Palin's Mind: Microcosm of America?

If Sarah Palin is a microcosm of America, we are so screwed. In her recent interview with Sarah Palin, Katie Couric asked Palin what news sources she read that helped shape her world view. Palin could not or would not give a specific answer. If someone asked me this question, I could respond with how I began reading The New Republic in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the New York Review of Books in the early 1990s; these two publications influenced my world view, which tends to be fairly liberal socially, though I read with interest the conservative voices that were sometimes represented in TNR at the time. Over the years I have subscribed off and on to The Atlantic and The New Yorker and for some time to Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion. My husband has subscribed for years to Foreign Affairs, and I would often read articles in that journal. What I read indicates my personal interests, my hobbies: for years I subcribed to The Herbal Companion, to Granta, to The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas , to Doubletake, to The Oxford American, to The Threepenny Review, as well as other literary and art magazines as I could afford them.

I would tell Katie Couric that I've bookmarked on my computer The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Salon, the Austin-American Statesman, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Editor and Publisher, Mother Jones, The Root, among other news sources that I consult regularly.

I could tell Katie Couric how these publications continue to shape my world view. And I'm not running as VP, sidekick to what at least is purported to be the most powerful position in the world. Sarah Palin's response is very bizarre to me. Was Palin unable to remember what news sources she tends to read most of the time? Did she not want to tell us? Was she trying to hide something? Was this question unexpected, and thus Palin didn't want to misspeak, reveal something about herself she wasn't sure the campaign would be happy with? I don't know--but her response brings up all these questions to my mind.

Then Palin seemed to deliberately (or not, groan...) misunderstand the question. She turned the question around as if Couric were impugning Alaska and Alaskans, as if Couric were suggesting that newspapers aren't available in the Far North. But Couric's question was not at all about geography; it was about the mind, Sarah Palin's mind, the forming of that mind, the ideas it holds and the sources of those ideas. Just watch the video.

Farm Subsidies for Subdivisions?

Investigative reports published in The Washington Post provide more information than you might want to know about farm subsidies. That knowledge can make you even more cynical about government inefficiency and citizen greed. People who own land that was once farmed get money from the government, sometimes thousands of hundreds of dollars. According to one of the articles,

What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.

So much of our political attention is focused on welfare received by the really poor. I've heard more affluent people say many times that those on welfare "should just get a job." Yet here we have people--some not even farming, others not even farming the crops they were expected to farm, and others receiving good pay for their crops and thus not in need of government support--benefiting from a program that was originally intended as a "limited safety net for working" farmers. And this program amounts to "almost more than 50 percent more" than those receiving traditional welfare payments.

Who collects some of this money?

• 67-year-old Donald R. Matthews in El Campo, Texas, bought an 18-acre lot which was once part of a rice farm. He built a home on it and receives $1300 annually from the government--farm subsidy money.
• Residents of the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston have benefited from the farm subsidies. Over a ten-year period, Mary Ann Hudson received $191,000; Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell received $490,709.
• Absentee landlords benefit.
• Subdivisions built on farmland benefit.

When people scream about who benefits from welfare payments, they overlook the real abusers: the affluent. Unbelievable. Read the entire report: "Harvesting Cash: A Year-Long Investigation by the Washington Post, by Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul, and Sarah Cohen.

A Different Drought in Metro Atlanta

Hurricane Ike continues to affect the Gulf Coast and surrounding states. While people are trying to put their lives back together in Galveston, others as far away as Atlanta are feeling the aftershocks of the hurricane. We didn't get a drop of water out of the stormy weather, but the shutting down of refineries on the Gulf with the onslaught of first Hurricane Gustav and then Hurricane Ike has led to gas shortages here. Suddenly, Atlantans are discovering how much they depend upon Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines, from where most of their gasoline originates.

People here have been lining up at gas stations all week. They sit in line for 45 minutes or more and even get in fights. Our own household has been less impacted than many others because Tom rides MARTA to work in Atlanta, and I drive our Toyota Prius to work about 48-50 miles total every week; that comes to just a little over a gallon of gas for a Prius. I don't shop much at all, and the grocery stores which we frequent are all within two miles of the house. A good deal of our entertainment here recently has all been within walking distance, too.

Today, however, Mary-Margaret and Tom went to REI for hiking boots and to a Goodwill store where M-M likes to shop for clothes. On their way to and from the REI on I-85, they noted many gas stations without gasoline, but one on Clairmont was open, so Tom decided to stop. News reports have claimed that the shortage could last at least another week. The gas gauge on the Prius recorded less than half a tank of gas remaining. The line wasn't long, and the wait only ten minutes or so. But the owners of the gas station were limiting the amount of purchase to only $10 a car; that came to just a little over two gallons of gas, enough to bring the gas gauge in the Prius almost up to full.

But my rain barrel is bone dry.

Afghani Heroine

After 9/11, the Bush administration went after the Taliban in Afghanistan who had sheltered Osama bin Laden and had provided support for Al-Qaeda. But then the administration took its eye off the ball and aggressively pushed for war in Iraq. When we first realized that the Bush administration was leading the U.S. into war with Iraq, my husband and I were aghast. I remember Tom jumping up and yelling at the television: "We're abandoning Afghanistan! We haven't finished the job!" Indeed. Now, after millions of Iraqis have fled their country, and Shiites have cleared out Sunni neighborhoods, and Iraq is still in shambles (despite the "surge"--which even General Petreaus warns not to call "victory"), our leaders are pushing for new forces in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has returned with a vengeance.

