Obama: Will He, Can He, Be the One We Thought We Elected?

 I don't write about politics much anymore, but this nation is at a cusp in its direction and we ought to think about and discuss something that can determine the direction of the nation for the next decade.

Try as one might, it is not possible even for a President to be all things to all people. Nor is it possible to be the President of all of the people, if one insists that “all the people” includes giving to the rich, the spoiled, the pathological, the amoral and the immoral what they believe they deserve.

But President Obama is trying to do precisely that. And in the process, the nation, which lost its moral compass under the Bush Administration and has since been wandering in the wilderness, is in the process of reclaiming the dubious title of the “United States of ME,” forgetting that America is about “WE the people,” not “ME the greedy.”

But the President seems to have forgotten this. Rather, he is content to be the one who tries hard not to offend, or to be offended, regardless that he should find some things disgustingly offensive and should be mightily offended by others. He seems more content to be the professor who calmly discusses the subtle nuances of the many shades of gray as a black cloud descends over his Presidency.

Yes, this is the same man who showed us one side of himself during the campaign, the side of the progressive, center-left liberal who championed the rights of the poor, the disenfranchised, the working folk, and, yes, the middle class who, we were constantly told, were the 97% plus of us who made less than a quarter of a million dollars a year.

This is the man those of us who cared about America as a nation of all the people could get behind; a man who offered a clear alternative to everything Bush and his tools stood for. [With the shameful exception of continuing the war in Afghanistan.]

And what was his first act of consequence? To pass a Stimulus Act skewed almost entirely to bailing out Wall Street, a bill that offered but a trickle of funds to those who needed it most, the working people of America. Rather than complain about bailing out institution after institution that was “too big to fail” the Administration threw itself at the feet of the rich and invited them to take what they needed, after first inviting the financial foxes to run the chicken coop.

Then he said nothing in response to Republican complaint about bailing out the auto industry, an industry where real people were employed and where the government exposed a few tens of billions, a subsidy which is working and will be paid back, kept people employed, saved an industry that actually adds jobs and value to the GDP, rather than a Wall Street house of cards that adds phantom value through the trading of paper and the goosing up the “value” of worthless derivatives.

But he was not done. While urging passage of the most comprehensive overhaul of health care in the history of the nation he turned around and did not fight for a public option and did not insist on coverage of the now 45 million uninsured, settling for 36 million and then offering them only “high risk” pools run by, of course, the very insurance companies that ran our health care into the ground in the first place. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Now we are down to a basic political issue: will the Presidentt quit thinking about whether he personally can win in 2012 and start now calling out the Republicans for their obstructionism, their incessant “just say no to everything” campaign? Or will he be left with a Congress that cannot actually get anything done in the remaining two years of his first term? Will he, convinced that he can compromise with Republicans, in spite of the clear and unequivocal fact of perpetual Republican negativism, try to reason with the unreasonable for the next two or six years?

In the next couple of weeks he will have a chance to prove which Obama we will see: the moral leader of the nation, or the weak, deal cutter who negotiates from timidity.
The tax cuts expire soon. A Democratic bill has been introduced in each house to extend them to all but the top 2-3% of earners in this country, those making over $250,000 a year. That windfall to the rich would be allowed to expire and the income from their paying a few percentage points more taxes could be used to fund the programs that we desperately need: including feeding the poor and helping the states avoid going bankrupt.

The Republicans already have told us that they will vote against any extension that does not include all of the original tax cuts, including those to the rich. They will argue, using the usual smoke and mirrors, that the economy demands that we treat everyone “equally.”

The counter argument is simple: The top 3% don’t need the tax break. The lower 97% does. The top 3% will hardly feel the increase. Large numbers of the bottom 20% are literally starving, and/or out of work, without health care, without hope, and hurting beyond comprehension.

There is only, literally, one man in American who can effectively and convincingly make the only  argument that is ethically correct, sway the voting public, and expose the Republicans in Congress for the morally corrupt puppets of big business that they are. That man is the one who ran for President two years ago. The one we have watched in the White House these past 18 months cannot and will not take aggressive action.

Time is surely running out, not just on this Congress, and not particularly on this President. But it is running out on the chance for this country to honor its moral obligations to its people. Who really wants even two more years of what we have now? Its time for our President to remember where he came from, who put him in office and why.

This country is hurling toward yet another decade of moral bankruptcy. We have lost our way. Have we forgotten all that America means? Have we forgotten what “and justice for all” means?

Which President will emerge now?

