not most, white people think of racism. It is for them a simple matter of individual perception. They might say, "Racism happens only when a specific person rejects another because of his or her race. As a society, we overcome racism by changing attitudes one person at a time. Now, of course, there is much less racism in American society because we all grew up watching the Cosby show and we love Tiger Woods and Will Smith and we all listen to hip hop now." From this point of view, it's easy to think that diversity problems like Affirmative Action are unfair, because they aren't "colorblind," and that a lot of blacks complain too much about race relations in the U.S.

African-Americans, for the most part, do not complain too much. They talk about their own experiences. White people do not have to think about their racial identity if they choose not to, because it is the norm in our society. A black person, however, has to deal with race being the first part of their identity that is processed by their fellow citizens in any given public situation. He or she is defined as "a black person" before any other aspect of his or herself can create an impression. Race is extremely pervasive in American society, and even if it lies on a subconscious level for most whites, it is painfully obvious to most blacks.

A black person thinking about black identity is then essentially different that a white person thinking about white identity, because in our culture the latter is the norm and the former is "the other." All minorities have to deal with this, but the African-American case is unique because of the legacy of slavery. Slavery and its consequences not only created the context for a particularly noxious form of racism, but it also created an underclass with a problematic sense of identity. Ripped long ago from a different culture and then living first not as citizens, and then as second-class citizens, African-Americans have learned what they are not (white) before they have learned what they are. Searching for a positive sense of black identity is still an urgent task, and that's why talking about "black identity" and "white identity" is talking about two completely different things. As Rev. Wright himself said:

The African-centered point of view does not assume superiority, nor does it assume separatism. It assumes Africans speaking for themselves as subjects in history, not objects in history.

As I understand it, Rev. Wright's black liberation theology developed from the same roots as Catholic liberation theology in Latin America. The basic idea behind it is that an oppressed group, whether black Americans or the Latin American poor, are given a religion by their oppressor, and recognizes themselves to be especially positioned to appreciate the message in that same religion. Who did Jesus preach to, if not the poor and marginalized? What do the prophets of the Old Testament rail against, if not the powerful crushing the humble? Reflecting on the implication of this identification with the oppressed of the Bible means a frank look at oppression, the oppressed, and the oppressor. That's the context of this particular sermon of Rev. Wright's:

...who cares about what a poor, black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by rich, white people. Somebody missed that. You got nervous, because we’ve got some white members here. I’m still in Bible country. I’m still in the text. Jesus was a poor, black man who lived in a country, and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich, white people. The Romans were rich, the Romans were Italians, which means they were European, which means they were white, and the Romans ran everything in Jesus’ country.

The identification of the Romans as "European" and "white" in this quote is a bit heavy-handed, but once again, from the African-American point of view, the question of race in structures of oppression is inescapable. This is not a question of biological determination, it is a question of the reality of the cultural construction known as race in the United States. It is a question of the reality of prison population, income, and infant death in this country, the statistics of which break radically along racial lines. That is how Jesus is black and the Romans are white, in the sense of the structures of our society.

Even if my analysis is not correct, how does this affect Obama? What do people mean when they fault him for attending this church? The common complaint is, "If I went to a church and the minister was spewing out this kind of hateful speech, I would leave. But he stayed there for twenty years." Of course, this is assuming that these few quotes are typical of Rev. Wright's preaching and that his preaching really is "hateful." Still, what are they trying to say? What's the implication for them of Obama going to this church?

Since what Obama has said and written is less polemical that these comments from Rev. Wright, less concerned with Black identity and more concerned with American unity, are we to assume that everything he's said has been a lie, that it has been a mask for some kind of crypto-Black Nationalism? Is it that easy to make Barack Obama a black supremacist?

Only if you really want to. I sense in all these blog posts and comments and radio rantings an immense relief now that the Wright sermons are making their entrance onto the scene. There's a ring of "I knew it!" Obama used to be the Islamic Manchurian candidate, now he's the Black Panther Manchurian candidate. If he associates with a "racist," then suddenly we're on an even playing ground. White people can now feel that Obama resents them because of their whiteness and thus he has become the "other," the angry black man, the threatening black man.