While our gaze was shifted elsewhere, the Afghani people worked hard to put their country back together. Professional women who had been subjugated under Taliban rule, unable to practice their professions as teachers, doctors, shop keepers, police officers, resurrected their old roles even as they continued to face great obstacles. Malalai Kakar was one of those women.

Malalai Kakar was a mother of six and in her late 40s when she was murdered this week by Taliban forces. She had joined the Kandahar police force in 1982, where her father and brother were also police officers. However, Kakar had been forced to give up her job when the Taliban took over the country. When the Taliban regime was defeated, she was given her original job as an investigator for the Kandahar Police Department, focusing on crimes against women and children. Nonetheless, she often received death threats; she had to choose her route to work carefully. Now she is dead, and her fifteen-year-old son, the driver of the car on which the Taliban opened fire, is critically injured.

Women such as Malalai Kakar remind us that the fight for women's rights is far from over around the world. These women face danger every day doing the work they feel called to do, following their dreams, insisting on being treated with dignity and respect. We must honor these women who courageously face such horrifying obstacles every day. We cannot forget them. We cannot abandon their cause--and ours.

Schoolmarmish, I Know...

In 1981, I taught my first two freshman composition courses as a graduate student at Texas A&M University. Since then, I have taught college students in writing and literature classes from Texas to Louisiana to Minnesota to Georgia. I taught my last class in May of 2007. Now I tutor students part-time, and I'm a news junkie in my spare time. But I can't shake the schoolmarm in me.

As a teacher of over twenty-five years' experience, I have heard every excuse, observed every dodge imaginable, and witnessed the thinking processes of students of all ages and skills. And so I've watched the 2008 presidential race with increasing, dismayed recognition.

Barack Obama reminds me of the thoughtful, ambitious student who comes to class having read the assignment, prepared to discuss the issues. He declared a major early on and has a plan for his life worked out, maybe even in a timeline jotted down in a personal journal. Some of the students dislike him for his preparation, his focus: they snicker behind his back when he speaks, lounge nonchalantly at their desks, and make disparaging remarks under their breath to other students. But they want him assigned to their group for team assignments. In group work, he tends to be the leader, but he is careful to encourage input from other students. On group evaluations, he specifically describes the contributions of each student, giving credit where credit is due.

As a teacher, I like this Barack Obama student. I've worked hard to prepare my assignments and to make the class engaging. The Barack Obama student asks questions, and I can rely on him to get a class discussion going. His essays are a thrill to read because he supports his claims, and it is clear that he is trying to incorporate in his writing some of the skills we've discussed in class. I've got to try hard, though, not to let him dominate class discussion. At times he is cocky, but I suspect that experience will teach him a self-awareness that will smooth the sharper points of his personality.

At the state universities and community colleges where I've taught, I've sometimes had a John McCain student in my classes. This student has career experience already. He is sometimes former military or a business owner. Sometimes he's older than I am. He almost winks when he smiles at me that first day in class (or, the flip side John McCain student: he looks at me suspiciously, calculating my age and experience, looking for chinks in the teacher armor). He makes a point to linger after class and engage me in some personal anecdote. His background and experience often provide for lively class discussion, but he often contradicts the Barack Obama student. He doesn't like the kid's confidence; he tells the kid he will change his tune when he gets in the "real world."

For all his comments in class about maturity and responsibility, however, the John McCain student often fails to turn in work on time. Each time he has an excuse: he had an important meeting to attend; he was called away on a business trip--but forgot to e-mail me, his teacher, about these plans and his need for an extension. And because he has had authority in the past--he commanded people, and they jumped without question--he doesn't understand the academic requirement of supporting his claims with facts and details. Or he fills his essays with such convoluted nonsense that the younger students, peer-reviewing his essays, are completely bamboozled. They see the big words and long sentences and think their older and more experienced classmate must be communicating deep and important thoughts that they are just too stupid to understand. They begin to question their own abilities. They take what he writes on faith.

As a teacher, I like this John McCain student. He is personable; the experiences he shares in class often give the younger students a valuable perspective. However, he tends to showboat; in his stories he is always the hero, the one who saved the day, who saw the bad thing coming and tried to warn others. He often does not give younger students credit for their ideas. He can be dismissive, at times very cutting and sarcastic. If he's the more suspicious John-McCain student, he challenges me, the teacher, at every opportunity. He tries to get the more gullible students to back him up. Sometimes the challenges are invigorating, helping me to articulate my ideas more clearly and convincingly. At other times the challenges are just a distraction, creating situations where I have to pull rank as a teacher to bring the class back on course. And I know that if I don't exercise my authority carefully, thoughtfully, and successfully, this student can derail the class for the entire semester.

And, yes, I've often had the Sarah Palins of the world in my classes. They are cute and perky and were voted Homecoming Queen or Belle of the Barbecue. They are used to getting their way, and they know why. Some days it's just a delight for us all to see their smiling, well-constructed faces in the classroom. They lean forward in group meetings to touch the arm of another student, emphasizing a point. They have learned how to say nothing very well. Less socially-admired students too often take the Sarah Palin student's advice at face value, not realizing that that's the total extent of the value.

Because what she has achieved has often been the result of her good looks, the Sarah Palin student has learned to be manipulative. Because her ability to connect emotionally to people often persuades others to support her goals, she thinks what she knows is sufficient for every circumstance. She has learned a few happy phrases that she thinks describes all of experience. Whatever passes as good in her little social circle is good for the rest of the world. In fact, she knows what's good. She is the epitome of good. She looks with suspicion on people who are different than she though she is smart enough to mask her misgivings.