Monte 

Remembering JFK: It Only Takes One: Inviting Violence

NOVEMBER 23, 2009 4:11PM

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

I wanted to post this yesterday, but was unable to do so. This is a repost of my first OS post, October 21, 2008. Almost nobody read it.

But the fear that I experienced as a very young man working in the Executive Office of the President on that November 22, 1963, the fear I felt for the then candidate and now President Obama last October is only intensified as the loonies are on the loose and few are calling them out on their vile propaganda.

People are legally carrying assult rifles to Presidential rallies, promoting and making thinly veiled death threats; and not subtle metaphors for the death of this President are the norm in the ranks of the fringe right. We are not, as a nation, safer than a year ago. And the President is not safer either.

What follows is a true account of one young, naive and grief stricken person's experience on the day President Kennedy was killed.

---

OCTOBER 21, 2008 10:12PM

I moved to Washington DC in July, 1963. A bright eyed and anxious 23 year old, I was nearly overcome by my good fortune to be invited to work in the Executive Office of the President, Bureau of the Budget.

I was the low guy on the totem pole and often got the duty of covering the phones when others went out to eat, or to work at the agencies we reviewed for budget and legislative consistency with the President's goals.

One day in late November I was half listening to some elevator music playing on the radio when an announcement interrupted to say, "The President has been shot!" I was of course stunned, and decided that I had to tell someone so I ran down to the Division Director's Office. He wasn't there, so I ran down the long hall in the Old Executive Office Building, up the stairs and barged into the Office of the Director of the Budget Bureau.

There was a meeting going on in the conference room and I, out of breath and likely hyperventilating, shouted, "The President has been shot!"

Two of the White House political staff were there as was the Budget Director, the Deputy and several Division Directors. The Deputy Director, Elmer Staats, who knew me, looked at me with disgust and said, "Monte, that is not funny. How could you even think to say something like that?"

While that was going on, someone turned on a TV that was in the room and the fact was confirmed. About the same time the two White House staffers were calling across the alley to the West Wing to confirm.

There are certain times when the world turns inside out; times when we will remember where we were and what we were doing when a major event happens. For much younger people than me, and most are, a day that is sealed in their memories, and mine, is September 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, by the time the '60s were over those of us who lived through those years would add the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the June 5, 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Those years were years of great political division in this nation, and until now, we have seen nothing like the kind of bitter, hateful rant that fueled the hatred then, and fanned the flames of intolerance.

We would all like to think that we have, as a nation, gotten past all of that. And, had we not been witnessing the fanning of the flames, the desperate acts of spinning a great lie about Barack Obama; a lie about his "otherness," "Un-American," "Socialist," and, today, "Communist" leanings.

These purveyors of hate continue to foment the unrest and play to the prejudices of race and class warfare. The litany of false descriptors piles up, lie upon lie: "Palling around with Terrorists," "Terrorist," and "Traitor."

Mainstream media, even the so-called liberal left media, allow such words to go unchallenged saying such things as, "Well. Its all that McCain has left to do." As if that makes it OK to scream "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

We have succumbed to something we would tell ourselves to our dying day that we do not believe: "that the end justifies the means." In a stupefying attempt to be "fair" we have turned our heads and allowed the intolerant rants of hate to be "tolerated."

If I had not lived through the short few years when three leaders of my hope for our nation were destroyed, when I, and the rest of the nation, had to grow up and realize that there is evil in this world, perhaps I would not feel so uneasy, and could just let it go as "Well, its just the politics of desperation."

Unfortunately, it only takes one nut, one crazy who is sent over the edge by the talk of terrorists, traitors, socialists, communists and the questioning of patriotism, to destroy the best hopes of us all.

It only takes one.

Obama and the Imperial Presidency: Detention without Rights

first published on MAY 23, 2009 12:06AM

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

Let me start this post by highly recommending two very good posts on the continuing issues surrounding the President's recent posturing on a number of related issues of torture, gitmo, detention without trial, release of information and pictures of torture in the Bush days, offering protective cover for those who actually did torture, while calling it "enhanced interrogation techniques." This is all part of something that is painful to watch: the sacrifice of our nation's fundamental values for the sake of pragmatism and compromise, as well as for the unstated sake of accruing even more power to the Executive.

The first is by BBE:

Obama proposes Indefinite Preventive Detention without trial

http://open.salon.com/blog/behind_blue_eyes/2009/05/22/obama_proposes_indefinite_preventive_detention_without_trial

The second is an excellent post by Libertarius intended to put these actions in the context of the national ideals and the defense of them.

