Sweet Jesus, Keith Olbermann is my hero.
This in reponse to Dubya’s ludicrous (and, frankly, insulting) claim to have given up his golf game in solidarity with families of Iraq vets. (Which, it turns out, he didn’t.)
This video is in two parts:
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In the fall of 2004, about a month before the presidential election, a dear friend from college told me he was voting for George W. Bush because, "I just think it’s wise to vote for someone who’s a believer."
Never in my life have I wanted so badly to kick another human being in the balls.
Amy Sullivan’s book The Party Faithful examines the origins of the idea that we have in America that the Republican party is the party that Jesus would join, that good Christian people should always cast their lot with the GOP. It examines how the Democratic party became - largely due to its own efforts or lack thereof - to be regarded as the party of out-of-touch elites and secularists.
This distinction, argues Sullivan, is inaccurate and harmful, not only to the Democratic party but to American politics in general. The truth is that a majority of Democratic voters - myself included - describe themselves as "religious" and attend church regularly. Our votes, in fact, reflect our religious background and beliefs, and to the extent that Republicans have been able to capture a majority of religious votes is just as much due to efforts to scare ordinary Americans over abortion and gay marriage as it is due to the refusal on the part of Democratic Party leaders to engage churchgoing voters.
All this is changing, Sullivan says, pointing to the disastrous showing of John Kerry among Catholics in the 2004 election and the failure on the part of his campaign to answer questions from voters on the subject of religion and public policy. Sullivan points out that the major Democratic contenders are all engaging these issues head-on and changing the dialogue in this country around issues of religion and politics.
For example, instead of constantly going on the defensive about abortion, Democratic candidates and consultants are actively engaging evangelical and Catholic constituents about "pro-life" issues, attempting to expand the definition of what "pro-life" means. It means not only making abortions rare - through safe-sex education and help for mothers who fear they will not be able to provide for a child - to eliminating life-destroying problems like poverty, global warming, pollution, the death penalty and war. They point out that Republicans who march blindly and ardently toward war, toward the death penalty, and away from providing assistance for people that will help prevent abortions, cannot be called truly pro-life. They’re changing the dialogue because the dialogue needs to be changed, and in the process they’re opening the eyes of the electorate to the fact that there are more pressing matters in America than abortion and gay marriage.
The book is a fascinating look at why religion does matter to all voters, and why it should. Sullivan herself is an evangelical Democrat whose work is inspired by a deep, personal faith both in Christ and in Democratic party principles. This sets it apart from other books on the subject, many of which are written from a detached religious perspective. For Sullivan (and for me) this stuff is personal and vital; it’s the question, largely, of what it means to be a Christian in America.
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See more funny videos at CollegeHumor
I didn’t put this up to egg anyone on, and I certainly didn’t put it up so I could have some long, drawn-out argument open up in my comments. I just really, really like it. Thanks to my nephew, Eric, for showing it to me.
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This from Salon’s Heather Havrilesky:
America’s not on top anymore, because we’ve been exporting nothing but lukewarm fajita platters and spray-tanned celebrity jackasses for decades now. The days of closet-reorganizing professionals and Botox parties and hiring a personal trainer for your nanny’s personal chef are over … and thank God for that.
Full text of the article available at Salon. I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment, even though, as a public relations professional, the knowledge that my specific skill set has no intrinsic value to anyone at all scares the bejesus out of me.
Sam Friday coming after lunch.
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If you haven’t yet heard or read the speech linked above, please take 35 minutes of your time and listen to it. If you don’t have a 35-minute attention span, you can read the entire text of the remarks at Salon.com.
I took a speechwriting class in grad school, and beyond that I have a fair amount of practice and experience writing speeches. This one blows the very practice out of the water. It really is amazing and transformative; I really want this man to be my president.
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People are constantly asking me what I must be smoking that I, as a gay man, live in Oklahoma. Similarly, most of the gays I know endlessly bitch about how awful and repressive and stupid Oklahoma is, what with its megachurches and Hummers and lack of decent public transportation and endless suburban sprawl and with neighborhood after neighborhood of identical houses with GOP signs in their yards. Most of these people then move to Dallas, with its megachurches and Hummers and lack of decent public transportation and endless suburban sprawl with neighborhood after neighborhood of identical houses with GOP signs in their yards.
This week one of our state legislators, a lovely, crazy woman named Sally Kern, went on a tirade. You’ve probably heard - she said that homosexuals pose a greater threat to America than terrorists or Islam and that they’re busy in the schools recruiting two year olds. Though to be fair, that’s only so we can eat them. BECAUSE NOTHING GETS YOU READY FOR A NICE BOUT OF SATAN-WORSHIPING, WESTERN-CULTURE DESTROYING GAY SEX THAN THE TASTE OF A TWO YEAR OLD SMOTHERED IN BARBECUE SAUCE.
Anyway, here. Have a look:
As I get older I find myself less and less angered by things like this. If Sally Kern wants to let something that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with her life get her that much in a frenzy, fine. I hate what she says, but she does, in America, have a right to say it, and if someone hears this and can come up with no better response than to send the woman a death threat, then, well, that’s where we part ways.
I think what makes me the most irritable about this is that it makes Oklahoma look like some backwater place where homos are hunted down and lynched, where creativity is stifled and we don’t want anyone in our midst who is even the slightest bit different than us. Oklahoma’s not like that at all - it’s not gay hell, it’s not bereft of artistic or creative people and it’s certainly nowhere near as boring as, say, Connecticut. But to the degree that it is unable to attract a higher caliber of creative and productive people, businesses and industries, it is because of people like Sally Kern, who are constantly going out of their way to make people feel as unwelcome, unwanted and unloved as she possibly can. You know. Just like Jesus wants.