As a teacher, I like the Sarah Palin student. She's just so....likable, so cute, so smiley. But I have a difficult time getting her to see any viewpoint other than her own. When asked to describe her world view, she reverts to those happy phrases. When required to support claims with specific details, she tends to pile up one general statement after another. She doesn't understand why she receives a "C" on an essay: Didn't she follow directions? Isn't the format of the paper correct? Doesn't it meet the required word count? When I point out claim after claim that lacks examples and facts for support, she looks at me blankly. "But this is the truth," she says. "I state it right here."

As a teacher, I know that the student who leaves my classroom is not a finished product. The Barack Obama student may not live up to his potential. The John McCain student may learn to temper his self-importance. The Sarah Palin student may learn to love and credit a world far different than her own social circle; she may work hard and learn that good looks is not enough. But, really, when I think of who I would want to become my president, I'm rooting for the Barack Obama student. I can trust him to do his homework. I can depend upon him to be prepared. I can rely on him to listen to the advice of others older and more experienced than he. I know he will give credit to others, thus ensuring allies for future endeavors.

Does this preference make me elitist? I don't think so. I'm just an ordinary American, a first-generation college graduate who attended community college and a state university. I paid my way through school with jobs or scholarship money. And while I love arugula and brie, I also like turnip greens and gravy and mashed potatoes. I want a president I can trust to do the job. Everything the real John McCain and the real Sarah Palin have done so far in this campaign has eroded any trust I might have had in their abilities and in their good will. I do not want to gamble on what they might be after the class is over and real life begins.

Am I Just Old-Fashioned?

Today I tutored a student working on an essay that included an anecdote that seemed just a little suspicious to me. The anecdote related details about a local organization's hiring practices that created a very negative image of that organization.

"Where did you get this story?" I asked the student, thinking perhaps, just perhaps, my suspicions were wrong and the student would tell me that her anecdote described the experience of a friend. However, the student said, "Well, I didn't have any support for this part of my essay, and my teacher told me that I could make something up."

Just make something up. Don't take writing seriously; don't take reasoning seriously. This student is being taught that what she writes isn't important, that evidence isn't important, that the search for truth isn't important. The only important thing is that she passes the Regents' Writing Exam in Georgia.

In my twenty-five years of teaching at universities and colleges around the country, I always told my students to use facts to support their claims. If they didn't have the facts and the experience, then they could research the subject to find facts and other people's experiences to support their claims. Naturally, if this were a creative writing class--you know, fiction, where lying is accepted at least as long as it makes literary sense and is internally consistent--then my advice, and my reaction, would be different. Am I just unbelievably old-fashioned?

I thought of that earlier tutoring session this evening when I read this article in Salon: "I Ghost-Wrote Letters to the Editor for the McCain Campaign," by Margriet Oostveen. Oostveen, whom Salon identifies as the writer of a weekly column, "Message from Washington," for a Dutch newspaper, claims that she volunteers occasionally for political campaigns. From the article she wrote for Salon, I get the impression that she does this for story value--going undercover for experiences to write about. Or maybe she just doesn't have any principles. Anyway, Oostveen describes how she ghost-wrote letters for the McCain campaign, letters that would be sent to McCain supporters to sign and to submit to local newspapers as their own writing. The instructions given Oostveen were simple: Make something up, anything, as long as it supported the McCain campaign.

"Make it Up": that's the mantra of politics. That jet that Sarah Palin sold on e-bay? Uh...didn't quite happen that way. But that's all right: just change the story to support the claim. That Bridge to Nowhere that Palin refused with a "thanks, but no thanks" to the government? Uh... didn't quite happen that way. Pulled support only when it clearly wasn't popular with the rest of the country. But kept the money. That's all right. Use the story anyway.

The McCain campaign has told so many lies, such egregious lies, that writers for serious publications devote entire articles trying to explain why. (See Jonathan Chait's article "Liar's Poker," at The New Republic.)

Why lie? Well, evidently, lying works. You pass the writing class; you pass the Georgia Regents' Writing Exam. You pad your résumé and get the job. (Or you take pride in having a thin résumé because who really wants an accomplished leader, anyway.) Recent research even indicates that many people don't change their minds when confronted with facts; they become even more convinced of their false beliefs. (See Shankar Vedantam, "The Power of Political Misinformation," The Washington Post, September 15, 2008; A06.)

I've lied. But I felt damned ashamed afterward. Today there seems to be no shame in lying. And shame, I understand, is really old-fashioned.

Tired of the Unbelievable Crap. . .

shoved at us this political season:

Think Progress has a post on the lobbying activities of John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis. As Ryan Powers of Think Progress notes, in an interview with NBC, John McCain said he would be happy to have his campaign manager's lobbying record examined. However, when The New York Times did just that, McCain's campaign responded very angrily, calling The New York Times "pro-Obama."

Since McCain has tried to tie Obama to lobbyists for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it would seem to be only fair--to most rational people--to examine that claim and to research, also, how McCain's campaign stacks up in the same light. And guess what? Over a five-year period, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager "made nearly $2 million lobbying for the two mortgage giants.". Now this is not information that New York Times reporters have made up out of nothing. They examined public records and interviewed "current and former officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

When journalists began examining Sarah Palin's record, the McCain campaign responded in a similar way. Any real questions lobbed at McCain's choice for VP were touted as unfair, biased, even sexist. We've entered an age when facts do not matter, when simply trying to establish facts is seen as subversive, anti-American, unfair, mean. Non-partisan fact check organizations also get slammed by Karl Rove. (One of the young women who works with me asked me today, "Why are people still listening to that man?") In other words, why even bother about the facts? Why try to get to the truth? Arrrgh!