What Does it Mean to Defend America?

http://open.salon.com/blog/libertarius/2009/05/22/what_does_it_mean_to_defend_america

---

This is my fifth post on these issues. What follows is an expansion of a comment I made to Libertarius' post. I made the comment after reading his excellent post and BBEs post and all of the comments on it. I think I have a pretty good idea of how this issue is playing out here on Open Salon.

My intention with publishing these thoughts is to continue to broaden this conversation by hopefully adding new voices to it.

I think that this series of issues that we have watched develop over the last month have the potential to affect the kind of America that we will have in the coming years. What happens now can define what we actually believe, what our national values will be for the coming decades.

My problem is that we are a country of ideals, as Libertarius so clearly points out, including the fundamental ideal of the rule of law. We are either a nation of laws, or we are not.

What is deeply problematic for me is that I did several posts last fall about the likely disenchantment of the far left who assumed that Obama shared their positions. I argued that they would be disappointed in him because he was fundamentally a left center pragmatist.

What I did not foresee at all was that he would so thoroughly trash fundamental democratic principles in such areas as FISA, torture, unlawful detention, rendition, gitmo, trading Iraq for Afghanistan and closing out neither, and giving the Wall Street bailouts to the very people who caused the problem. The list is much longer than this, but for the purpose of this post these issues can serve to center the discussion.

Pragmatism is one thing when dealing with the possible in trying to get bills passed or compromising on specific issues to move something off of a stalemate. But pragmatism at the expense of our ideals and principles is not pragmatism, it is an unforgivable lack of a fundamental moral compass as to what it means to be a nation that holds certain ideals to be more sacred than enhancing the power of the one who happens to occupy the Presidency.

Let no one misunderstand me. I was and am a supporter of the President. I was a supporter of Obama from the time he announced his candidacy. I cannot remember a time that I was more proud of the nation and happy for a candidate to win than I was when Obama won the election. And I still support him on 90+% of the programs that he wants.

But his Presidency is starting to look like the Imperial Presidency writ large. On literally none of the policies that enhance the power of the Presidency over the other units in our system of checks and balances has Obama changed a thing.

Even on the issue of torture all he has said is that "my Administration will not use torture." Please keep in mind that was exactly what the Bush Administration said, and what Cheney is saying now about the Bush Administration.

President Obama's failure to uphold fundamental principles of justice and stand up for the basic ideals of this nation is potentially far more dangerous than the the actions of the bumbling fumbling dolt named George W. Bush.

Our current situation is more dangerous because Obama has a silver tongue and the things we talk about here on OS are either not being talked about by the general public, or if the public is even aware of these issues, they are going right over the head of the people who continue to support the President by overwhelming numbers in poll after poll.

For example these issues do not make the papers or even enter into the minds of the people here in rural America where I live, and I believe it likely that they are not on the minds of most of working and middle class Americans as well, urban as well as rural.

The ordinary folks who believe in Obama are worried about their jobs, their mortgages, their ability to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. They are not wondering whether our fundamental values are being eroded.

The President has managed to frame these issues in such a way that he always sounds reasonable, that he is moving the nation into a more legally tenable position, and that he is doing this to change the way things were done in the past eight years.

Very few in the general public are going to parse those words and realize how little he is really doing in the area of affording detainees the basic rights of a trial, having a willingness to investigate and prosecute if necessary those who approved and those who did torture in the past, or to even release photos of tortures that were perpetrated by our own military and civilian operatives.

From the President's perspective this is the pragmatic thing to do: cover the issues in silver words while giving up nothing in the way of power or future options. What is singularly amazing is that this is being done by a former professor of Constitutional Law.

And he knows, and expects, that we will likely allow all of this to be couched in terms of simple politics. What inevitably happens in situations like this is that issues of fundamental ethics and morality which lie at the heart of the nation's values get transformed into a simple political arguments, left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative.

That these issues rise above politics is not well understood. Even here on OS many are saying that we are being disloyal to Obama if we raise these issues. "Give him time" is argued as the right response to these issues. From a simple political point of view that is a reasonable point to make.

But I would argue that this is not simply an issue of "politics." When fundamental principles are on the line "time" is never the issue. Any time is the right time to call out those who would either trash or ignore those principles.

In a land founded on ideals of fundamental ethics and morality, a nation dedicated to preserving the very core values that define it, it is never right to wait until a "good time" to insist that those ideals be upheld, even if it is inconvenient, or embarrassing, or if it takes our eyes off of other things. In this nation built upon a core of fundamental values "time" cannot be the issue. Doing the right thing is the only issue that matters.

