Nicolle Wallace as a Host of The View

I am not a regular viewer of The View, but I have watched the show, now and then.  A lot of my viewing of it has been through You-Tube: I want to see if a controversial guest (i.e., Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, maybe Jesse Ventura) holds his or her own, or I want to watch Rosie O’Donnell’s historic clash with Elisabeth Hasselbeck over the Iraq War, or Whoopie Goldberg’s lecture to Elisabeth about race.  I watch the YouTube video, You-Tube recommends to me other excerpts from The View to watch, and I then watch those.

I have occasionally watched the show in the morning.  This has usually been when I have known that certain guests would be on it.  I think of Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, or Rachel Held Evans.

Rosie O’Donnell will soon be a host on the view again, after a long time of absence.  And I have also learned that Nicolle Wallace will be one of the hosts.

Nicolle Wallace worked on the McCain campaign in 2008.  You may have seen the movie, Game Change, which was about John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin.  Well, the character of Nicolle Wallace in that movie was the lady with the blond hair who was trying to advise Sarah Palin on what to say in interviews.  In the movie, and in real life, Nicolle ultimately decided not to vote for John McCain due to her doubts about Sarah Palin’s qualifications.

I’m wondering what The View will be like with Nicolle Wallace as a host.  I was rooting for her to be on it, but there is a part of me that thinks that she may be too smart, too nice, and too careful about what she says to be a host for the show.  She is a conservative, but I question whether conservatives will root for her as they did for Elisabeth, on account of Nicolle Wallace’s criticisms of Sarah Palin.  (Also, see this article, which questions whether she is even conservative.)  And I have difficulty envisioning a knock-down, drag-out clash between Rosie O’Donnell and Nicolle Wallace, or Whoopie Goldberg seeing any need to lecture Nicolle Wallace on race.  Nicolle Wallace will probably present her point-of-view in an intelligent, polite, yet strong manner, as she has in the past.

Maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe Nicolle Wallace will bring the debates on The View to a higher level.   Unfortunately, that may be at the expense of the raw honesty that drew viewers to the show.  But the show would focus on substance and issues.

The Selling of the President 1968

I read Joe McGinnis' 1969 book, The Selling of the President 1968.  The book is about the attempts of Nixon's campaign to create an image of Richard Nixon that they could sell to the public.  Incidentally, McGinnis is the same author who moved next door to Sarah Palin's house when he was writing a book about her.

I learned about The Selling of the President 1968 when reading David Greenberg's Nixon's Shadow.  See my post here.  Greenberg said that the book's thesis was that "since Nixon’s natural personality was so unappealing, his campaign aides concocted a new persona they projected through TV ads and tightly guarded performances" (Greenberg on page 141).  According to Greenberg, McGinnis observed this by simply hanging around the Nixon campaign: "McGinnis sneaked in under the radar screen, presenting himself to Nixon’s men as such an insignificant fly on the wall that they never thought to swat him away."

In one of the books by Nixon that I read----I think it was In the Arena----Nixon referred to a book about his campaign whose author purported to be an eyewitness, but Nixon was denying that this author had firsthand knowledge.  My hunch is that Nixon was talking there about McGinnis' The Selling of the President 1968.  From what Greenberg said, the book made quite a splash when it came out! 


The thing is, whether or not McGinnis was an actual eyewitness, Nixon's campaign was definitely trying to sell to the public a specific image of Richard Nixon, for McGinnis includes in his Appendix memoranda by such campaign advisers as Len Garment, William Gavin, Harry Treleaven, Ray Price, and Pat Buchanan.  At the same time, the narrative part of McGinnis' book contains some pretty scathing material, and this book was released in 1969, some years before the Watergate tapes revealed to the public glimpses of the behind-the-scenes Nixon.  McGinnis tells a story of people on Nixon's campaign who were cynical and even racist.  As far as Nixon's own presence in the book is concerned, he himself is not in the book that much, but McGinnis does present Nixon criticizing "the damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there" (page 24).

The reason that I decided to read this book is that I was curious about two things: (1.) What specifically made Nixon's personality so unappealing?  (2.) What image did Nixon's advisers want to present to the public, instead?  This is a personal issue for me, since, like Nixon, I'm socially awkward, rather stiff, and uncomfortable in my own skin.  I wonder how I can project an alternative image of myself, and what exactly I should be projecting.

What made Nixon unappealing was that he appeared to lack warmth, his discussion of issues could be rather dispassionate and lawyer-like, and he had to live down his reputation as a loser, since he lost the 1960 Presidential election, then the 1962 election for Governor of California.  Some of the things that plagued Nixon's reputation in the past, such as the widespread view that he was a brutal campaigner, were not as much of a problem in 1968, in the eyes of some of Nixon's aides.  In their minds, that was all a matter of the past, and many Americans in 1968 either did not know about, or did not care about, Nixon's campaigns against Voorhis and Douglas, or his hard-hitting speeches back when he was Dwight Eisenhower's running-mate and Vice-President.

In terms of the efforts to project an image for Nixon, it seems to me that Nixon's advisers were trying to project an image, without looking like they were projecting an image.  In a memorandum in the appendix, there was the statement that the campaign shouldn't be aiming to depict Nixon as a back-slapper, for Nixon was running for President, not participating in the Moose lodge (or some such group).  The public knew that Nixon wasn't a back-slapper, but many still respected him on account of his experience and knowledge.  Still, the memoranda were saying that Nixon had to appear as a warm human being.  It was good when the public could see, for example, that Nixon played the piano, or had daughters.  When Nixon was answering questions at one of his forums, he needed to add an element of give-and-take: not just lecturing, but expressing interest in the perspective of the person asking the question.  When he was campaigning at a place, he should show that he was interested in some of the place's sites.  He should demonstrate that he understands the human impact of issues rather than merely citing statistics.  Earlier in the book, McGinnis talks about how one can come across effectively on television, where intimacy is communicated more than it is on the movie screen: one should come across as a guest in someone's home, as one who suggests rather than commanding.

These are fine examples of social skills, and many of them overlap with Dale Carnegie's suggestions in How to Win Friends and Influence People.  According to McGinnis, Nixon's Democratic opponent, Hubert Humphrey, was not particularly effective on television, for Humphrey tended to shout on TV, which was not exactly the place for oratory.  When I read that, I wondered what McGinnis would say about Richard Nixon's 1952 Checkers' speech, where (in my opinion) Nixon did come across as a personable guest in people's homes and tried to express understanding of their financial situations, and yet near the end of his speech manifested a fighting, orating tone.

On Hubert Humphrey, McGinnis does praise one of Humphrey's television appearances, in which Humphrey was essentially showing people snippets from his life.  McGinnis also criticizes this appearance, but he states that, whereas Nixon's ads often caused people to reflect on the ads, Humphrey's appearance led them to think about Humphrey himself, as if they concluded that Humphrey was showing them himself as he truly was.  As McGinnis states on pages 137-138: "It showed Humphrey wearing a stupid fisherman's hat and getting his lines snarled on a lake near his home and it took shameless advantage of the fact he has a mentally retarded granddaughter.  It was contrived and tasteless.  But it was the most effective single piece of advertising of the campaign."