But the long campaign to get people to disregard facts is working. In a recent conversation, a relative told me that she thought Fox News was unbiased, very fair. When I asked her if she knew who owned Fox News (as I have asked in the past if she knew who is the CEO of Fox News), she said she "didn't want to know." That attitude is frightening in a democracy. I don't know how one combats it. But the McCain campaign sure knows how to use it.

Update: Republicans report that John McCain has chosen William Timmons, Sr. to head McCain's White House transition team. Timmons was until recently a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. See Steve Benen's comments on the choice.

The Small Pleasures of Fall

The Autumnal Equinox is on Monday, September 22, but this evening, I looked closely for signs of fall in the bushes along the track where my husband runs while I walk. With camera in hand, I walked at a much slower pace than usual, stopping to catch the tiny flashes of color in the lush vines that covered a fence around the track.

Fall has always been my favorite time of year. Although spring is lovely, too, my heart belongs to fall, to its spirited effervescence in the face of death and decay. Fall is a season for philosophy. It reminds us of the shortness of life, of the transience of all things. This is a useful reminder.

Worth Reading

Updates Below

Over at Harper's No Comment, Scott Horton has posted two blogs recently that are worth reading. The first is a brief description of recent developments in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal. In "Bush Justice for Sarah Palin and Jack Abramoff," Horton draws parallels between the way the McCain campaign and the way the U.S. Justice Department and the Bush administration have blocked inquiries into important investigations, exposing the lack of these leaders' commitment to public integrity. Oh, and honor.

Horton also links to Michael Isikoff's article in Newsweek, describing the attempts of former District Attorney, Edward O'Callaghan, to shut down the "Troopergate" investigation and of the McCain campaign to label the investigation "political" even though it began long before Sarah Palin was named his vice-presidential running mate.

Scott Horton's second post concerns Dick Cheney. Horton puts six questions to Bart Gellman, the author of Angler, a book about Cheney that was published in June. The book was preceded by a series of articles Gellman wrote for The Washington Post. In these six questions, Gellman gives a fascinating picture of the most powerful vice-president in American history. I had already read the series in The Washington Post but am now interested in reading the full-length book, which I might get around to after I've read the other books on my list, including Jane Mayer's The Dark Side.

So many books, so many scandals, so many cover-ups, so little time.

See also: Horton's update on "justice" meted out by the Department of Justice: "Public Integrity, Redefined."

Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008,Unbelievable Update about the Justice Department: Scott Horton has a post this morning about how the Justice Department, which complains of not having enough resources to do its job, is going after a woman who spilled Diet Coke on a counter at a Veteran's Administration cafeteria. The woman is facing federal charges.

Latest Hurricane Ike Update

Earlier updates here.

Although my closest relatives and friends near the Texas Gulf coast missed the worst of the devastating effects of Hurricane Ike, many communities have been decimated. Authorities are trying to get the last 350 people to evacuate Bolivar Peninsula and are talking about establishing martial law if any of those people refuse. My sister remains in Nacogdoches County with my parents, but her husband has returned to help with clean-up at his work place in Orange, Texas, and also reports many downed trees on their land in Chambers County. There are long waits in gas lines and grocery lines there, too. The Chambers County school where my sister teaches is closed for the week.

Friends of ours who live outside Huntsville, Texas, are planning a visit with relatives in New Mexico; they don't know when power will be restored to their area, and they're driving an hour away to College Station, Texas, for groceries, gas, and Internet access. But at least they will have a home to return to; other people are not so lucky.

Thursday, September 18,2008: And now the electricity has been restored to my friends' home in Huntsville. Other places near and in Houston still remain without power.

An Administration of Secrecy and Loyalty

We've all heard of the record loss of millions of White House e-mails that are required to be archived under the Federal Records Act. We have followed the investigation into how Karl Rove and other White House officials used Republican National Committee accounts to send thousands of official government e-mails, even though rules required that such messages be sent through official government communication channels. These actions demonstrated an administration obsessed with secrecy, a characteristic that does not bode well in a democracy.

An article published Saturday in the New York Times illustrates what a Palin administration is like, and one characteristic of that far-north governorship is secrecy.

The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records. (Jo Becker, Peter S. Bookman, Michael Power, "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes," The New York Times, September 13, 2008.)

In other words, these staff members haven't inadvertently used private e-mail accounts because they don't understand the law; they are looking for ways to circumvent the law.

It's time to quit talking about Sarah Palin's kids and Sarah Palin's gender and Sarah Palin's fitness for motherhood. It's time we started talking about what kind of government Sarah Palin would lead. The vice-president is not only just a heartbeat from the presidency. Following the footsteps of Dick Cheney, the vice-president can have unaccountable influence on a living, sitting president. Past behavior is a pretty darn good predictor of future behavior. And what is emerging about Sarah Palin's governance should make any American who truly cares about democracy and the rule of law sit up and pay attention.

The Palin governing style exhibits other questionable traits:

• Although she told Charlie Gibson that the reports of her interest in banning books as mayor of Wasilla are pure myth, observations suggest otherwise: "ABC News: Did Sarah Palin Try to Ban Library Books?", Sept. 10, 2008. See also: Nathan Thornburgh, "Mayor Palin: A Rough Record," in Time, Sept. 2, 2008.
• She has surrounded herself with loyalists, "with people she has known since grade school and members of her church," according to The New York Times article.
• In addition, reminiscent of the bubble that George Bush has been accused of living in, Palin remains too much within her inner circle:

  Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show.(From "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes," p. 4)

• Palin and her staff keep score and enact revenge on people who have disagreed with them or who have supported opponents:

  The administration’s e-mail correspondence reveals a siege-like atmosphere. Top aides keep score, demean enemies and gloat over successes. Even some who helped engineer her rise have felt her wrath.
  