Monte

The Ethics of The President's Decision on Torture

First published on APRIL 19, 2009 1:54AM

I have been discussing the issue of the President's decision on how to handle torture which has taken place under the prior Administration with a good OS friend of mine. He has come to the conclusion that the President made the correct decision regarding his handling of the Justice Department and the CIA on the question of torture at secret out of country CIA prisons. He also thinks that the President's decision was morally defensible. I do not agree. And so we remain friends who agree to disagree. It would take a lot more than this to hurt our friendship.

We were discussing this on both political and religious levels. In the process of our discussion and my subsequent careful review of the excellent comments on my last post on this issue, I have clarified my own thinking.

I want to be clear that in spite of my passion about the conclusion I have come to, it is not obvious that it is the only "right" answer that men and women of good will can come to. In issues like this that involve situational ethics we have to recognize that some issues have more than one acceptable answer.

The argument against the Bush Administration is that they "said" what they were doing was not torture, but it was. Thus the people in Justice who approved the requests of the CIA to use certain extreme interrogation techniques which the CIA claimed were not torture, and any people above them in the White House who told the Justice Department the decision they wanted, would potentially face criminal prosecution should it be decided that what the CIA did was, in fact, torture. And those in CIA who proposed the use of torture and those who implemented it would likewise face criminal prosecution.

If it were torture, then members of both the Justice Department and the CIA, because they approved actions which were, in fact, torture, and were forbidden under international law to which the US is a party, and under domestic statutes which forbid torture, would be guilty of violating both US and international law. To the extent that the White House was involved in either advising the Justice Department, or ordering the Justice Department, on how they wished the Justice Department to rule, then those in the White House would also be in violation of the law.

However, without an investigation we will never know who, if anyone, in the White House was involved. There are a handful of people in the CIA and in Justice that we know were involved, but it is likely that there were people at higher levels in the CIA and possibly in the Bush Administration who were also involved. Only through investigation will we have any chance to know who was.

Clearly, those people in the CIA who outlined precisely what torture they wanted approval to use, but who claimed that these actions were not torture, would be in violation of the law. And, once they actually authorized the use of torture they would be equally in violation of the law, unless a claim of "just following orders" could be sustained. That seems unlikely to me since they were the ones who developed the extreme procedures in detail that they eventually used.

How far down into the CIA that illegal activity would extend would have to be investigated. At some point in the CIA hierarchy we might possibly come to a level in which the person literally could not say "no" without being fired and losing his career. Whether to prosecute those at the lowest level who actually used these techniques would present a difficult decision. They were literally "following orders."

There is no clear demarcation that would say, for example, where to draw the line as to whether members of the CIA who did the actual torturing should be held accountable or not. Perhaps another analogy can help clarify. In the case of the military there are times when you do hold even lower level soldiers accountable. To me it is clear that a soldier who lines up civilians and shoots them in cold blood and orders his men to do likewise, like Lt. Calley did in Viet Nam, needs to be prosecuted.

However, all of this is mute, or at least made much less effective, by the President's decision to say that members of the CIA would not be subject to prosecution. So none of this can even come up unless the President were to investigate, or to appoint a Commission or Special Prosecutor to investigate.

The decision the President has already made which says, "...those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice ... will not be subject to prosecution" takes much of the power of such an investigation out of the hands of the investigators. It makes investigation of the CIA by the Executive Branch far more problematic because the investigators could not recommend prosecution.

The Congress, through its investigative oversight functions, could try to investigate but without the cooperation of the Executive Branch it would not get far. I believe that the President knew he was sending that message to Congress, loud and clear.

My friend and I, who are both Christians, also discussed this issue from a religious point of view as to the ethics of the President essentially "forgiving" the people in the CIA. If the President's action is seen as an act of forgiveness, then does that mean that a Christian would be required as a matter of ethics to offer that forgiveness?

My answer is that a Christian may offer forgiveness even as s/he seeks justice. Were this an issue within the Church, for example, the church has to be in the position of speaking truth to power when it is abused even if the Church absolves the person of specific sins upon the contrition of the person.

And if the CIA sought approval of the use of torture, and then used torture, the issue becomes not just an issue of forgiveness, but also an issue of justice. From my perspective, one has to decide whether the crimes are so heinous that they demand justice. In this case I believe that they do demand justice.