When should one be oneself, and when should one try to contrive an image?  In one part of the book, McGinnis tells a story about when Nixon was at one of his panels, and he and the moderator were getting confrontational with each other.  According to McGinnis, that was probably one of the most effective panels, even though Nixon was most likely upset that things did not go according to his predictable plan!  Let Nixon be Nixon?  Sometimes, that actually worked!  Many of us probably try to find a medium between being ourselves and projecting an image, for both are necessary, and yet both are inadequate by themselves.  Many of us realize that people will not like us if they were aware of all of our weaknesses, and so we pretend to be better than we are; yet, if we pretend too much, we don't appear real to others, and people don't particularly like that!

Seize the Moment 3

For my write-up today on Richard Nixon's 1992 book, Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World, I will again quote passages from the book, following each quote with my comments.

1.  On pages 176-177, Nixon discusses what the U.S. should do in response to China's unfair trading practices (i.e., barriers to imports and failure to "protect intellectual property rights"):

"Our response, however, should not be across-the-board tariff increases but rather more discriminating tactics such as blocking China's entry into GATT or cutting back China's export quota under the International Multifibre Agreement of 1974, which regulates all textile imports into the United States.  If we want to have an impact on the changes occurring in China, we should not pull the plug on trade.  Increasing economic progress will bring progress on human rights and civil liberties."

Nixon is a big proponent of free trade in this book, for he believes that this can encourage countries to become more self-sufficient.  He is not naive about free trade, mind you, for, like Pat Buchanan in The Great Betrayal, Nixon argues against the idea that free trade can contribute to peace by making countries economic beneficiaries of each other.  Nixon notes historical examples of countries with mutual economic relationships that went to war with each other, and Nixon thus contends that free trade should not be seen as a substitute for an effective military.  Still, Nixon likes free trade.

Nixon does well to address head-on a question that protectionists have asked: What do we do if other countries are not playing fair?  I don't know enough to evaluate his solutions. I wonder if blocking the entrance of China into GATT would be a short-term solution, since what if China were to behave itself to get accepted into GATT, only to return to its unfair trading practices after being accepted?  Could China then be kicked out of GATT?  Would the World Trade Organization effectively police China's unfair trading practices?  (I'm sure there are answers to these questions, but, as I said, I don't know much about this issue.)

It's interesting that Nixon says that trade with China can encourage its progress on human rights, for Nixon on page 259 argues that the U.S. should not establish diplomatic or trading relationships with Cuba and Vietnam until they "meet specific political and human rights conditions..."  Nixon in his memoirs and in this book often argues that we can encourage progress in Communist dictatorships through cultivating diplomatic and economic relationships with them, rather than leaving them in isolation.  Why does he deem Cuba and Vietnam to be exceptions to this rule?  Incidentally, the next book that I will read by Nixon, Beyond Peace (1994), appears (at least from the back cover) to advocate trade with Cuba.  

2.  On page 265, Nixon responds to the charge that liberal trade policies will result in the outsourcing of jobs to countries where workers are paid less:

"If U.S. corporations located their facilities simply on the basis of lower wages, they would all have moved to Mexico already.  In addition to wage levels, other variables such as output per worker, transportation capabilities, and the quality of human resources are all part of the economic equation."
Nixon probably has a point here.  There are still manufacturing companies that remain in the U.S.  If outsourcing were too lucrative, how would there be any manufacturing companies here?  Perhaps they stay because our infrastructure is better, or for other reasons.  And yet, it seems to me that outsourcing is still a problem.  My understanding is that manufacturing jobs are on the decline in the U.S., and that outsourcing is probably one reason for this.

I wish that Nixon had addressed more extensively in this book the question of what we would do if we had a hard time competing.  Nixon criticizes U.S. agricultural subsidies because he thinks that they give U.S. farmers an advantage over foreign farmers, who are looking for a market for their goods (and need that market for their country to advance economically).  But what would happen to us if loads of cheap foreign crops are coming into our market, in direct competition with the American farmer?

3.  On page 256, Nixon criticizes the way that foreign aid to Africa has been wasted, hinting that free-market capitalism can set Africa onto the road to prosperity:

"Over the past decade, the United States and other Western industrialized countries have injected over $100 billion in aid and credits into sub-Saharan Africa.  Most was wasted because inefficient and corrupt governments refused to put into place policies to provide average farmers and workers with incentives to produce."

Ironically, John Bircher Gary Allen made a similar argument in his right-wing critique of Richard Nixon, entitled Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Gary Allen essentially argued that foreign aid props up socialism and ends up being wasted, and that the best way for impoverished foreign countries to advance economically is for them to embrace the free market.

What stood out to me in what Nixon said on page 256 was that he saw a place for the average farmer in Africa: the average farmer should have incentives to become more productive.  This, in my opinion, conflicts with what I've heard often takes place in the Third World, in the name of capitalism: multinational corporations come into the country, take people's land, use that land for cash crops or mass production, and reap handsome profits, while paying their Third World workers dittly-squat.  Nixon actually argues that it can economically help a Third World country to allow multinational corporations to come in.  Indeed, multinational corporations provide Third World countries with capital and produce a lot of goods.  But I wonder if there is a way for small farmers to be able to keep their land, and to produce enough to be competitive on the global market.  Or should they be competitive in the global market?  What would be so wrong with small farmers producing enough to feed their own country?  Is there a way to make private ownership work for people in the Third World, as opposed to making it work for multinationals?

And yet, I'd like to mention an example that Nixon cites of foreign investment contributing to improved conditions for the poor.  On pages 257-258, Nixon lambastes Apartheid in South Africa, contending that its discriminatory policies are "economically stupid" because they deny blacks "equal economic opportunities" and thus end up squandering their productivity and talents.  But Nixon does not think that American disinvestment from South Africa is the answer.  Nixon states on page 258 that "Many American companies, such as Ford motor company, had financed black housing, schooling, recreation, and health facilities."

4.  On pages 219-220, Nixon appears to take a rather anti-Israel tone, as he defends a "land for peace" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

"While we are right to support Israel's survival and security, we would be wrong to back the current Israeli government's extreme demands.  [W]e should understand how the occupied territories came into Israel's possession through the 1967 war.  Aggressive military moves by Arabs created the crisis----perhaps even made the war inevitable----but Israel launched the first attacks.  Former prime minister Menachem Begin said in August 1982, 'In June 1967, we again had a choice.  The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us.  We must be honest with ourselves.  We decided to attack him'.  [T]he Arab-Israeli conflict poisons our relations with the Muslim world and undercuts our ability to cooperate with countries with modernist, pro-Western leaders.  Israel's occupation of Arab lands----and particularly its increasingly harsh treatment of the Palestinians----polarizes and radicalizes the Muslim world."