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I’ve gotten behind on my book reviews for this year, so please forgive me for throwing so many at you so quickly.
Just after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, I listened to Barack Obama’s personal memoir, Dreams From My Father. I’d been electrified by his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and figured it was only a matter of time before he set his sights higher and ran for president. I thought - pardon me - that it would be a bit audacious of him to go for it in 2008, or, if he did, to actually think he had a chance at the nomination. Hillary, said the conventional wisdom, was a sure bet, and perhaps, I told myself, Obama was hoping to become her running mate, a la John Edwards in 2004.
This may even have been the case at that time, and early in this race. I’ve elucidated my reasons for voting for Obama wildly on this website. The main one, of course, is that while I love and support and agree with Hillary Clinton, while I think she’s brilliant, I don’t believe that the section of this country who hate her would allow her to lead. I think they would dig and dig, Swift Boat and Swift Boat and Lewinsky her into another national nightmare. It’s not her; it’s them, the Newt Gingriches and Ken Starrs and Karl Roves who have no problem dragging this country through baseless scandal after baseless scandal just to make up for their tiny, tiny penises.
But I digress. This is a book review.
Here’s the deal: Dreams From My Father was fascinating because it was written before Obama’s star had even begun to rise. The Audacity of Hope is excellent as it outlines the reasoning behind liberal politics more clearly and eloquently than almost any book I’ve ever read (or, in this case, listened to). But don’t get confused about what it is: in this day and age, any politician hoping to rise beyond a certain level pretty much has to release this type of book. George W. Bush even has one. The P.R. and money are just too good to resist making this type of move. As political memoirs go, The Audacity of Hope is excellent, filled with wonderful anecdotes both from Obama’s life and from the lives of people he’s met on the campaign trail. Also, as an audiobook, well - he deserved the Grammy, for sure, if for no other reason than for his spot-on impersonation of George W. Bush.
Still, if you want to know more about the man, about the mind behind the phenomenon, I’d go for Dreams From My Father. It’s less guarded, less political, more personal and interesting, less philosophical, and yet, more insightful.
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This is a scan of the front page of today’s Oklahoman, stating that a voter should bring a Voter ID card to the polling place in order to vote. While yes, this would be a useful thing to have on you, the truth of the matter is that you only need to bring a state-issued identification like, oh, say, your driver’s license.
It’s no secret that our hometown newspaper is the worst in the nation and, while not the right-wing "agenda" paper it once was, has gotten worse over the last decade or so. Still, I like to believe that this is just a factual error caused by a journalist who didn’t bother to double-check his initial assumption about Oklahoma’s voting laws. It’s still irresponsible and dangeorus; remember all those studies after 2000 that showed that many (almost entirely minority) voters were turned away from the polls for not having voter ID cards, despite the fact that they weren’t required?
I was allowed to vote this morning by just showing my photo ID. All the people around me were only ever asked for their licenses as well.
I just phoned the State Election Board about this. They informed me that a Voter ID card is only required if a person is voting for the first time after registering BY MAIL. If you registered in person, or have voted in your precinct before, a state-issued photo ID will suffice, but is not even required. And let’s say you DID register by mail, it IS your first time voting, and you can’t find your card. YOU’RE STILL ALLOWED TO CAST A PROVISIONAL BALLOT.
Hey, I have an idea! Let’s all send an e-mail to the Oklahoman making sure they get it the hell right, so they don’t make the same stupid mistake in November, when the consequences could be much, much worse.
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So, I’m supporting Barack Obama. No secret there. About a month ago, Salon.com’s Gary Kamiya wrote a piece that summed up very well my reasons for supporting Barack over Hillary Clinton and, then, John Edwards:
…after Bush, the appeal of throwing the dice is irresistible. If Obama wins in November, a political miracle will have happened: We will have gone from following an authoritarian fool into an insane war to electing a progressive black president, without missing a beat. Can it happen? Who knows? But if America can go down that far into the dark side, perhaps we can emerge just as quickly into the light. And after eight years without it, I don’t want to be the one to bet against hope.
It’s worth reading the entire piece, but I wanted to add my two cents on the eve of Super Tuesday.
I’m going to go ahead and quote Oprah, which is something I never thought I’d do on this blog. But she said something that stuck with me: "I’m not voting for Obama because he’s black. I’m voting for Obama because he’s brilliant."
While I do love the symbolic aspects of the fact that next November will likely bring us either a black or a female president, I find it a little ridiculous when someone tells me they’re voting for Hillary just because she’s a woman, or for Barack just because he’s black. And while I think Hillary would be a wonderful president, I think she lacks the unifying element that Obama has.
The country’s been too wounded for too long for people to say, "I don’t want to vote for someone who’s going to work with Republicans!" It’s petulant, it’s petty, and it’s harmful. It’s time for us to be adults. It’s time to do repair some of the divisions in this country. We can do it without losing who we are as liberals; I believe this deeply. Again, from Kamiya’s piece:
…anger can itself become a toxin, self-perpetuating and self-destructive. It must be expressed — but then it must be overcome. To fall into a state of permanent anger, of righteous indignation, is to become the very enemy you are fighting. This is the error that George W. Bush made when he launched his Manichean "war on terror," and turned America into a country far more like its fundamentalist enemies than it had ever been before. Barack Obama’s unique appeal is that he allows voters — Democrats, independents and fed-up Republicans alike — to simultaneously express their anger and transcend it.
Anyway, I hope that we can all at least put aside the petty requirements of identity politics - I received four messages this week about how much more "pro-gay" Hillary is than Obama, which is ridiculous, as their LGBT statements are identical, and we should all be voting for a whole platform instead of a single issue. I’d support Hillary in November, and I honestly hope we have them both on the same ticket no matter what, but tomorrow I’m rolling the dice on Obama. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.
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