God requires justice as well as extending forgiveness. He expects us to do both with a proper regard to the nature of the abuse and its effects on the abused. Torture violates basic human rights and qualifies as heinous abuse.

A more stark example might be a serial child rapist and murderer that is finally caught. Would it be ethical for us to say, "We forgive him" and then just let him go on to do the next and the next? No. We could say that we forgive him if he admits his guilt and says he will change, but we should also say that he has to pay for the consequences of his actions. That is justice.

As long as there is evil in the world God will be a God of justice as well as a God of forgiveness. For God to not be a God of justice would mean that God turns his/her eyes away from the poor, the disenfranchised, those abused in prisons, those downtrodden and oppressed by evil governments, and has nothing to say against all the evil deeds that power allows leaders to do.

I would prefer that moral and ethical judgments would only come from God. But God has chosen to delegate to us the duty to make many such decisions. Political leaders must make ethical judgments every day and they have to be accountable for their actions stemming from those judgments.

We found out what happens when leaders do not make correct ethical judgments. The trials of the Nazis at Nuremberg are the starkest modern example of investigating, prosecuting and sentencing the failure to exercise even a modicum of morally correct ethical judgment by political leaders.

The President made a decision that I think is right in saying that the US will no longer torture. Yes, he has stopped that evil practice. But he said specifically only that "his" Administration would act in accordance to our laws. He deliberately limited the effect of his decision to his Administration only. By not investigating and prosecuting, however, he encourages the possibility that any Administration coming after his can decide to reverse his decisions.

He did not speak to or even hint at doing anything that might help preclude future administrations from reversing his decisions on this issue and reverting to the use of torture. And I believe that this failure sends a message to those who may want to do such acts in the future in the name of national security or other specious arguments that they can do it and likely will not be punished for their actions.

It is possible to make an argument for what the President has done. It is not cut and dried. But from my point of view, government leaders have to decide whether to take the high road and do the right thing and take the political heat for it, or do the politically expedient thing and "forgive." To me what the President did is less about forgiveness than it is making a pragmatic political judgment. But there are times when principle must trump pragmatism.

I feel that unless we expose the evils of the Bush Administration, not just on this subject, but also on domestic spying, lying about Iraq and starting an unjust war, and a dozen other abuses of power, then we leave the door wide open to a new interpretation of the Imperial Presidency.

No one need agree with my conclusions. There is more than one acceptable solution to the ethical and moral decisions a President has to make. Most of the time when they have to make moral and ethical decisions they are working with difficult decisions that pose issues of "situational" ethics, the facts of which are often unique. Presidents seldom have to deal with issues that present an easy answer of ethical certainty. If it were easy issues like this would not come up. They are never easy.

As a theologian I know that while Christians seldom talk about a God of justice, our God is in fact a God of justice. Were God anything else God would be in no position to urge Christians to confront evil in the world. That he delegates some of his power to those who lead is also clear. It is how leaders use that delegated power that is at issue here.

President Obama Confronts Evil and Blinks, Again!

First published on APRIL 16, 2009


This is not the first post on this subject and hopefully it will not be the last.

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

Here is the link to a good New York Times Article outlining the substance of the CIA tactics used on prisoners in secret overseas prisons which the Justice Department released today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/us/politics/17detain.html?hp

Just the most cursory look at that article will tell you what criminal acts our government engaged in routinely with the full knowledge and consent of the Bush Administration.

Here is a link to the full text of President Obama's press release statement about the release of the information. There is a great deal of talking about keeping the CIA's secret operations and the names of their operatives secret. A lot of talk about what a great service they do and why there can never be any sunshine on any of their activities. You can read all of that here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/politics/16text-obama.html?_r=1

What I would like us to reflect on carefully are the following excerpts from the President's statement.

" In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."

And then read what I have included below, which cinches the deal that this President is not now or ever going to do what any decent man would do and that is to investigate and when necessary prosecute, try and judge those responsible for the moral and legal outrage that went on during these interrogations. In essence, regardless of all the fancy rhetoric about moving forward, we are moving forward without resolution or closure on year after year of the violation on our laws, our Constitution and of the moral clarity which once was a hallmark of American leadership. We are being told to now build a new American on the foundation of the old, never mind that the foundation is rotten and termite ridden. No one is to be brought to justice. No one.

Read on:

"This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again."

President Obama believes that he is doing the right thing. He isn't. He believes that he is leading by consensus. He isn't. He believes that people of good will can turn their backs on heinous crimes and move confidently into the future by ignoring the stench of the past. We can't.