Nixon is for Israel going back to its pre-1967 borders, while Jordan would possibly administer the West Bank, and Syria the Golan Heights.  Nixon addresses the question of whether this would compromise the security of Israel.  Under Nixon's proposal in this book, conventional offensive weapons would be banned from the territories that are returned to the Palestinians, the returned territories would be a "buffer zone", checkpoints would ensure that weapons are not smuggled into the West Bank for an attack on Israel, and the U.S. would consider an attack on Israel to be an attack on the U.S., and would respond accordingly.  I wonder to what extent this overlaps with and differs from current proposals for a Palestinian state.

I was talking with my brother about Nixon's claim that Israel started the 1967 war.  My brother agreed that Israel attacked first, but he said that it was a pre-emptive strike----that Egypt was planning to attack Israel, for Egypt had been anti-Israel since the 1940's.  This wikipedia article quotes Nasser as saying on May 27, 1967: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

5.  On page 226, Nixon argues that Palestinians in the occupied territories should elect representatives to the peace talks, without Israelis exercising a veto power over their choice:

"...elections should be held in the occupied territories to select Palestinian representatives for the peace talks.  Israeli leaders have insisted on advance approval of those who might serve in that role and on blackballing anyone with any association----no matter how distant----with the PLO.  That is unreasonable.  We did not like negotiating with Stalin or his successors, but since they held power, we had to deal with them.  Unless Israel comes to terms with its enemies, no peace agreement will enhance its security."

The reason that this passage stood out to me was that it reminded me of a question that Katie Couric asked of Sarah Palin in 2008.  Palin was saying that we should support democracy in the middle-east, and Couric then asked about Hamas' victory in a Palestinian election.  What happens when democracy leads to an outcome that the U.S. considers undesirable?  I've wondered how I would answer that question, for it is indeed a difficult question.  I'd probably give an answer similar to what Nixon said about Palestinian elections for representatives at the peace talks: that we should accept the Palestinians' choice, and try to deal with that choice if we can.  That doesn't mean that we should be okay with everything Hamas does----threatening Israel, after all, is wrong.  But part of democracy is accepting people's choice (though whether Nixon consistently did that as President has been debated).

Game Change

I watched the movie Game Change recently, which is about Sarah Palin.  The movie is widely considered to be a negative depiction of Palin, even by Palin herself (who, as far as I know, has not seen the movie).  And yet, I found myself actually liking Sarah Palin while I was watching it.  Not all of the time, mind you.  She could be pretty ruthless, as when she (on the movie) fired that one aide on account of a mistake.  But the Sarah Palin of the movie came across to me as someone who genuinely cared for her family, who depended on God, who was committed to certain principles, and who loved Alaska, enough to wear an Alaska pin and to care about the public opinion of those who were in her state (even though she later told Steve Schmidt, played by Woody Harrelson, that she did not want to go back to Alaska).

I loved the scene where, right before John McCain was about to introduce Palin to the American people, her family was telling each other to pray for her.  Piper Palin's remark to her mom that it was cheating for God to help Palin win the Vice-Presidential debate was cute.  I also liked the scene where Sarah Palin's husband Todd was giving her advice on how to perform in the Vice-Presidential debate.  He reminded her of a debate she was in when she was running for an Alaskan office, and one of her opponents was a policy wonk.  Todd said that nobody understood what that opponent was saying, but Sarah spoke straight to the people, and she won.  This scene really humanized Sarah Palin, I thought. 

Was Sarah Palin as uninformed as she appeared on the movie?  I'm somewhat doubtful.  There have been some insiders who have said that she wasn't that uninformed.  Carl Cameron's interview with Palin (see here and here) tells me that she has at least some public policy understanding.  Does that mean that I'm saying that Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace are lying?  Not necessarily.  Perhaps they got the impression that Palin was less informed than she truly was.  People sometimes assume that I know less than I do.  (And Palin haters will probably point to my post here to say that their assumptions are probably accurate!)  I do agree with Schmidt and Wallace, however, that Palin most likely wasn't informed enough to step into the Presidency.

Six Crises 12

For my write-up today on Richard Nixon's 1962 book Six Crises, I'll quote what Nixon says on page 344 about his preparation for the 1960 Presidential debates:

"I followed my usual practice of reading as widely as possible and of listening to as much advice as I could cram into my crowded schedule.  But in the final analysis, I knew that what was most important was that I must be myself.  I have seen so-called public relations experts ruin many a candidate by trying to make him over into an 'image' of something he can never be.  I went into the second debate determined to do my best to convey three basic impressions to the television audience----knowledge in depth of the subjects discussed, sincerity, and confidence.  If I succeeded in this, I felt my 'image' would take care of itself."

Do I buy into the notion that people will like me if I just be myself?  Well, yes and no.  Perhaps there are areas in which I should not just be myself, but should behave according to what is considered to be socially appropriate.  But there are also areas in which I can't be anyone other than myself.  In my opinion, there is a place for me being at peace with myself, for me being comfortable with who I am and how I am, and for me capitalizing on my strengths.

I also thought of Sarah Palin when I read that passage in Six Crises.  Nixon was good at facts and figures, but he was not as good in terms of personal skills (or such is my understanding).  Palin, however, was not as good at facts and figures, but she had charisma.  Should she have crammed her head with facts and figures in preparing for the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate?  That may not have helped her, for she wouldn't have come across as glib and as confident as she did.  It would have been nice had she conveyed a deeper understanding of the issues, however.  And, if she did not have that, she probably shouldn't have been picked to be John McCain's VP candidate.  Sure, people should not be expected to be something that they're not.  But jobs should have qualifications, for people do jobs better when they are qualified for them.

Take It Back 4: The Iraq War

My latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future, by James Carville and Paul Begala, was about national security.  Essentially, Carville and Begala criticized how George W. Bush's handled 9/11----both the events leading up to it and also its aftermath----and also how Republicans who never served in the military have smeared Democrats who have stellar war-records.

In this post, I'll talk about my evolving view on the Iraq War.  There was a time when I would defend George W. Bush against his detractors and haters.  See this post as an example of that.  Do I regret doing that?  Not at all.  There are two (and often more) sides to every story.  Why should I assume that a left-wing narrative is the only one that's legitimate?

Just looking at the claims that Carville and Begala made in my latest reading, I could find articles that said something different from what Carville and Begala were saying.

----On page 93, Carville and Begala say that Cheney repeated the claim that a senior Iraqi intelligence official met with 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta in Prague, even though Czech authorities said that was false, and CIA and FBI officials investigated and found no indication that Atta left the U.S. during the time in question.  For Carville and Begala, the implication of this was that Cheney was lying to get us into a war.  Here, however, is Cheney's account of why he initially believed that Atta met with the Iraqi official in Prague, only later to repudiate that view.

----On page 95, Carville and Begala say that George W. Bush out-sourced the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden to local warlords in Afghanistan, which allowed Bin-Laden to escape.  According to this article, however, information after Bin Laden's death has shown us a different story.

