RumourNation

Race Card, Gender Card, Human Card

Interesting post by Jonah Goldberg has caused a lot of cyberchatter this weekend . . . he posits that a "certain segment" of the population will become "completely unhinged" if Obama does not win the Dem  presidential nomination.

Now, I respect the National Review about as much as I respect the New York Times (read: not at all), so I tend to read this post the same way I would read any ravings by the lunatic fringe.  If Jonah thinks that black people are going to riot if Obama doesn't win . . . well, seems a little nutty to me.  And why doesn't he make the same prediction about women, if Hillary doesn't win?  I'm ready to riot, believe me.

I actually visited the Reagan Presidential Library about a year and a half ago.  The most striking moment in my visit happened when I walked into the front room, lined with pictures of all our past presidents.  And my two 10-year-old companions -- my daughter and her best friend -- asked two questions right away:  "Where are the women?" and "Why is everyone white?"   You see, they live in multi-cultural Los Angeles, and they both go to girls' schools, where the majority of the populations are neither male nor white.  Our past presidential politics do not represent their point of view, and although they are not yet voters, I can't imagine that they are going to be comfortable with the status quo, if it remains in place for the next decade.  (They'll be voting in the 2016 election).  And, BTW, none of their black or female friends are prone to rioting.   

It's the status quo that's pre-emptively trotting out the race card  when it comes to Obama.  "Please, please don't let him run away with the media," they say, "Or he'll make 'his people' violent."  Never mind that "his people" includes his white mother from Kansas.  I suspect that it was the same status quo that pounded on Hillary for referring to her gender -- when we all know full well that women are held to higher standards when it comes to the old boys clubs of boardrooms and politics.  (Remember Martha Stewart?  What's happened to all the guys who are always doing the same kind of insider trading?) 

Salon has posted an amusing response to Mr. Goldberg, with this great picture of the "rioters" in Florida after the 2000 election:

Nary a black person and hardly a woman among them.

Jesus, I'm irritated.  Fed up with the politics of hatred driven by those who have subverted the term "conservative" to mean "don't change anything and, BTW, we get to tell you how Godless you are." 

Most people I know aren't concerned with questions regarding regarding religion (the Constitution handles it), abortion (again, the Constitution), or the capabilities of women (gee, where the the ERA go?).  They ARE concerned about the tanking economy, falling home values, a government that lied regarding the rationale behind an illegal war, our dependence on oil, and how we pay for health care.   And that includes not only my friends in SoCal, it includes my old Southern family in Virginia.

In short, they're concerned about the simple, everyday, how-to-keep-our-lives going "human card."   The candidate who responds to those problems is the one who's going to win.  If s/he doesn't, then we'll show you a hullabaloo -- I think it will be the most bipartisan riot you've ever seen.

Rag Show Breaks It Down

To the essentials when it comes to the big question:  Who will be the Dem's VP running mates?

Holiday Greetings

Sorry, dear reader(s?), that I've been gone for a while, but, well, things have been busy.  It ain't easy keeping up with the Web 2.0 world and the real world.

But every once in a while, something surfaces that reminds me that the real world is still out there.
Like this holiday message from GWB.

Two Sides of the (same?) Coin

Okay, two very interesting situations in the news today. 

Sitch #1:  The conservative Hoover Institution, which is housed at Stanford University, would like to appoint Donald Rumsfeld a distinguished visiting fellow, advising a task force on idealogy and terrorism (admittedly, subjects he seems to know nothing about, but they're appointing him anyway).  Hue and cry on the Stanford campus, which no doubt will lead to a second hue and cry when Condoleeza Rice, who is also a Hoover fellow, attempts to return there in 2008. 

Sitch #2:  No doubt in response to my previous blog post, MIchael Drake has now declared himself mistaken in reneging on his offer to Erwin Chemerinsky to be dean of UCI's upcoming law school.  (They rehired Professor Chemerinsky last week.)

It's interesting to watch this intersection of academia and politics.  I've often viewed Stanford as Duke's West Coast twin -- especially given that Stanford fought the establishment of a Reagan library on their campus as vehemently as Duke fought the establishment of a Nixon library on theirs -- but it leaves me with a question:

Should we really be afraid of throwing conservatives and liberals into the same pot for some candid discussion? Isn't that what academia's all about? 

On the other hand, I always found Mr. Rumsfeld handsome, but insanely arrogant.  Accuse me of schadenfreude, but it might be kinda fun to see him taken down a few notches.  So props to Ms. Pamela Lee for spearheading the effort. You go, girl. 

Best Night Ever

So, the Hillary campaign's bringing out the big gun now.  And, man, what a big gun he is.  Bill Clinton rocks.  Compared to the quagmire of knee-jerk, crony-friendly jingoistic ineptitude that the current administration represents, Bill is the emperor of reason.  We may very well look back at his administration as America's last golden hour.   

But I refuse to let Dubya's Cheney's massive failings and my sheer lack of understanding of the half of the electorate who returned him to office bring me down.   Like the 349 other folks who had an audience with Bill last night, I'm still pumped.  There was a blackout on the Westside.   Nothing but candlelight and cool night air in the backyard where we were standing.  Bill was up on the steps, vaguely lit by an emergency light.  And he was mesmerizing.    He talked about why he would vote for Hillary, even if he wasn't married to her.  He told stories that left us misty-eyed.  He answered questions.  A few nuggets:

About Iran:  "Well, they're talking to us.  And you know why?  Because Iraq is a state that was manufactured after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.  And if we just pull out, there will be more than a million dead and more than 7 million refugees who will head for northwest Iran and destabilize the country."