Of course, any African-American could tell you that our culture sets us up for this and creates the threatening black man in our consciousness without us even knowing it. Orlando Patterson has been criticized for an Op-ed in the Times in which he decries Hillary Clinton's "3:00 am" ad as having a racial subtext suggesting that the threatening black man will go after the sleeping blond children. Well, in my household, my initial response was "this is Bush-like fear-mongering," but that of my lovely wife, Imperatrix pulcherrima Africae occidentalis, was "this is the trope of the threatening black man." Was that really a conscious effort on the part of the Clinton campaign? It's hard to say, but the majority of us in this country are ill-prepared to see how pervasive racism is. Those that understand that are those that experience it, and perhaps things would be better if we'd listen to them with a kinder ear.

UPDATE: Apparently, Obama will give a speech on race in the campaign tomorrow. If you want see an example of people who are bursting with glee because they feel they can call Obama a racist, and if you have a very strong stomach, read the comments on the post I just linked to.

happy St. Patrick's day?

Liturgically, at least in New York, today is St Patrick's Day. Because of the extremely early date of Easter this year (this what comes from not listening to the Irish at the Synod of Whitby, I'd say), March 17 falls on the Monday of Holy Week. Feast days can't be celebrated during Holy Week, and Patrick is the patron of the Archdiocese of New York, so it was celebrated today. The Mass, that is. The parade is on Monday.

So Happy Liturgical St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

In case anyone's interested, I found an interesting post on TPM that I think clearly addresses the question of Obama's qualifications and really explains well the problem with Geraldine Ferraro's comments.

Also, I need a new laptop. Any advice? I'm looking at Dell.

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity

Saints Perpetua and Felicity.

Today I have promised myself that I will finish my section on the charter commemorating the translation of St. Isidore to the Leonese church that would later be named after him in 1063. I will, or I will die trying. Still, it is the feast day of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, and if you haven't read the acts of their martyrdom in 203, you should. Much of it was written by Perpetua herself, and it comes from a time when some people (especially women) had a role as visionaries in the Church:

Then said my brother to me: Lady my sister, you are now in high honor, even such that you might ask for a vision; and it should be shown you whether this be a passion or else a deliverance. And I, as knowing that I conversed with the Lord, for Whose sake I had suffered such things, did promise him nothing doubting; and I said: Tomorrow I will tell you. And I asked, and this was shown me.

I beheld a ladder of bronze, marvelously great, reaching up to heaven; and it was narrow, so that not more than one might go up at one time. And in the sides of the ladder were planted all manner of things of iron. There were swords there, spears, hooks, and knives; so that if any that went up took not good heed or looked not upward, he would be torn and his flesh cling to the iron. And there was right at the ladder's foot a serpent lying, marvelously great, which lay in wait for those that would go up, and frightened them that they might not go up. Now Saturus went up first (who afterwards had of his own free will given up himself for our -sakes, because it was he who had edified us; and when we were taken he had not been there). And he came to the ladder's head; and he turned and said: Perpetua, I await you; but see that serpent bite you not. And I said: it shall not hurt me, in the name of Jesus Christ. And from beneath the ladder, as though it feared me, it softly put forth its head; and as though I trod on the first step I trod on its head. And I went up, and I saw a very great space of garden, and in the midst a man sitting, white-headed, in shepherd's clothing, tall milking his sheep; and standing around in white were many thousands. And he raised his head and beheld me and said to me: Welcome, child. And he cried to me, and from the curd he had from the milk he gave me as it were a morsel; and I took it with joined hands and ate it up; and all that stood around said, Amen. And at the sound of that word I awoke, yet eating I know not what of sweet.

And at once I told my brother, and we knew it should be a passion; and we began to have no hope any longer in this world.

Cool!