----On page 114, Carville and Begala say that "It was Democrats who stood and fought when the Bush administration tried to eliminate imminent-danger pay and family-separation pay for the 148,000 troops in Iraq."  According to this, however, the Department of Defense had "an alternative proposal to maintain total compensation for those serving in a combat zone, or in direct support of a combat zone, through increased use of Hardship Duty Pay (HDP)."

Who's right, and who's wrong?  What's fact, and what's propaganda?  What is a legitimate claim, and what is an unfair attack, or spin in defense of a certain position or party?  I'm sure that people could go more deeply into these issues than I have done here, and than has been done in a number of discussion forums.

In my right-wing days, while I was skeptical about left-wing narratives about Bush and the Iraq War, there were seeds that were planted that led me to have second thoughts about my "yay rah Bush" attitude.  I was learning about the horrors of war, as I watched TV and read stories and heard about people who had lost life and limb, and my conservative friends' dismissal of those horrors with the platitude of "War is hell" did not cut it with me after a certain point.  In 2008, I was gravitating towards John McCain and Sarah Palin, and one thing that attracted me to them was that they either served in war (in the case of McCain) or had family that was serving in war (in the case of both McCain and Palin), and that differentiated them in my mind from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who, as far as I know, did not have family in the wars (but I'm open to correction on this).

There were other factors as well: my enthusiasm about Ron Paul; my reading about anti-war conservatism; Bill Clinton's discussion of the waste of money that was occurring in Iraq; the fact that politicians with stellar military records were speaking out against the Iraq War, and efforts to smear them were becoming old, if not tacky (which is an understatement, I know); how Halliburton was costing taxpayers a lot of money; the Iraqi woman in Fahrenheit 9/11 who lost a loved one as a result of our bombing and pleaded to Allah for justice; etc.  I still believe that there is more to the story than the "Bush lied, people died" mantra that leftists used to repeat.  But I concluded that there was more to reality than what I was hearing from the Bush Administration and right-wing media, too.

The Real Romney 11

I finished The Real Romney, by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.  My latest reading covered Mitt Romney's run for President in 2008, as Romney gets into an altercation with a reporter at Staples over lobbyists in his campaign, and John McCain accuses Romney of being a flip-flopper.  After the heated campaign, Romney and McCain became friends.  Although Romney was "disciplined" and "straitlaced" and "didn't swear or drink," and McCain was "fiery" and "tempestuous" and had "seen a bit more of life" as "a former navy man" (Kranish and Helman's words on page 323), the two found commonalities, such as family connections to Arizona and a desire to escape the shadow of an important father (for Mitt, it was George, and for McCain, it was his admiral father).  McCain did not pick Romney for his running mate, however, because McCain did not know Romney that well, plus McCain was looking for a game-changer, which he thought he had found when he selected Sarah Palin.

According to Kranish and Helman, Romney in 2012 ran his campaign a little differently from how he ran it in 2008.  Romney had written a book (No Apology) where he set forth his positions, thereby providing him with a response when people said that they did not know what he believed or that he had not defined himself.  Romney also did not talk as much about social issues but focused on the economy.  Romney did not spend tons of money on the Iowa strawpoll in 2012, as he had in 2008.  And Romney was becoming more comfortable reaching out to the voters, which was more of a challenge for him in previous campaigns.

I agree with Kranish and Helman that Romney's 2012 campaign differs from his 2008 campaign.  Romney's Mormonism does not come up as much in the public discourse, perhaps because we already know that Romney is a Mormon, so why keep talking about it?  And Romney is a little less of BS-er, as he was in 2008 at Staples, when he said lobbyists helped his campaign but did not run it, as if that made a difference.  An exception would be how Romney is handling his record at Bain Capital.  Kranish and Helman depict Romney as a shrewd and intelligent administrator, which makes his handling of his Bain Capital record rather puzzling.  Bain Capital has come up before when Romney has run for public office (i.e., in his 1994 Senate race), so wouldn't you expect him by now to know how to handle it better when an opponent brings it up?

Tim Pawlenty's Courage to Stand 9

In my latest reading of Tim Pawlenty's Courage to Stand, Pawlenty talks about how he was on the list to be John McCain's running mate in 2008, John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin instead, and the problems that Pawlenty believes are inherent in President Barack Obama's bailouts and deficits.  Here are the passages that stood out to me, along with my comments:

"[John McCain would] wake up and hit the road with a big Starbucks coffee in his hand, and he'd have a story or a wisecrack for everything.  He'd tell these corny old jokes, and it was clear he'd been telling some of the same jokes for twenty years, but he'd laugh the same at each one of them..." (page 243).

That's something that I've heard about John McCain: that he has a sense of humor.  I remember McCain soon before the November 2008 election appearing on Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin, and, in the skit, he was selling stuff on QVC due to his campaign's lack of funds.  (See here, though I could have done without the narrator's nitpicking.)  I liked how he was willing to laugh at himself rather than taking himself too seriously.  At the same time, I've also read that McCain can be rather arrogant (see here).  Overall, though, I'd probably enjoy working on a McCain campaign, as long as I did not try to start an argument with him!  I don't think he's the type who chews people out for making mistakes, for I read in one book about the 2008 campaign that he often joked about the mistakes that his staff made.  I can't speak in absolutes, however, because I'm only commenting based on my limited reading.

"There was a funny moment earlier that morning, though.  Just after I got off the phone with McCain, I took our dog out for a walk so she could do her dog's duty...As I put the little bag over my hand and bent down to pick up her poop, I thought to myself, Well, this is the only number two I'll be picking up today" (page 259).

This is after Pawlenty learned he would not be the number-two on McCain's ticket!

"[Sarah Palin] came to Minnesota in 2010, on a Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a workday, and twelve thousand people showed up to see her.  Many of them were camped out by breakfast time so they could get in the door first upon her arrival that afternoon.  These people all had tickets.  They were all going to get in.  The only reason they camped out is because they wanted to sit up front.  There aren't five other politicians in the country who could come to town and get half that turnout" (page 263).

I agree with Pawlenty on this: Sarah Palin does draw crowds.  There was a time when I probably would have camped out so I could sit in the front row and hear her speak.  Nowadays, probably not (though it would be interesting if I could meet her at a book-signing).  I remember turning on the TV to watch Hannity's show because I knew that Ralph Reed would be on, for (while I'm not exactly right-wing) I enjoy listening to Reed's political analysis.  I was disappointed to see Sarah Palin on the program, spouting cliches and platitudes rather than sophisticated policy analysis.  There was a time in the 2008 campaign when I was trying to watch every interview Sarah Palin was in.  I think it was the Katie Couric interviews that laid that obsession to rest.

"Listening to the debate in Washington, a pattern seems to be emerging: folks at the bottom of our economy get a handout, folks at the top get a bailout, and the rest of us get our wallets out."

I don't entirely agree with this, for President Barack Obama's Administrative has been largely supportive of a number of tax cuts for the middle class.  As far as the bailouts go, I'm sympathetic with Pawlenty's critique, but I think that the bailouts were necessary to save our economy.  And I wish that Pawlenty displayed more compassion in this passage for the "folks at the bottom" rather than making the issue one of "the rest of us" vs. them.