  Dan Fagan, a prominent conservative radio host and longtime friend of Ms. Palin, urged his listeners to vote for her in 2006. But when he took her to task for raising taxes on oil companies, he said, he found himself branded a “hater.”
  
  It is part of a pattern, Mr. Fagan said, in which Ms. Palin characterizes critics as “bad people who are anti-Alaska.” (From "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes, p. 5).

  See also Wikipedia's entry on "Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Dismissal." The entry has a long list of sources at the end. See also: Kenneth Vogel's "Palin's Cold Shoulder," (Sept. 5, 2008) on Politico.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories. I like facts, research, thoughtful analysis. But as I've been reading the articles I've linked to in this post, a thought has coalesced in my mind. We've seen the disastrous consequences of the Bush administration and nothing in the way John McCain has led his campaign or in Sarah Palin's record as mayor and governor indicates that change will be forthcoming. The partisan divide has only grown wider. However, if the McCain-Palin ticket doesn't win, we haven't seen the last of Sarah Palin. She's no 72-year old tortured warrior. The Republican party has found a gun-toting, Armageddon-hearted heroine to groom for higher office. And she has shown no repugnance toward Karl Rove-style politics. Get ready.

See also:
Philip Gourevitch, "Letter from Alaska: The State of Sarah Palin", The New Yorker.
Also: Gary Kamiya, "The Culture War: It's Back," at Salon, posted Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008.

Sane Voices

I just love intelligent, thoughtful, sane voices. James Fallows is one of those voices. I don't know the man personally, he lives a more international life than I have ever had the opportunity to live (though I have traveled way more than Sarah Palin--sorry, couldn't help it), and he is a member of the "elite" media (and I don't mean that word "elite" to be pejorative in any way: I'm all for an elite. well-educated, and humble corps of writers and leaders in this country). But over the years I've enjoyed reading James Fallows' writing in a number of publications. I now read his blog at The Atlantic. Here's a link to today's posting which cheered me up, and I'm not quite sure why it did: "If campaigns are driving you crazy."

Maybe I'm cheered because although the public discourse right now seems to be absolutely stupid, focused on the most trivial details and the most outrageous lies, there are people who still think truth matters and try to suss out truth in the best ways they know how. They listen to other thoughtful and intelligent people and adjust their judgments and views to accommodate what they have learned rather than repeating over and over the trite and partisan phrases that resound in their own heads. Listen to Terri Gross interview Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and a retired Army colonel, (the link is there on Fallows' post and here), who lost his son in Iraq. You might well ask: why aren't our presidential nominees listening to this guy?

Community Fundraiser--5K Race

Here in the huge metropolitan area of Atlanta are neighborhoods where people live and work and support their communities. This morning Tom ran in a 5K race in a nearby community; the money raised went to a local pre-school. (Click on a photo for a closer view.)

Small-Town Values?

Recently, political campaigners have been extolling the virtues of small town America. I grew up in rural America; I've lived in small-town America. And take it from one with wide experience, small-town America has no corner on virtue. Needing emotional support, one of my daughter's friends e-mailed my daughter last week. This friend of my daughter's lives in small-town Texas, the small town where we lived before moving to the big city four states to the east. She constantly feels as if her values are under attack.

My daughter's friend attends a Presbyterian church, is the daughter of a church youth leader, and has been very active in youth work camps. She is appalled by the narrow-mindedness of her classmates; the presidential campaign seems to be exacerbating some of these attitudes. One day in a history class, several students were loudly discussing the election. "Hey," said one guy, "someone ought to organize big chicken fries during voting hours so black people won't come out and vote." Everyone laughed.

Another day, several teenagers piled into a car to drive to a local restaurant for lunch. My daughter's friend was part of the group. As everyone piled in, some sitting in other kids' laps, the driver of the car exclaimed: "Hey, if we were Mexicans, we would feel right at home crowded up like this!"

My daughter's friend hates the racial attitudes these statements illustrate, and she feels lonely because she sees around her a majority of people who own those racial attitudes. And while racism is not confined to small towns, it often is found in such places where minorities are few and thus unknown and misunderstood--or hated because their difference threatens the dominant culture, admits change to that culture.

When my daughter attended the same school as her friend in Texas, she would often come home upset with something that a teacher had said in class. Her English teacher, for instance, openly proselytized far-right conservative views. Once she spent most of class time criticizing the "evil liberal media" and praising the Bush administration. She told her students that Democrats were "all right" if they weren't liberal. She lashed out at gays and gay marriage, called Cindy Sheehan "crazy," and by implication suggested to her students that anyone who criticized the government--particularly the Bush administration--was either crazy or unpatriotic.

My daughter looked around the classroom and saw that all of the class was either agreeing with the teacher or pretending to agree. No one felt free to offer another view.

We should be careful about extolling the virtues of small-town values. Just what are those values? Are we using coded language for "white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant"? Or are we extolling values of community, of people caring for people even when they differ politically, racially, religiously, ethnically? Are we extolling the values of hard work, of recompense for that work? The values of community support?

In his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, Barack Obama extolled those latter values:

For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

That's the America I believe in. It's the America my daughter and her friend want to believe in. It is NOT small-town America. It's any-town America where people continue to believe in real freedom.