Perpetua, Felicity, et al., from the Communion of the Saints tapestry in the Cathedral of Los Angeles.

my wacky homestate

Medieval Utah: Freemont Indian petroglyph.

The fun times never stop in Utah. What's the newest business motivational technique in Provo? Waterboarding! (Thanks, Kevin). And where does that guy who was making Ricin live? Riverton!

At least the Utah Jazz have beaten the Dallas Mavericks even though their German ran over our Russian like it was 1940 or something.


Andrei Kirilenko, a.k.a "AK-47."

Hillary Clinton is

The devil, from the 13th-century Codex Gigas.

Okay, I have had enough of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Today she called a press conference, and almost shaking with rage, denounced mailers from the Obama campaign:

"Enough with the speeches and the big rallies, and then using tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook," she said, alluding to President Bush's former chief political advisor. "This is wrong, and every Democrat should be outraged."

Not as if her campaign hadn't sent out misleading mailers itself. The list of "tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook" used by the Clinton campaign is very long. I've mentioned some of them before, but Kevin provides an extensive catalog of them. This move, like the absurd plagiarism accusation, reeks of desperation. I think she's just hoping that the splash made by the conference will bounce around the media echo-chamber just enough to tarnish Obama before the next primaries. Going negative has not worked for her before, and I hope it backfires this time. The hypocrisy of the Clinton campaign is breathtaking.

brief comment on Islam

The Death of Musa, 14th-century Iranian manuscript.

I'm very busy, as usual, but I wanted to bring everyone's attention to a good Speaking of Faith program called "Reflections of a British Muslim Extremist." It's an interview with Ed Husain, who, as the program notes state,

was seduced, at the age of 16, by revolutionary Islamist ideals that flourished at the heart of educated British culture. Yet he later shrank back from radicalism after coming close to a murder and watching people he loved become suicide bombers. He dug deeper into Islamic spirituality, and now offers a fresh and daring perspective on the way forward.

Husain's insights are very instructive. One of the points he made touched on something that I have been thinking about for awhile, which is the huge resource for change that is American Islam:

Ms. Tippett: Tell me what you discovered that really did change your life at this later point, as an adult, what you discovered in Islam.

Mr. Husain: Much of this goes back, I must say, to American Muslim influences in that you've got fascinating scholars such as Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson from California who I was exposed to here in Britain in the late 1990s. In him and in others, I saw Muslims who were Westerners, who were American, who were English-speaking, who were intelligent and deeply erudite and connected to a sense of prophetic Islam, connecting themselves right back to the prophet Mohammed. And they embodied that persona of compassion, of justice, of love, of humanity, and it was really getting more and more sort of involved and close to people like Imam Hanson and others here in Britain that helped me intellectually come to terms with Islam, away from Islamism, the political ideology, and more importantly, discover a spiritual tradition that sits comfortably with other spiritual traditions and looking at human beings as just that, as fellow human beings, and it's not our duty to judge others and ultimately it's them and their relationship with God. It's having that inner sense of relationship with God that manifests in your actions on the outside that I personally found worked for me. I'm not suggesting this is a panacea for everyone, but it's something that worked for me, and it very much set at home with my parents and my family and friends.

Ms. Tippett: I wonder if you have a sense of why the North American Muslim experience is so different from the experience you had as a British Muslim?

Mr. Husain: My impression is that it's the fact that you have a very strong national identity that people who, as you say, fresh off the boat can come and sign up to something in America.

Ms. Tippett: And the fact that identity is more porous somehow?

Mr. Husain: Yeah, it's there. It's palpable. The American Muslims are deeply patriotic and deeply proud of being American and being Muslim. Here, we don't have that. You'd be hard pressed to find Muslims in the north of England saying that they're British Muslims. It just doesn't happen.

Ms. Tippett: So there's a different kind of foundation that new generations of North American Muslims are building on, um-hum.

Mr. Husain: Well, exactly, yes, and you see that. I mean, take, for example, the large conferences you have in America among American Muslims. I think one of the motions that was passed was that the Jewish synagogues in America were twin with Muslim mosques. Phenomenal.