On Amazon, I read some negative book reviews of Pawlenty's book, and some of the negative commenters were saying that Pawlenty as Governor of Minnesota raised fees, contributed to an increase in property taxes, and slashed programs that were helping the poor and the middle-class, even as he supported a low tax burden for the rich.  Maybe this is true.  I don't know.  It does seem to fit what strikes me as true regarding a number of Republicans these days: they're for decreasing the tax burden on the rich, but not so much for decreasing the financial burdens on the poor and the middle class.  There are exceptions to this (i.e., the Bush tax cuts for the middle class), but it's nevertheless an overall trend that appears to me to exist.

(UPDATE: On page 273, Pawlenty says that, when he was Governor, Minnesota capped and cut property taxes and eliminated the marriage penalty.  He says on page 274 that both the rich and the poor should be paying lower taxes, and on page 288 that he said no to health care fees that Democrats supported.)

So Palin Reads Her Palm, Obama's Still in the Game

I haven't done a political post in a while, so here we go! My first point will be conservative. My second will be liberal.

1. So Sarah Palin reads notes off of her palm. Big deal! If I could read a word off my palm and deliver an eloquent, articulate commentary (as she did), then I'd say I'm doing pretty good!

2. A few days ago, Barack Obama said that the health care bill might fail. But here's why I admire him: he's not giving up on the issue! He's not doing what Bill Clinton did: the health care bill died, so he abandoned the issue and tried to become more conservative. President Obama is reaching across party lines to do something about America's health care problems. It's probably more than a political issue for him, since he's said on more than one occasion that, while his mom was dying in the hospital, she had to haggle with her health insurance provider to get coverage for her medical care.

I hope that President Obama fights for conservative ideas---tort reform, no abortion funding, conscience provisions, competition along state lines (or at least taking measures to break up the state-by-state monopolies that health insurance companies have). He talked about these ideas in his speech to Congress about health care, but some of them died in the Congress. I hope that he commits to them, while pushing for other ways to bring down the cost of health care.

Emergence of Monotheism, Drunken El, Antichrist Defeats the Hosts, Palin on O'Reilly

Here are some odds and ends:

1. I read more of Mark Smith The Origins of Biblical Monotheism yesterday, and page 49 is crucial because it offers insight as to when Smith thinks the shift from polytheism to monotheism occurred within ancient Israel. According to Smith, Israelite religion was initially tolerant of the idea that YHWH was for Israel whereas other gods had domain over the Gentile nations (Deuteronomy 32). The reason was that, at the time, foreign religions did not threaten the worship of YHWH in Israel. This began to change in the eighth century B.C.E., however, when the neo-Assyrian empire was promoting and creating a new world order under its dominion. In response, ancient Israelite religion became more monotheistic, affirming that YHWH should be worshipped by Israel and the other nations as well.

I hope Smith fleshes this out more in the course of his book. What I've heard in my classes is that Assyria and Babylon did not force the nations they conquered to abandon their national religion. In some cases, the imperial powers actually honored the gods of the nations they conquered. But could it have been the case that Assyria and Babylon were still promulgating Assyrian and Babylonian religion, thereby challenging Israelite religion with another way to see the world? "Yes, we'll tolerate you, and your god does exist," the imperial powers may have told Israel, "But our god is still the most powerful, for we are in control of so much of the world."

2. On page 44, Smith refers to a Ugaritic document in which two pious sons hold the hand of the drunken god El. I've not read the Ugaritic source, but what Smith says reminds me of the story of Noah in Genesis 9: Noah gets drunk and lies down naked, and his sons Shem and Japheth cover him up. I wonder if this story-line was a common motif in the ancient Near East.

3. Smith talks about how many ancient Near Eastern deities in Ugaritic literature were seen as stars. Such a belief occurs in the Bible (e.g., Isaiah 14:13). Smith cites a passage that somewhat baffles me, indicating that perhaps I should see what some commentaries have to say: Daniel 8:9-11 states that the little horn (Antiochus Epiphanes) grew to the hosts of heaven and cast some of them down. I wonder how the author of Daniel believes that the little horn did that. What goes through my mind is II Thessalonians 2:4, which states that the man of sin will exalt himself above all that is called god, sitting in God's temple as if he is God. Maybe the Antichrist (if you want to call him that) will cast down the hosts of heaven by undermining their authority and banning their worship, as he demands worship only for himself. Also, he may discredit the gods of other nations as he conquers their countries.

4. I watched some of the Bill O'Reilly interview with Sarah Palin on Greta. O'Reilly was grilling Palin over her lack of governmental experience, and she replied, "I never heard you criticize Joe Biden's lack of experience." O'Reilly replied, "But Joe Biden has lots of experience."

Palin seemed to be talking to O'Reilly like he was part of the liberal media, even though many consider him to be a conservative voice. Also, her reference to Joe Biden was kind of a goof-up on her part. Good thing that O'Reilly gave her a hard interview. She'll need practice on that.

Vorlage to I Kings 3, Palin on Oprah, Stupack Interview

Here are three items:

1. I'm continuing to make my way through David Carr's From D to Q, which is about Solomon's dream at Gibeon in I Kings 3, as well as early Jewish interpretations of it. Yesterday, I was reading about the pre-Deuteronomistic Vorlage to the story: the story as it existed before the Deuteronomist added his contribution. My impression (which could be wrong) is that Carr believes the original story was (at least in part) a justification for the sanctuary at Gibeon. Solomon had a dream there, and God appears to people in dreams or epiphanies at sanctuaries that he recognizes: Shechem (Genesis 12:6-9), Mamre (Genesis 18:1-16), Beer-lahai-roi (Genesis 16:7-13), Gerar (Genesis 26:2-5), Beersheba (Genesis 26:24-25), Bethel (Genesis 28:10-22), Shiloh (I Samuel 3:10-14), and Jerusalem (II Samuel 24:15-25; I Chronicles 22:1; II Chronicles 3:1).

The Deuteronomist has a slight problem with Solomon worshipping at Gibeon, for he believes that Jerusalem is the place God chose to place his name, and is thus the only legitimate sanctuary. Consequently, in I Kings 3, he sees a need to apologize for Solomon's activity at Gibeon: people worshipped at high places at the time, for Solomon hadn't yet built the temple for God's name. It's ironic that the Deuteronomist feels he has to apologize for Solomon's behavior, for his general stance is that God let the Israelites do what was right in their own eyes before the time of the temple (Deuteronomy 12).

Carr believes that parts of I Kings 3:15 belong to the pre-Deuteronomistic Vorlage. There, Solomon goes to Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant is located and offers sacrifices. Carr maintains that the part about Solomon offering sacrifices is from the hand of the Vorlage, whereas the part about Solomon doing so in Jerusalem is the contribution of the Deuteronomist. If this is true, it sort of ruins an interesting thought I read in a commentary during my weekly quiet time on I Kings 3: God gave Solomon wisdom, and he immediately decided to worship at Jerusalem instead of the high places.