Scandals and other News, then the Weather

Today I am much more interested in the advance of Hurricane Ike on Texas than I am in blogging. Many of my family members are in or close to the direct path--as it is currently projected--of the hurricane. However, I have been reading other news and here is a summary of what has interested me most recently: :

• Ethics scandal at the Department of the Interior: I'm not a policy wonk, and I don't understand all the intricacies of government, but I do understand bad management. I've had bosses in my lifetime who should never have been put in charge of people--and others who could lead a battalion if necessary. I have seen up close the effects of bad management and have even been asked to direct and put back on course a program that had been badly mismanaged. During the last eight years of the Bush administration, we have seen some serious management issues. Every administration is going to make mistakes, to make a wrong call occasionally, or to choose a wrong person for a job. The mismanagement of this administration, however, has reached epic proportions, from the early planning and later execution of the Iraq war, to billions of dollars unaccounted for in the Iraq war, to FEMA (and "good job, Brownie"), to Homeland Security, to Porter Goss's short reign as Director of the CIA, to the Reading First program in the Department of Education, to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal , to the outing (and consequent cover-up) of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame, to the illegal and scandalous activities within the Department of Justice, to the economy and the national debt. But the latest story reads like a television script: sex, lies, drugs, and cronyism. Officials with the Denver office of the Minerals Management Service, an office in charge of collecting for the government billions of dollars in oil royalties, have been charged with accepting gifts from oil companies, using their influence to provide jobs in those companies for friends and colleagues, steering profitable contracts to particular companies, having sex with subordinates, taking drugs on the job, etc.:

  Between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person staff in the Denver office received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, the investigators found.
  
  Devaney said the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office, Gregory W. Smith, used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates. The report said Smith also steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part-time. ("Sex for Oil Scandal at Interior Department," CBS News, Sept. 10, 2008.)

• Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin: I didn't listen to the interview; I was taking a walk in the neighborhood when the interview aired. Since then I've listened to a few clips of the interview online and have heard other clips in the evening news. Here are some responses from people whom I admire:
  • James Fallows points out how Palin's response to one question (which is receiving some attention in the news and on the Internet) indicates not only her ignorance on the topic but her lack of interest. That's the question Charlie Gibson posed about the "Bush Doctrine." Palin seemed to have no idea what Gibson was talking about.
  • Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly thinks that watching Sarah Palin respond to Charlie Gibson's questions was "eerily reminiscent of watching George W. Bush, circa 2000."
  • Joan Walsh believes that people who want a vice-president or president "just like them" may want a Sarah Palin as their leader but that "most Americans, most independents, and serious, patriotic conservatives, are going to see this interview and be very, very afraid."

And now, back to the weather.

Tracking Hurricane Ike: Sept. 11-14

Updates Below: Thursday evening, Sept. 11; Friday afternoon, Sept. 12; Saturday, Sept. 13; Sunday, Sept. 14

Tuesday evening my cousin Karen called me from Palacios, Texas, and we got to talking about Hurricane Ike, which had just cleared Cuba and was in the Gulf of Mexico. "Where is the hurricane headed?" I asked. "Straight toward my house!" she exclaimed, and she said that she would be evacuating inland to relatives in Austin or Lake Livingston.

Yesterday evening my mother, who lives in East Texas, called, worried about our son in Austin. "Does he want to evacuate to our house?" she asked, and she said that she would be willing to drive to Austin to get him, a trip of at least four hours one way, because Benton does not have any transportation beyond a bicycle. (He doesn't want a car yet, he says: he doesn't want to pay for gas, and he would rather get around Austin by bike and public transportation).

We consulted the National Weather Service again: a three-day forecast had Ike coming ashore at Port Lavaca--indeed, right over my cousin's house--and inland over Austin. My husband called our son to tell him of his grandmother's offer, but we advised him to stay in Austin unless circumstances suggested otherwise within the next twenty-four hours. We told him to stock up on water, food, and batteries, and to locate a place of safety if it looked as if the Austin-area would be buffeted by very fierce winds. That apartment complex he lives in looks mighty rickety to me.

About one o'clock this morning I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got on the Internet to check on the estimated track of Hurricane Ike. The path had changed again. The hurricane was expected to come on shore around Freeport (further north along the Texas coast; my cousin's house would be on the western, drier, side of the hurricane) and then track further east of Austin and closer to the Houston area as well as closer to my parents' house near Nacogdoches, Texas.

While I was on the computer, my son came online, so I sent him the newest information by g-chat.

Just a few years ago, this kind of instant information and communication would have been nearly impossible. When I was young and living on the Gulf Coast of Texas, we tracked hurricanes by geographical coordinates. Some grocery stores in our area printed on their paper grocery sacks maps of the Gulf Coast, with longitude and latitude lines. We would inevitably have one of these grocery sacks at hand when a hurricane was in the Gulf, and we would track the storm's progress by longitude and latitude on the map provided by a local grocer. I remember the excited thrill I would get as a kid as our little, penciled-in, hurricane symbols moved across the map, closer and closer to land.

I wonder how many people plot the tracks of hurricanes now, using longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates. Of course, today's young child can learn how to do so by following directions on a website. Here's one at "Enchanted Learning." The easiest method, of course, is to go to the professional charters at the National Weather Service."

What we haven't been able to change, however, is the unpredictability of hurricanes. I'll keep checking the National Weather Service throughout the day, thinking about my son and other relatives in or near the hurricane's projected path. And praying for their safety.

Update, 10:00 p.m.