Ms. Tippett: Right. The Islamic Society of North America.

Mr. Husain: Yes, exactly. ISNA conference. That's a fascinating example from which not just Europeans, but also Arab Muslims can learn in terms of maintaining positive ties between different faiths. Try suggesting something like that to the British Muslim Council here. Almost impossible. Only after six years of kicking and screaming have they decided to attend Holocaust Memorial Day. I mean, that's what we're up against. It's a good marrying up of English anti-Semitism, which is very much hush-hush, which is still out there, and then that's married up with that being very vocal from among certain sections of the Muslim community.

The creativity that a number of American Muslim have shown in reconciling an authentic approach to their religion with their American and Western identity could be a huge force for smoothing out the confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. Unfortunately, there seem to be too many people in the US that enjoy having a clearly-defined enemy so much that they refuse to let go of their misinformed prejudices. So a religion of one billion people with 1,500 years of history, two major divisions and countless numbers of schools is distilled into one simplistic formula that, to its detractors, is corrupt and violent by nature. Uninformed bigots
never tire of informing us about the danger of Islam. American Islamic groups such as CAIR are regularly demonized. Here at Columbia, the McCarthyite troglodyte David Horowitz held an event called "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week" (imagine an event critical of the Israeli right wing called "Judeo-Fascist Awareness Week"? How well would that fly? Or an event aimed to raise awareness of how many Christians are fascist, except, of course, "the good ones"). Charlatans and lunatics command thousands of dollars in speaking fees and appear on CNN and (of course) FOX as "terrorism experts."

Of course, I don't underestimate the danger of Islamist terrorism nor do I consider that cultural differences between Muslim countries and the West are easily bridged. Still, when it is time to decide what Islam is, perhaps we should listen to the Muslims. Not Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the ones who aren't shouting so much, people like Ed Husain. The bigots will say that he doesn't represent real Islam, which is presumptuous --of course, non-Catholics have told me I'm not a good Catholic because I don't agree 100% with the pope on every issue. Putting one billion people in the same basket seems both foolish and dangerous to me.

radio sententia -- gran ganga

A bit of the eighties in Madrid. From Pedro Almodovar's Labyrinth of Passions:



"Calamares por aqui, boquerones por alla... Aaaaaaaaahhh..."

my uncle Gary weighs in...

... on the Bush legacy:

international support: it's not just Kenya

Medieval Japanese nuns.












But what do the people in Obama, Japan think?





The girls from Obama today.

Krugman's out of control

Alfonso II of Asturias, who has nothing to do with this post.

William has written about how much Paul Krugman has been attacking Obama for Clinton's benefit, but today he has gone off the deep end. He begins by stoking old Democratic feelings by appealing to the classic hero and the classic villain:

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”

He goes on to say how he worries about division turning the Democratic party into "Nixonland." Of course, it's true that we've seen the race card pulled, threats of terrorism to inspire fear, and a desire to change the rules halfway through the race in Michigan, Florida, and Nevada, and all of this behavior is perfectly Nixonian. Still, who does Krugman see as the culprit?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

I respect Krugman, but he must be smoking too much dope at this point. I think any one example of the Clinton's race-baiting can be explained away as misinterpreted (and of course he only refers to one), but you really have to have some blinders on not to see the whole set as calculated. The same thing goes for every low road the Clinton campaign has taken to counter Obama's success. To turn around and use the adjective "Nixonian" to describe Obama supporters is a twisting of reality that approaches doublespeak. I also think both Hillary and Obama have personalities and stories that raise a great deal of passion, much more than our last couple of Democratic nominees (Gore has developed a personality now that was not evident in 2000). Supporters of both candidates are truly inspired by them, and that's not a bad thing. By referring to a "cult of personality" and then bringing up "Operation Flight Suit," Krugman not only explicitly compares Obama to George Bush (!), but to Josef Stalin (!!!!). Paul Krugman is dangerously approaching an Ann Coulter style of "journalism," and that's way beneath him.