2. I watched Sarah Palin on Oprah a few days ago, and I thought Sarah did an awesome job. She was articulate and glib. She answered Oprah's questions. Oprah conducted herself professionally, but she appeared uncomfortable. My favorite part of the interview was when Oprah asked Sarah if she felt snubbed because Oprah didn't invite her onto the show during the campaign. Sarah replied that she didn't have time to think about it at the time. I loved it! Not everyone thinks Oprah is the center of the universe? Say it ain't so!

3. I've found myself cussing Chris Matthews out a couple of times this week. I like his show because Pat Buchanan is on it, and I also enjoyed Chris' interview of Congressman Stupack, the Democrat whose amendment to the health care bill would ban federal funding for abortion. Stupack sounded level-headed and reasonable, and he answered Chris' questions in a forthright manner. Chris often tries to corner people and read sinister things into what people (particularly conservatives) say. But he appeared a lot more serious and a lot less self-righteous in the Stupack interview.

Earth Day Ramblings

For some reason, the environment has been on my mind this week. I don’t think it’s because today is Earth Day, since that fact didn’t occur to me until last night. But it’s pretty ironic.

On Sunday morning, I watched This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and George was interviewing our fearless Republican leader in the U.S. House, John Boehner. George asked Boehner whether or not there was a Republican plan to address climate change, and Boehner responded (1.) that cows send carbon into the atmosphere, so it’s not dangerous, (2.) that we don’t really know if humans are the cause of global warming, (3.) that we need to get other nations onboard to address the problem, and (4.) that Obama’s plan taxes companies and ships jobs overseas.

For (1.), environmentalists can respond that we don’t want too much carbon in the atmosphere, which is what happens when we add automobiles and smokestacks to cows and our breathing. What’s interesting, though, is that people laughed at Ronald Reagan in 1980 for suggesting that trees and Mount St. Helens cause a lot of pollution, and now the federal government does studies on the natural causes of global warming. Bobby Jindal made fun of them in his response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union!

(2.) and (3.) contradict each other, since, if we’re not the cause of global warming, then we can’t do anything to stop it. Sarah Palin made the same blunder when she said, “It’s not important what causes climate change, but that we do something about it” (not an exact quote, but that was the drift).

I don’t entirely understand (4.), since I’m not sure where the tax comes in. Under Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal, companies that emit more carbon will have to buy credits from those who don’t emit as much. The ones buying the credits will then pass on the cost of purchasing them to their consumers, or they will cut other company costs. That will mean higher energy prices and/or a loss of jobs. But that’s not exactly a tax, since the government isn’t getting any money out of the deal (as far as I know).

On Sunday night, I ate dinner with a relative of mine whose job is evaluating smokestacks. He said that companies are afraid of Obama’s proposals to combat climate change.

On Tuesday morning, I was reading the April 4 Newsweek while I was waiting to see my therapist. First, I read an article by Newt Gingrich. He explained how Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal will lead to higher energy prices, but his thesis was more-or-less “drill, baby, drill, and develop renewable energy while you’re at it.” Newt is a Republican who has some level of environmental consciousness, so I wonder if he thinks global warming is caused by humans. If so, then isn’t “drill, baby, drill” harmful to the environment? Maybe he sees drilling as a temporary solution for our energy needs while we seek ways to produce renewable energy.

Next, I read an article that said global warming isn’t even a problem. Colder climates are getting warmer, already warm climates aren’t getting that much hotter, and the threat of global cooling is being warded off. Plus, if our carbon emissions ever become problematic, then we can plant more trees to suck them up! So said an article in liberal Newsweek!

George Will has also asked why we should fear climate change, since who’s to say that one climate is better than another? And I’ve read about plants and shrubs underneath sheets of ice in Antarctica (I think), indicating that it wasn’t always cold there.

But there are possible downsides to global warming. There are scientists who suggest that global warming was the cause of many of our recent hurricanes, since heat causes water to move faster. Fortunately, we’ve not had as many hurricanes lately, but they were coming one after another for a while! And not having a long, cold winter prevents certain diseases from getting killed off. Sure, we have cold days during the winter time, and conservatives like to say when those happen, “Man, Al Gore talks about global warming, but it’s FREEZING right now!” But here in Cincinnati during the winter, it’s the North Pole one day, and a tropical island the next.

Afterwards, I read an article about Carol Browner, President Obama’s energy czar. She was Bill Clinton’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and she tried to be really tough on businesses at the time. Now, she is much more pragmatic and open to compromise. From what the Newsweek article was telling me, she’s not a hypocrite, for she lives a pretty green lifestyle and walks to work whenever she can. So she’s not like Al Gore, who lectures us about climate change right before taking off in his private jet!

The article said that a lot of companies don’t find environmental regulations to be all that expensive. That may be how some of them see the situation, but, as I said above, my relative told me that many companies are afraid of Obama’s proposals to combat global warming!

Finally, I read an article by Thomas Friedman, a guru of the liberal left. At Jewish Theological Seminary, students quoted “Thomas Friedman” with solemn reverence in their voice! He said that the search for renewable energy flopped in the 1970’s because we had an oil glut at the beginning of Reagan’s first term, and one of Reagan’s first acts as President was to remove the solar panels from the White House. I often cited the U.S. government’s failure on renewable energy as an example of the inefficiency of government. But government was probably inefficient in that case because it had no will. At least that’s an alternative explanation.

Friedman also said that Americans are not that eager to address climate change, which he attributed to two factors: (1.) Al Gore is the symbol of the environmental movement, and (2.) people are more responsive to combatting global warming when the poll question is asked a certain way. I think it was when I was reading this that my therapist was ready to see me.

I hope you got something out of today’s meanderings! Have a good Earth Day, or just “day,” if you’re not an environmentalist.

Since Ann Coulter's Been Cancelled from the Today Show...

...I want to share with you this! Couric vs. Coulter. It's the Katie Couric/Ann Coulter smackdown. This is Ann Coulter on the Today Show after her book Slander came out.

Katie can't beat up on Ann the way she did on Sarah Palin. When she throws Ann a hardball, Ann not only hits it out of the park. She throws one back, putting Katie on the defensive. And Katie Couric obviously gets annoyed during the course of the interview, her phony grin notwithstanding.

In my opinion, Ann owns Katie in this interview.

The Left's been going out of its way to crush dissent this week. Anyone hear about those new Pelosi rules that will limit Republicans' ability to propose alternative legislation or add amendments? See here. Whenever I hear something like that, my heart rejoices that there are people like Ann Coulter who aren't afraid to fight back.

Perception and Narrative

There's one thing that Sarah Palin has taught me: People emplot reality in different ways.

I was reminded of that as I read various stories today on the feuds among McCain's staff. Some of his staff anonymously portray Sarah Palin as a diva who was out for herself. They say she didn't accept their help to prepare her for the Katie Couric interview, since she thought she'd do fine on her own.

But another aide says she didn't accept their help because she was booked--her schedule was full, and there was no time!