There is still uncertainty as to where Hurricane Ike will make landfall, though the latest projected path has the hurricane coming ashore at Freeport and passing over Houston. If that path runs true, one of my sisters and her family as well as my brother and his family--in Chambers County-- will be on the east side of the hurricane, the most dangerous side. I talked with my sister Nancy this evening; she and her family are "hunkering down," as the mayor of Houston suggested many people do in the Houston area. They live on what was once my grandparents' land, which is just seventeen feet above sea level and not far from Old and Lost Rivers and Trinity Bay. My sister is thinking of moving the family to a local school if it seems that they might be cut off by rising water. A small river borders their land and is not far from their house.

In Hurricane Carla, a category 5 hurricane that became a category 4 as it made landfall near Port Lavaca, Texas, on September 11, 1961, water in the bay surged to 22 feet. Although I was just short of four years old at the time, I remember the water in the yard of my grandparents' house, where my sister lives now. One of my nephews is quadriplegic, which makes evacuating more difficult for the family. My sister and her family evacuated for Hurricane Rita and spent long hours on the highways; and they still did not reach their destination.

I also talked with my mother this evening. She, my father, and one of my nephews live near Nacogdoches, Texas. If the storm continues on its present projected course, they, too, will be on the east side of the eye of the hurricane.

Update II (Sept. 12, 12:55 p.m. ET): My sister Nancy and her family have evacuated their home in Chambers County, Texas, and are at my parents' house in Nacogdoches County. Hurricane Ike is expected to hammer East Texas, too, but at least my sister and her family won't be cut off by rising water. They left Chambers County at 8 a.m. and arrived just minutes ago at my parents' house (11:45 a.m. or so). This is a drive that usually takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, so they weren't on the road much longer than that.

My cousin Karen, who lives near Palacios, Texas, south of where the hurricane is expected to land near Galveston, is riding out the storm with a friend "in a concrete fortress of a house 30 feet above sea level," she says.

My brother and his family are also "sheltering in place," in Liberty County. And people who have evacuated the coast are filling up shelters in Central Texas where my son and my youngest sister's family lives. We've been receiving e-mails from other friends who have decided to hunker down near Houston. And what happens to these folks: prisoners on Galveston Island

Update III, Saturday, 13 September: My brother's family in Liberty County has been without electricity since 1 a.m. Central Time. When I called this morning (11:20 a.m., ET;10:20 a.m., CT), my sister-in-law said that they have lost some big pine trees and that they were still experiencing wind gusts of 60 miles per hour. A few minutes earlier, I called my parents' house in Nacogdoches County. My mother says they are without electrical power, they're under tornado watch alerts, and they are getting some wind from the hurricane. At this point, Hurricane Ike is about 36 miles from Lufkin, Texas. The hurricane seemed to follow the I-45 corridor north of Houston. We have friends hunkered down in The Woodlands and in Huntsville. Meanwhile, in Austin, my son says that the morning is sunny, with the area showing no obvious effects of the hurricane that's now traveling through East Texas.
1:49 p.m., Central Time (2:49 p.m., ET): My mother and sister report that they are fine in Nacogdoches County. They are without electricity but are keeping several appliances going with a generator. The high winds have blown down a pecan tree in one of my dad's pastures and split a pecan tree in another pasture. My sister, who evacuated Chambers County with her husband and one son, reports that her other son, who stayed in Chambers County, is now out in his boat surveying the damage. The old homeplace of my grandparents--where my sister lives--has suffered very little damage, and water is up only to the edge of the yard.
6:16 p.m., ET: Our friends in Huntsville have e-mailed to let us know that they are fine. Limbs of trees are down everywhere, and they may be without electricity for four weeks. Of course, they are hoping that the four weeks is a worst-case scenario that won't transpire!

Update IV, Sunday, Sept. 14: My mother just called ( 12:30 p.m., CT; 1:30 p.m., ET) from Nacodoches County, Texas. Electrical service has been restored to their home and probably to the area--much, much sooner than they had expected. Also, about an hour earlier, my cousin Karen called from Palacios, Texas. Her house on the coast hasn't received any damage. Her banana trees have been flung around, but they will recover. Although the path of Hurricane Ike was first projected to pass right near her house, at Port Lavaca, the hurricane went in farther north on the coast, at Galveston. So Palacios did not get any of the worst weather.
While my family escaped the worst of Hurricane Ike, many others did not. My thoughts and prayers go out to those people who continue to suffer from the devastation left behind by the hurricane.

More Trouble

One journalist criticizes the Obama campaign for quoting what the journalist says is a "months-old" quote of John McCain's: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Obama's campaign has been using this quote to illustrate how clueless McCain is about the economy. Foul! yells this journalist; the quote is too old to be used fairly as criticism. However, Matthew Yglesias shows that McCain made that claim as late as August 20th, in a radio interview with Laura Ingraham.

And today--more bad news: the investment bank Lehman Brothers is struggling.

Waves of selling wiped out nearly half of Lehman’s value in the stock market on Tuesday, leaving the firm, one of the nation’s oldest and largest investment banks, in an all-out fight for survival. (Jenny Anderson and Ben White, "Wall Street's Fears on Lehman Bros. Batter Markets," The New York Times, September 10, 2008)

There is a credit crisis in America, and the Republicans don't want to take any responsibility for it. Introducing an unknown but feisty woman at the top of the Republican ticket is one way of distracting the public. Spending the Republican Convention bashing Democrats and liberals instead of addressing the issues is another way. The Republican party has turned the presidential campaign into a personality contest in order to avoid the issues altogether. As Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager said, "This election is not about the issues. . . This election is about a composite view of what people take away of these candidates."