I wanted with all my heart and soul for this President to be elected. I listened to his campaign rhetoric and believed what he said. But we now have two very large and visible examples where he has turned to the advice of the insiders, sellers of the old way of doing business. He has looked them straight in the eye, and blinked.

So now we have the good old boys running Treasury, and his financial advisory team and at the Fed. We have turned to the foxes and taken their advice on how to run the hen house. And the foxes just get fatter and fatter off of us and our children. We are watching them produce program after program that makes the same people who got us into this mess richer and richer, all the while the middle and working classes see little change on the horizon for them.

And today he confirms what he has hinted at many times in the past, that he will turn his back on Constitutional abuses of power, torture as a national policy that went on for a minimum of four years, and the stench of incessent abuses of American freedom and privacy, of the use of our armed forces to fight an immoral war, all by an immoral, illegal, power mad, corrupt Administration -- and tell us to move on.

This is pollyannaish behavior at its most naive. If someone had asked you four months ago to sit down and read what was going to happen you would have laughed in their face. This is looking evil straight in the eye and saying, "if you won't bring this up then I won't either." (wink - wink).

There are no more excuses. We have been told over and over that it has been only 40 days or 50 days or now almost a hundred days. Give it time. We have given it time enough to see that on the two major efforts that he could have done right he has come down on the side of those who think that they are above the law, worse, that they can ignore the law and rewrite it in a back room of the Vice President's office, in the off limits secrecy of the CIA Building, and in the back rooms of banks, hedge funds and Treasury.

We are being had left and right, from top to bottom, and we sit and say, "Well, let's give him a little more time."

OK. But answer just one question: "How is this different than if Bush were still in office?"

Obama: 1st BLACK President OR 44th WHITE President?

First published DECEMBER 15, 2008 3:12PM

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

Let me start by saying that I do not have a horse in this race. And I have far more questions than answers. And I am not convinced myself of the validity of some of my tentative answers.

But people have been skirting around this issue for months. Recently two op eds in the Washington Post were printed the same day, with one taking one side and one the other. Yesterday the AP released an article interviewing both black and white citizens, mostly academic, and they held disparite views.

When I saw Obama make the key note speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention I remember telling Sue that he was going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future. The future came faster than I thought, for which I am eternally grateful.

From the time I first knew of Obama, I thought it was strange that he was described as black, and he claimed to be black since he was biracial and I wanted to "claim him" too. Notice the subtle implicit racism in my thought? It was not a problem with him being black, because if he were "totally black" (whatever that means) I would have been just as happy.

But since he is half white why couldn't I claim Obama as one of my own as much as my black friends could claim him as their own? And so I was falling into the same trap we all fall into: dividing people by race. Whites do it, blacks do it. Everybody does it. Everybody does it but few admit it.

Then, when he first announced his candidacy I remember how some black Americans publicly wondered if he were black enough. I believe that two thoughts were behind that questioning: he had a white mother and was raised by white grandparents and by his white mother; and he was not descended from the African American struggle with slavery and its aftermath.

Then people got very upset about Rev. Wright and that could have derailed Obama's candidacy had Obama not given that important speech in Philadelphia on race. Rev. Wright, and I am no supporter of his, was not saying from the pulpit anything that I had not heard from other black preachers of his generation, both in public and in private conversations with black clergy friends of that, my, generation. I knew Rev. Wright in the mid-90s when I had a church near Chicago.

Here are the questions. You please add others.

1. By declaring himself black, and by our accepting that, are we succumbing to the old discredited notion that "one drop of black blood" makes you black? In other words have we given in to describing people by the definition of the slave owning masters in the south? Are we accepting the definition of bigots as the basis of our conversation?

2. But by considering Obama as not black but biracial or post racial are we denying the ligitimate pride that black Americans, and many, many white Americans, including me, feel that the country has, at least for this bright and shining moment, overcome through this man at least part of the legacy of racial hostility in this country?

3. By accepting the definition of Obama as black are we unknowingly continuing the racial divisions of the past?

4. Should whites, like me, see him as black? The truth is that I never have thought of him as any more black than white, and I have struggled with the idea that by calling him black, and him calling himself black, we may have missed a major oppertunity to make a statement in this country that race does not divide us. Have we missed that opportunity?

5. And there is the very practical question of whether or not he could have been elected if he did not say he was black? By African Americans accepting that definition his votes in that important block of voters were almost unanimous. And many white Americans were happy to vote for him as a symbol that America can overcome its false devisions.

So, no firm or dogmatic answers from me here. Just a bunch of questions.