So one group sees Sarah as supercilious, while another offers a different explanation. They are two different interpretations of one reality.

We've seen that a lot with Sarah Palin. She said she killed the Bridge to Nowhere, while her detractors say "no." In her mind, she technically did kill it, since she decided not to supplement the federal funds for its construction.

She said she supported sanctions against the Sudan, but her opponents say "no." After all, one of her officials said it was a bad idea, and she only supported it when it was too late. In her mind, however, she did support it at some point, so she was part of the coalition that wanted to do something about the situation.

One reality. Different perceptions.

The Democrats Won

Okay, the Democrats won. It happens! I grew up under a strong Democratic Congress. Here are some reactions:

1. President-elect Obama, please don't raise taxes on anyone. You may be flexible on this, since you said at one point in your campaign that we shouldn't raise taxes in a bad economy.

2. Obama will most likely appoint liberals to the courts. This may be good for certain vulnerable people in society. But it will not be good for the unborn or traditional marriage. Oh well. At least Bush got two Supreme Court appointments in!

3. Governor Palin, go back to Alaska and be an outstanding governor! Also, become a national columnist and a pundit. That will keep you in the national eye, but not enough for people to critique your every move. You'll also gain knowledge on national issues and the ability to articulate it better. Then, you'll be a powerful Presidential candidate in 2012.

4. One good thing about the Democrats being in power: they'll have no one else to blame if they mess things up. The President won't be able to blame the Congress, nor the Congress the President, since both are from the same party. The Republicans will eventually get more power--I just don't know when.

5. On that note, I'm somewhat curious about what will happen under a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. The last time this happened was under Bill Clinton, but that didn't last too long. Before that, there was Jimmy Carter, who was a disaster. And the economy wasn't so bad when LBJ was President and had a Democratic Congress. What will be the effect of Democratic policies?

6. I will be praying for President-elect Obama, that he won't be assassinated. I talked with someone who worked on a secret service agent's home, and the agent said they're planning to increase Obama's protection because there are kooky elements out there. I want Obama to have his chance to lead. Plus, I'd feel really badly for his family if something happened to him.

7. I'll also be praying that Obama will have wisdom. His lack of experience still bothers me. He's only been in the Senate for four years! He's untested. That may be why it's good he has Joe Biden by his side, as much as I disagree with him. At the same time, surrounding himself with establishment politicians and bureaucrats contradicts his agenda of change, but I guess that's a dilemma any President faces: he wants experienced people, and experienced people are in the political establishment.

8. Conservatives wondering what to do: hang close to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. I became a Rush-devotee, or "dittohead," after Bill Clinton won in 1992. It will give you a chance to laugh at the Democrats, and it will be a friendly place for you as you endure the mockery of liberal friends, family, and coworkers. Plus, it's fun being a critic! That's one thing I thought I'd miss out on when the Republicans won in 1994 and 2000.

9. I can't for the life of me find the results of certain races. Did Al Franken win in Minnesota? Did the gay marriage ban pass in California?

10. Indiana went blue. That's pretty sad! Now, I can't boast about being from red-state Indiana, or tell my liberal colleagues, "You have to see where I'm coming from--I'm from red state Indiana."

Has There Ever...

Has there ever been a Presidential election in which the candidates campaign down to the very last minute? I'm still getting automated calls, as well as calls from Obama volunteers. And Obama and McCain are still stumping. Amazing!

While I was waiting in line to vote this morning, a smiling African-American young man was handing out Obama leaflets. Another African-American man who was standing in front of me said about him, "It's too early for him to be smiling!" Obama may be ahead in the polls, but no one sees this election as a sure thing, at least not at the present moment. Are Obama supporters afraid that Obama will lose on account of his race? I don't know.

I have a few posts to write--academic stuff. While I do that, I'll be listening to Sarah Palin's convention speech. That was when McCain looked like a shoe-in! It was before those disastrous Palin interviews. I might as well reminisce while Rome burns!

Thoughts on the Election

I voted this morning! I was planning on sleeping in and going to the polls at 10, but I couldn't sleep because I was in my self-pity mode, so I got up at 5:30. When I got to my polling location, I didn't have to wait that long to vote, and I was moved to the front of a line because my name was in the N-Z category.

I was right on top of things, and the election worker commended me for coming in prepared. I have an Indiana ID, which doesn't count as voter identification in Ohio, so I was ready to present my phone bill and a bank statement. I then pointed out my name in the registration book, and I signed in.

We vote by filling in squares. That takes care of the hanging-chad and Diebold computer problems. I hope I filled in the squares completely. I can be a perfectionist on that sort of thing! In any case, I made sure that I thoroughly filled in the square beside "McCain/Palin"!

That's right--I didn't experience a flash of light that compelled me to vote for Barack Obama. It's interesting: I can be fairly open-minded when I'm writing on my blog or thinking about the candidates and issues. But, when I enter the voting booth, I am rigidly right-wing! I go with my gut instinct. Some of this is planned, since I enter the voting booth with my Republican flyer, which tells me who all the Republicans are. And I go with my gut on things I'm not too sure about. If it's a tax, I vote against it, whether it's for schools or jails. I also voted against a bond for conservation. Why put our city into debt? I probably would have voted against Sarah Palin's sports center had I lived in Wasilla at the time!


One thing I'd like to say: I'm different this election year than I was in 2006 and 2004. When Obama representatives called me, I politely told them I was voting for John McCain, and they were cool with that. In the first case, a woman called me and asked if I'd be voting for Senator Obama. I replied, "No, I'll be voting for John McCain, but I have a lot of respect for Senator Obama. I even read his book, Audacity of Hope! Besides, I expect you guys to win, anyway." She still encouraged me to go to the polls and vote my conscience.

This was a middle-aged African-American woman, and I kind of like that group of people--maybe because I've gone to church with middle-aged African-American woman, or I like their characters on TV, or they seem so nice, no-nonsense, and sincere. One group I can't stand is liberal college students. That may be because I never fit in with my age group, and I resented their self-righteous liberal dogmatism, which treated other opinions as if they didn't matter.

But, when a young white woman called me and asked if I would be voting for Obama, I was polite again. I said, "No, I'm voting for John McCain." She thanked me for my time, and I said, "Thank you for participating in the political process." She laughed at that!

I never got calls in 2004--maybe because I rarely answered my phone back then. In 2006, I got one from moveon.org, and another from the Sierra Club. I drank at the time, so I got into a big debate with the moveon.org guy while I was drunk, trying to watch Phyllis Schlafly on C-Span. The conversation ended pleasantly, though. In the case of the Sierra Club lady, she called me when I had just come home after a hard day at school. "As you probably know, our elected officials aren't doing much about our nation's energy needs," she told me. I replied, "They would if the Democrats didn't get in the way!" She wasn't all that friendly after that--she was like Jimmy Carter at the 1980 debate, who seemed baffled that anyone could believe the way conservatives do.