UPDATE: Almost immediately after I posted this, I checked sitemeter and saw that someone at Princeton had came by, connected to the site from a search on "Paul Krugman -- NY Times." I don't know if it was one of Prof. Krugman's students or the man himself, and as I said I do respect Krugman a great deal. I even share with him some of his reservations about Obama's health plan. Still, I think he did stoop low with this column. I checked out some of the other links on the search page, and it's interesting how emotional this is getting for supporters of both candidates. It makes me wonder what Krugman meant by "supporters of Obama" in his column. Most of the problems I have with statements supporting Hillary Clinton against Obama come from Hillary herself, her husband, from people in her campaign, or from people close enough to the Clinton campaign that it's hard to imagine their talking points were not vetted (I'm thinking about remarks made by Andrew Cuomo or Bob Kerrey, or the op-ed in the Times by Gloria Steinem). As far as other comments go, like the crazed rant against Ted Kennedy by Marcia Pappas of NY-NOW, who knows? I'm not sure it's fair to blame the Clinton campaign for those. I would like to know what supporters Krugman is talking about.

On my run through blogs concerning this column, it was interesting to see that there were people excoriating Krugman and others praising him. A comparison to Frank Rich's Sunday column came up a couple of times, which was either denounced as trash by pro-Hillary bloggers or held up as the good to Krugman's bad by Obamamites (I personally tend towards the latter opinion). One thing that surprised me was one pro-Hillary blogger who talked about how Obama's race-baiting was despicably low. Look -- the LBJ/MLK comment could have been misunderstood (though it was horribly insensitive to civil rights activists, black and white, who literally put their lives on the line during the Civil Rights movement, something that Krugman just does not get), and Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment may have been taken out of context (though once again, there is an insensitivity issue here), but there were just too many racial references coming out of the Clinton camp for it to be random. They introduced race into the campaign to brand Obama as the candidate for (and only for) the African-American population. That is wrong, and as one Clinton surrogate might put it, they can't "shuck and jive" their way out of it.

DOUBLE UPDATE:
This column by Jason Linkins makes a couple of good points about Krugman's column: 1) he does not substantiate his claims in anyway, and 2) although it is true that some of the press has taken some nasty pot shots at Hillary Clinton, Obama's campaign has nothing to do with that. A side note: Linkins talks about how his wife has a problem with the chants of "Yes, we can." My wife, Imperatrix pulcherrima Africae occidentalis (who is a fervent Obama supporter) couldn't help pointing out that the crowds at Obama's speeches chanting "we want change" sounded a bit too much like "Imhotep... Imhotep... Imhotep..."

(Although to tell the truth, just watching Obama's speeches on TV, I find the energy of the crowds almost as exciting as his speeches -- the energy of the "we" that Obama always talks about, as opposed to the "I" that Hillary tends to use).

friday varia

Psalter Mappamundi, 1225.

Lent: ChurchYear.net has a reading plan, with texts, of Church Fathers for Lent. There's a longer version and a shorter version.

Sports: The Mets have signed Johan Santana. The Utah Jazz beat their division rival Denver in overtime, and have now won ten in a row. Hope springs eternal.

Politics: John McCain appears to have the GOP nomination in his pocket. He is not an ideal candidate. A Time poll show him losing to Obama, but by a thin margin, and tied with Hillary. I still think Obama is the stronger candidate against McCain, but it's very early to see how the general election will play out. Conservatives have a huge problem with him even though he has been sucking up to him. Many of them are so intransigent that they may not vote for him, even against Hillary. Democrats should remind the independents who apparently still see him as a "maverick" that he has flip-flopped tremendously in order to get his party's nomination. They should ask him which John McCain he is: the liberal (!) that the right sees, or the man who is trying to appeal to people so ideologically blinded that they cheer when Bush tells them, now that the country is slipping into recession and mired down in two badly-managed wars, that they must vote Republican because "Prosperity and peace are in the balance."