There is a part of me that doesn't care at all. Obama will be my President and I am proud to support him. And I could and would have supported him in any case, not because of his race, but because of his promises and ideals and ideas to make America a place of hope and a light on a hill for others; including his promise to help us move beyond race and gender and other divisive prejudices in our body politic.

I would like to start an intelligent and thoughtful conversation on this if we can have one on an issue that is highly emotional for many, many people. But let us try.

Monte

Hello, Pundits! If He Hires Her, He Can Fire Her!!

First published on NOVEMBER 21, 2008 7:15P

I have been reading reams of words, not only here on OS but in every conceivable news and opinion site on the internet, by every single talking head on every news network. We are bombarded with why Obama should make Clinton his Secretary of State; why he shouldn't hire her and myriad reasons why not. There are commentators ranging from the far, far left to the far, far right expressing positions ranging from ecstasy to fears of armageddon. They cannot all be right.

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

Please factor ONE FACT into your own equation that I have never heard discussed. She would serve at the pleasure of the President. When she signs on to the job she will sign not only to do the job but she, and all other appointees, will sign an undated resignation letter. That letter will go into a safe in the White House.

So, Clinton leaves a secure job in the Senate, one she can no doubt have for life if she wants it. She goes to a job in the Administration and serves solely at the pleasure of the President. If she messes that up she is in big trouble, not just from the Administration but from people whose approval she not only wants but needs.

If he were to fire her, just where would that leave her? If he were only to THREATEN to fire her she would be in real trouble. He would have reams of evidence, recorded from day one of her service by people close to him in the White House, of the problems she has created to cause him to "have no choice" but to "encourage" her to resign.

If someone thinks that doesn't happen or couldn't happen then he or she has no serious understanding of political history. The President would take some heat, of course, but every President has survived removing people who do not play by team rules, and he makes the rules.

If Truman could survive and become more popular after firing the enormously powerful Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Obama can get rid of Clinton if she undercuts him.

More importantly, the fact that he CAN do it, and can tell her if she screws up that he WILL do it, should be enough to keep the Clintons in line.

Once she walks into the Obama tent and the flap closes her only real political hope is to do a bang up job implementing Obama's foreign policy.

Monte

The Right Wing Filth and Smut is Just Starting

From my Open Salon Blog: OCTOBER 29, 2008 7:34PM

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

I just watched Chris Matthews allow Tom Delay to slime and slander Barack Obama for over ten minutes in the opening of Hardball. Chris allowed him to spew his vitriol without even one challenge.

Delay called Obama a Marxist, a communist, a socialist, and worse. He said Obama would essentially destroy the constitution by "packing the Supreme Court", brought up Ayers and Wright as "proof" of his wild accusations. He said that Obama would not give any tax cuts and, working with the Democratic Congress, actually raise taxes to 90%.

And I have noticed that main stream papers and so-called liberal leaning web sites are opening themselves to whatever junk the right wants to spew, in an attempt to be "fair and balanced."

Trouble is, the unstated Republican premise is that "the end justifies the (sic: ANY) means." And the main stream media is afraid to call them on it. If we think we have already seen the worst of the smears we are wrong. This is just the begining of a filth and lie strewn week.

The simple truth is that if we do not stand up to this crap we all deserve what we get. Personally, I'm sick of trying to be "nice" and "tolerant" to bigots, fools and single digit IQ neandertals. I'll likely lose a few friends if I start calling them out, but at least I will be able to live with myself.

The 800 lb. Gorilla in the Room that Obama can't Admit

From my Open Salon Blog: OCTOBER 26, 2008 4:19PM

The 800 lb. Gorilla in the Room that Obama can't Admit

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

Sen. Obama has been tracking to the center ever since he got the nomination as the Democratic candidate for President. And while that gives many on the left side of the party considerable heartburn, it has been the correct move because it appeals to independents and moderate Republicans, and, accordingly, expands the pool of voters he needs to win the election.

Liberals, including me, always get heartburn every time we are asked to sacrifice part of our sacred ideology by answering the dirty and messy question: "Do we want to be self-righteous and lose; or do we want to compromise and win?"

As Obama has tacked closer to the center his poll numbers have risen. One answer to the now commonplace question, "Why is he not winning by an even larger spread than he has?" is that he has very gradually tacked to the center and, with each step, picked up a point here and a point there, leading to his now almost double digit lead in both national and state polls.

One side effect of this new "centerist" position is the sacrifice of a truth that he may or may not know, an 800 pound gorilla of truth that he will have to acknowledge and explain to the public, but only after he is elected: we are going to have to spend our way out of the recession.