About immigration:  "I hope some of these Republicans live another 30 years, when we're expected to add 2 billion people to the population, mostly in countries that can't support them.   They'll be longing for the year 2007, when immigration issues looked simple."

About terrorism:  " I dealt with Bin Laden; these guys are smart, they look for cracks in our defenses and they never do the same thing twice.  It wouldn't be too hard to send some people to Mexico, have them learn to speak Spanish, and have them head across the border acting like they're looking for work.   But how are you going to deport 12 million people?  Wouldn't you be better off giving them a path to citizenship, and then keep an eye on the 100,000 or so who don't sign up?  Find out what they're up to?  Instead of having to deal with the entire 12 million?  Part of our foreign policy involves treating people with respect.  That's just as important as having a strong military."

About the military:   "They're now training naval reservists as infantry.  One guy I talked to in San Diego said 'We call it the "Narmy" now.'  The White House cook, whom Hillary and I talked into retiring from the Navy, joining the reserves, and coming to New York with us to run our house, he's just been shipped off for his second tour doing special ops in Iraq.  A navy cook.  If we had a national security crisis, we couldn't handle it.  We're out of army.  We have no more Marines.  Our military has been decimated."

On what he would do for Hillary:  "I'll do whatever she wants me to.  I think that, once you've been President, you're obliged to help the current President any way you can.  I've done that for the current President, even though I disagree with him on almost every issue.  I think that morally you're obligated.  I think I could help Hillary the best on the international front by helping repair relationships, and by helping explain some of the domestic programs she'd like to implement."

There's more, believe me.  He clearly explained healthcare issues, economic issues, and foreign policy issues.  He answered every question asked, came back to them even when he discoursed on a another topic, and worked the crowd like a magician. 

He signed an autograph for my daughter, and told me that she shares a name with his mother.   (My daughter had a hard time prying the piece of paper from my sweaty, happy hands, BTW.)

Okay, Hill, I'm in.  I know I'm suffering from a little rockstar-itis, but you've forged a durable, rich relationship with this guy.  The fact that you can stand up to, and even shine, in this light, says volumes. And, unlike the current President, you probably know what the Ottoman Empire was.

Here's the story that made us misty-eyed:  "I was playing golf one day, and a caddy stopped me before I left the first hole.  He said 'Wait a minute, I may never have this chance again.  I want to talk to you, and I'm not really a caddy.'  I said 'What are you?  A comedian, a terrorist?'  He said, 'No, I just do this to supplement my income.  I'm a New York City fireman.  A captain, actually.  And I'm from a working class Irish family, and I've been a Republican all my life.  But I wanted you to know, that when 9/11 happened, and we were all out there, looking for people to save, and then looking for body parts, just trying to find something so that we could identify the people who died -- Mrs. Clinton was the only one who said that some of us were going to get sick.  The president, he said that everything would be okay, that nothing was going to happen.  But Mrs. Clinton knew what we were breathing in, what we were dealing with, and she did something about it.  And because of her, some of us who would have died are alive today.  And those of us who did die, their families can now live with a little more dignity.  Because she did something about it, when no one else cared.  And that's the kind of person who should be President.'"

Thank you, and goodnight.  Mr. Clinton has left the building. 

Michael Drake, American Hero

We should be celebrating Michael Drake as an American hero.  He risked his reputation and his livelihood as Chancellor of UC Irvine to protect erstwhile law-school dean Erwin Chemerinsky from the conservatives who are "out to get him."  I know what he means.  Roving bands of conservatives have been running wild in Orange County, slaughtering liberals at will.  Why only yesterday, they took out two Greenpeace activists and a little old lady protesting immigration policy.  What would they do if they got their hands on one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars?  Clearly, Chemerinsky needs to remain in liberal North Carolina, where shotguns are rare and deviance is well-tolerated. 

Chemerinsky was on the short list to be dean of the law school at Duke University (full disclosure:  Duke is my alma mater), where he currently teaches.  Last I checked, Duke's law school was ranked 10th in the nation.  UCI's has yet to open. Erwin, you deserve better, and here's hoping you get it.  As well as a hefty payout on the contract they broke.  May I suggest a lawyer?

Weapons of Mass Destruction -- Not!

Check out this exclusive on Salon.com:  Bush Knew Saddam Had No Weapons of Mass Destruction.   I always enjoy reading Sidney Blumenthal, and this is no exception. 

However, I have one question and one observation: 

The question:  Is anyone surprised?

The observation:  Is anyone else as amused as I am about the statement that "The French were trying to undermine the war"  . . . BEFORE there even WAS a war?

Actually, I have a bunch of questions.  Is this why Powell quit?  How long until this heats up and the impeachment cries start rolling in?  Who's the new attorney general?  And why does Fred Thompson think he deserves to be president?

Busy day.

Cranky Hot

It's cranky-ass hot here in LA --as a matter of fact, I'm asking for a do-over on Labor Day weekend, as all it was good for was laying around the pool and reading the Economist.  I did make a great margarita, though. 

This is the mental equivalent of a little sugary lemonade on a day like today (it's still hot!):

Red State Update

Okay, this cracked me up.  Goodbye, Karl.   BTW, have you seen this? 

Rockin' Video

This brightened up my Friday afternoon.