I think I'm more polite and open-minded now because I don't hang around my school as much (I don't have classes.) Most of the rabbinic students are dogmatically liberal, and being around dogmatically liberal people makes me, well, dogmatically conservative. At the same time, I'll be going to a meeting tomorrow morning, and I'm not looking forward to the liberal gloating I'll most likely hear!

Be sure to vote--for John McCain!

Steve Foss' Prophetic Warning

I came across this on my Christian dating site: A Prophetic Warning from Pastor Steve Foss. Pastor Foss attempts to boost his prophetic credentials when he claims that he predicted certain events successfully in the past. Now, he asserts that Barack Obama as President will use government to attack those who disagree with him. He points to the attacks on Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber as evidence.

I found this intriguing. I often wonder if the Barack Obama we see before us is all there is to the man. I've heard right-wing pundits claim that he has "thugs," that he's been part of corrupt political establishments, and that he was involved in trying to undermine Sarah Palin in Alaska. I don't know how true this is. Was he or his campaign personally involved in these sorts of activities, or are they done by other elements of the Left? Does Barack have a Greg Stillson side to him (Stephen King's Dead Zone)?

I read a column a while back by Chuck Norris (yes, the Churck Norris), which said Obama was not fit to be President because his personality is too conciliatory. I can't picture that sort of person taking away our constitutional rights.

I remember a John Birch lady telling me in 1992 that Bill Clinton had a document to take away our constitutional freedoms. He never did that. But Bill Clinton did have his thugs, and he tried to undermine many people who disagreed with him (by digging into their pasts, etc.).

It also seems like there are different prophets. A while back I read a prophet who said Barack Obama has a hunger for righteousness. So which prophet is right? The one who portrays Obama as essentially decent, or the one who sees him as an Antichrist sort of figure?

Eagleburger on Palin, Obama

I wanted to write some posts yesterday, but my Internet doesn't seem to work at nights. I'll have to call my provider on Monday to see what's wrong.

I watched Mike Huckabee last night, and Lawrence Eagleburger was on. Eagleburger was one of George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State. He recently said that Sarah Palin is not ready to assume the responsibilities of President. Or at least that's what the media headlines told us. Actually, the article I read (Ex-chief diplomat says Palin not ready for top job) quotes Eagleburger as saying that Palin has a good mind and can learn really quickly. He even said she has the potential to become a "genius." But the media are good at taking complex things and limiting them to a flashy headline, crafted according to their bias, of course.

They've done this before. When the Alaska legislature came out with the report on troopergate, there was nuance in it, and the AP acknowledged that fact in the story (sort of). But the headline said, "Report: Palin Abused Power." Hopefully, people read more than the headlines. But I wouldn't count on it. I don't all of the time.

On Huckabee's show, Eagleburger called Barack Obama a "charlatan" because of his fund-raising and ACORN. I wonder if the AP will hype this up, the way it did his comments on Palin. Or are they simply harping on his Palin comments because they want to point out all of the big names who somewhat believe that Palin is not qualified?

Where My Expectations Have Failed

I've contemplated writing this post for some time, but I could think of arguments against what I wanted to say, so I put it off. In February, I wrote a post entitled Can McCain Pull It Off?, in which I asserted that John McCain could win the Presidency if he played his cards right. I said that, if he ran against Obama, he should focus on his experience and his role as a reformer. That would look good against Obama's inexperience, as well as nullify Obama's claim to be the candidate of "change," since McCain himself has bucked the Washington establishment. McCain would then look like someone who could bring true reform--with the necessary experience backing him up.

You see, back then, I didn't expect what I see today. When I was in the shower thinking about politics, I thought that the Democratic candidate (whom I imagined would be Hillary) wouldn't be able to tie John McCain to George W. Bush, at least not successfully. After all, John McCain did so many reformer things: he sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, he opposed earmarks in deed and not just word, he supported caps on CO2 emissions, he favored the importation of cheap prescription drugs, and the list goes on. I remember 2004, when John McCain was mentioned as a possible running mate for John Kerry. Imagine that! The Jib-Jab "DC-Land" cartoon says it all: McCain plays both sides in DC!

But McCain has been tied to George W. Bush and Washington-as-usual politics, and people don't seem to remember John McCain's status as a maverick, as someone a lot of conservatives (including myself) were suspicious of.

I was watching Bill Moyers last night. Even though I think he's a shameless liberal who unfairly bashed Sean Hannity, I have a cozy feeling about him, probably because I liked his Joseph Campbell interviews and his series on religion and politics. He had two people on, who weren't exactly on the right-wing of the American electorate. One of them was a woman from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Foundation, and she characterized John McCain as an actual reformer who's gone against his own party on numerous occasions. He supported taking on HMOs with a Patients' Bill of Rights, after all! But her speculation was that McCain has not capitalized on this because it would alienate his conservative base.

The same sorts of thoughts have gone through my mind this past couple of weeks, but I've been hesitant to write them because, technically-speaking, McCain has done what I said he should do: he's mentioned his experience, and he's discussed his role as a reformer. How many times have he and Governor Palin used the work "maverick"? But there's a difference between saying something and truly communicating it.

Sometimes, McCain hasn't gone into detail about his record because he assumes that everyone knows it. "Everyone knows that I'm called the sheriff," he remarked in the first debate. But there have been times when he's made a conscious effort to present himself as a reformer, as when he criticized Barack Obama's support for earmarks, and contrasted his (McCain's) opposition to the corporate welfare-laden Bush energy bill with Barack Obama's ("that one's") support for it.

Maybe some of it has to do with what has become the theme of his campaign, at least over the past month. McCain has gone negative. As of late, he's not focused as much on his experience and his record as a reformer, but on attacking Barack Obama--his cronies, his liberalism, and his connection with Ayers. I can understand why he did this. John Kerry didn't go negative that much in 2004, and his campaign sank. When I try to imagine what it would be like if McCain hadn't gone negative, I envision him calling himself a "maverick" in his stale mayonnaise voice, while people flock to Obama's fresh youth and charisma. McCain has seen a need to redefine Obama--as someone who will not bring change because he's tied to elements of a corrupt political establishment, as a person who's further to the left than he's letting on. But that strategy isn't working, and it looks like desperation.

Also, his activity during the bailout crisis hurt him. I don't think Obama shined in that moment either, but keeping a low profile ended up helping him, believe it or not. McCain thrust himself into the spotlight and claimed he'd save the economy, only to run into some pretty unruly mavericks in their own right: House conservatives. His stunt fizzled pretty fast!

His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate had a lot of strengths. She's a compelling speaker. She's a reformer in her own state, in that she took on her own party's establishment. She has a unique story. She's a gem. You don't find too many people like her! But if only she had more executive experience. Then, the experience card would be more in the McCain camp. And she'd still be a Washington outsider, since she's Governor of a remote state--Alaska. But McCain could only work with the cards that he's been dealt: he thought certain strengths were worth the pick, even though there were a few glaring weaknesses.

I don't know who's going to win Tuesday night, since there is a lot of hatred out there towards Barack Obama. But there was a lot of hatred for Bill Clinton, and he won both times. We'll have to see.