And that means that we are not going to be balancing the budget in the first term, and maybe not even in the second term. Yet Obama insists that every dime of his almost one trillion dollar spending program will be paid for by specific cuts in expenses elsewhere: Iraq, cutting some fat out of government programs and increasing the tax on the wealthy, etc.

The truth, however, is that all those allegedly "offsetting" cuts take a lot of time to enact, or implement, and will have to be phased in over several years. But, a significant amount of the spending has to be immediate if we are to shorten the current recession to only a couple of years. The spending has to create jobs now, as well as down the road several years.

The irony, of course, is that we have to spend in order to set up the national economic health that will generate the revenues to save in the future.

I am not faulting Obama for ignoring this gorilla in the room until after the election. In fact, I have no idea whether or not he even sees the gorilla. He should, but he may not. What I am strongly recommending is that we don't act as if we are naively unaware that the first several years of the new administration will actually, and necessarily, increase the deficit.

I wish we lived in a world where a candidate could just level to the electorate, and we, the voters, would be smart enough to understand the tough trade offs that lie ahead. In this case: that we have to spend our way out of this recession. But the political truth is that were Obama to admit that now, McCain and Palin would jump on that and promise not only no new taxes but argue that it is insane to increase spending at this time. And they would win in a landslide. It doesn't matter one whit that they would be lying and would not be able to balance the budget either.

So, the bottom line is that the gorilla is real and necessary, but will remain invisible for the next ten days or so.

Monte

It Only Takes One: Inviting Violence

From my Open Salon blog: October 21. 2008

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

Cancel

I moved to Washington DC in July, 1963. A bright eyed and anxious 23 year old, I was nearly overcome by my good fortune to be invited to work in the Executive Office of the President, Bureau of the Budget.

I was the low guy on the totem pole and often got the duty of covering the phones when others went out to eat, or to work at the agencies we reviewed for budget and legislative consistency with the President's goals.

One day in late November I was half listening to some elevator music playing on the radio when an announcement interrupted to say, "The President has been shot!" I was of course stunned, and decided that I had to tell someone so I ran down to the Division Director's Office. He wasn't there, so I ran down the long hall in the Old Executive Office Building, up the stairs and barged into the Office of the Director of the Budget Bureau.

There was a meeting going on in the conference room and I, out of breath and likely hyperventilating, shouted, "The President has been shot!"

Two of the White House political staff were there as was the Budget Director, the Deputy and several Division Directors. The Deputy Director, Elmer Staats, who knew me, looked at me with disgust and said, "Monte, that is not funny. How could you even think to say something like that?"

While that was going on, someone turned on a TV that was in the room and the fact was confirmed. About the same time the two White House staffers were calling across the alley to the West Wing to confirm.

There are certain times when the world turns inside out; times when we will remember where we were and what we were doing when a major event happens. For much younger people than me, and most are, a day that is sealed in their memories, and mine, is September 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, by the time the '60s were over those of us who lived through those years would add the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the June 5, 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Those years were years of great political division in this nation, and until now, we have seen nothing like the kind of bitter, hateful rant that fueled the hatred then, and fanned the flames of intolerance.

We would all like to think that we have, as a nation, gotten past all of that. And, had we not been witnessing the fanning of the flames, the desperate acts of spinning a great lie about Barack Obama; a lie about his "otherness," "Un-American," "Socialist," and, today, "Communist" leanings.

These purveyors of hate continue to foment the unrest and play to the prejudices of race and class warfare. The litany of false descriptors piles up, lie upon lie: "Palling around with Terrorists," "Terrorist," and "Traitor."

Mainstream media, even the so-called liberal left media, allow such words to go unchallenged saying such things as, "Well. Its all that McCain has left to do." As if that makes it OK to scream "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

We have succumbed to something we would tell ourselves to our dying day that we do not believe: "that the end justifies the means." In a stupefying attempt to be "fair" we have turned our heads and allowed the intolerant rants of hate to be "tolerated."

If I had not lived through the short few years when three leaders of my hope for our nation were destroyed, when I, and the rest of the nation, had to grow up and realize that there is evil in this world, perhaps I would not feel so uneasy, and could just let it go as "Well, its just the politics of desperation."

Unfortunately, it only takes one nut, one crazy who is sent over the edge by the talk of terrorists, traitors, socialists, communists and the questioning of patriotism, to destroy the best hopes of us all.

It only takes one.