Wise Guys: For those nostalgic for the Sopranos, read about the huge Cosa Nostra bust in New York and Sicily. The best part? The nicknames:

They included the Gambino family’s acting boss, John D’Amico, 73, who is known as Jackie the Nose, and underboss, Domenico Cefalu, 61, who is known as Greaseball, and the consigliere, Joseph Corozzo, who is known as JoJo, the officials said.

This is the internet age , so you can get your own Mafia nickname. Mine is "The Blossom."

Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words:














Bada bing, indeed.

S & C endorses: Barack Obama

Okay, I know everyone has been waiting for this. John Edwards and Bill Richardson have been calling me, saying they're waiting for S & C to make an endorsement before they make theirs. So here goes...

Please, please vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday if you have a primary in your state.

I had been torn between Obama and Edwards. Obama's policies do not always go far enough in the progressive direction for me. I prefer both the Edwards and the Clinton health care plans to Obama's. I am concerned that Obama might be too conciliatory to stand up to Republicans who are too accustomed to having their. Edwards is out now, though, and the choice for Democrats is down to two.

Hillary Clinton is intelligent, knowledgeable, and determined. She would make a better president than any of the candidates from the GOP. Many of those who oppose her do for the wrong reasons. Still, the way she has run her campaign has shown a disturbing lack of integrity. The use of surrogates to inject questions of race into the campaign, her attempts to change the rules halfway through the game, and the continuing misrepresentation of Obama's views and statements are far too close to the kind of politics employed by Karl Rove.

There are other issues that are important -- Hillary's connections to big business, her support of the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, and her inability to explain her vote on authorizing the Iraq war to name a few. Even putting these aside, Hillary has serious electability problems, especially against John McCain. Frank Rich has pointed out the dangerous shadow of Bill Clinton over Hillary, which seems even worse now that the Borat affair has been revealed. Hillary Clinton could also mobilize right wing voters who otherwise would be too demoralized to leave home on election day.

If John McCain wins the Republican nomination, which seems likely at this point, his aura of "integrity" will stand in sharp contrast to Hillary. I don't think that's fair, especially since I think McCain has sold his soul to advance his candidacy in the GOP, pandering to groups on the far right that are dangerous and that he previously denounced. Still, the press will continue to portray him as the "maverick," and it will convince a lot of independent voters. McCain would be a disaster as president. This is a man who has promised more wars, claimed that a hundred-year occupation of Iraq is acceptable to him, and tastelessly joked about bombing Iran. At a time of recession, he admits not understanding economics. McCain's approach to stimulating the economy is similar to George Bush's -- tax cuts. If he is more interested in reducing the deficit than Bush, as he claims, and he's paying for all of his wars, the only alternative is brutal spending cuts on social programs, infrastructure, and education, further widening the gap between the rich and the rest of us in this country.

So, back to Obama. The important question that is raised by his candidacy is that of substance. It's all very good to talk about change and hope, but don't we need more than talk? Yes, of course, and Obama has his policy ideas which are on his website -- some, not all, don't go far enough for me (e.g., his ideas on Iraq and his health care proposal). Like many other people, however, it's the intangible excitement around his campaign that gets my attention. Is that shallow? I don't know. I do believe, however, that Obama was right in the New Hampshire debate when he said, "words do inspire." Words and expressions like "if you're not with us, you're against us," "axis of evil," and "terrorist" have been very powerful over the past seven years. I think one of Hillary's low points was when, Giuliani-style, she invoked the threat of a terrorist attack to support her candidacy. I am tired of politics of fear and divisiveness, and for all my doubts, Obama can electrify me. He won't solve all the country's problems, but it's time for a change of style. If you have a few minutes, watch his victory speech in South Carolina:



Not bad, huh?

By the way, thanks to Kevin for many of the links. I highly recommend his blog, Ghost in the Machine, for those following this election.

Vote Obama on Tuesday, please.