In December 2006, as a recession loomed over the horizon, President Bush told us to go shopping. Literally: Go shopping! And so we have. We've bought houses we couldn't afford; we've racked up credit card bills we can't pay. And now Senator John McCain tells us that the economy is fundamentally strong, as Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae are bailed out by the government and another banking institution is in trouble. I just don't understand how 50% of the people in this country can think that the Republican Party has demonstrated leadership over the past eight years.

Little or No Consequences for Bad Management

The Los Angeles Times reports this morning that the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are stepping down with millions in their pockets--not the $20 million severance packages they might have received had they left their posts in December, but still. . . . millions for bad management.

Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae, will leave with at least "an additional $7.3 million" and Richard Syron, CEO of Freddie Mac, will receive at least $6.3 million as part of his severance package. And these were the guys who were brought in to reform these institutions! Instead, they "presided over major expansions of the companies' reliance on risky mortgages that ended up going into default over the last two years."

Evidently, Barack Obama has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Jr., and the housing agency director, James Lockhart, criticizing these payments:

"Under no circumstances should the executives of these institutions earn a windfall at a time when the U.S. Treasury has taken unprecedented steps to rescue these companies with taxpayer resources," Obama wrote.

I suspect that it will be business as usual, unfortunately. The rich, the powerful, and the powerfully-connected don't suffer consequences like the ordinary guy. Even George Bush, who has presided over an expanding government, a mismanaged war, and the de-valuation of American ideals (torturing enemies, expanding executive power in unprecedented ways, diminishing the power of the rule of law), will leave office with little consequence. And if recent polls are any indication, the Republican Party, which led for six years with this debacle of a presidency, may be rewarded for their divisive role in the latest campaign. Good times.

A Visual of the Campaign Speeches in Wordle

My son, an aerospace engineering major at the University of Texas in Austin, sent me this link that illustrates some of the campaign speeches in Wordle, a program designed to create "word clouds," based on the frequency of words in a text: "The Democratic and Republican National Convention Speeches as Seen through Wordle," posted by Sarah Lai Stirland on The Wired Blog Network.

More Debt

Our public leaders have become adept at announcing negative news on Friday afternoons so that the news will spin out over the weekend when most people aren't paying attention. (Or, in this case, also, before the Asian markets open on Monday.) So it's no surprise that the news leaked on Friday, Sept. 5th, that the U.S. government would take control of the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA--or Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC--Freddie Mac). The formal announcement was made today. For details, see the following:

• Stephen Labotan and Andrew Ross Sorkin, "U.S. Rescue Seen at Hand for 2 Mortgage Giants," in The New York Times, posted Friday, September 5, 2008.
• Alan Zibel, (Associated Press,) "Officials Announce Takeover of Mortgage Giants,", in The Washington Post, posted Sunday, September 7, 2008: 12:11 p.m.
• Edmund L. Andrews, U.S. Unveils Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants," in The New York Times, posted Sunday, September 7, 2008.
• Michael R. Crittenden, "U.S. Outlines Fan-Fred Takeover," in The Wall Street Journal, posted September 7, 2008: 11:56 a.m.

For some background history on government bailouts, read:

• Nelson D. Schwartz, "A History of Public Aid During Crisis," in The New York Times, Sept. 6, 2008.

More bad news for taxpayers.

Joe Biden: Issues Count

I first viewed the video clip above on James Fallows' blog at The Atlantic. I thought Fallows' comments about Sarah Palin's Republican convention speech were very perspicacious. This post is a follow-up of those earlier comments: "The Wages of Cockiness," James Fallows, posted 6 Sept. 2008.

More:

"What Conservatives Ignored" in the speeches at the Republican National Convention, at Thinkprogress.org

And fact-checking Sarah Palin's speech at the RNC, as well as others, at FactCheck.org--And, of course, you can fact check other politicians' claims at FactCheck.org, too.

A Picture of Sarah Palin as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska

Since we still don't know much about Sarah Palin, I thought I would read what others know or think about her. Just a few minutes ago, I came across The Nation website on which a letter from a woman from Palin's hometown is posted. This woman, Anne Kilkenny, describes the Sarah Palin she knows. You can read the letter here: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354444/the_word_from_wasilla, posted by John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent. Judge for yourself as to the accuracy of the source.

In her description of Palin and Palin's governing history in Wasilla, Alaska, Anne Kilkenny gives Palin her due for being smart, politically savvy, energetic, and hardworking. However, she also describes how the city of Wasilla had to hire a city administrator to run the daily affairs of the city:

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She [Palin] had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Kilkenny, who has known Palin since 1992, says that the city of Wasilla had no debt when Palin became mayor but was in debt for $22 million at the end of Palin's tenure. A good portion of that money went to build a sports complex on land of which the city had no clear title and over which the city was in litigation for seven years.

Anne Kilkenny also demonstrates how Palin has a track record since her days as Wasilla's mayor of firing people she doesn't like or who intimidate her and of hiring people who will be loyal to her. The picture that comes into focus here does not quite square with the picture that the Republicans have been painting for the American public. Kilkenny ends her letter with these words:

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Just who is Sarah Palin? As I think of an answer to that question, an image that comes into focus for me is that of George Bush; others have compared Sarah Palin with George Bush, too. And--pardon my nerdiness and too quirky imagination--I think of that scene in the movie The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo tries to give Sauron's ring of power to the elf queen Galadriel. Suddenly, Galadriel, the lovely and yet a little creepy Cate Blanchett, grows dark and terrible: "I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this," she says,

In the place of a Dark Lord you will have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea. . . all shall love me and despair. . . .

Over the top, I know, but I do have a very visceral response to people who use their power, how ever little it may be, to insulate themselves with loyalists in order to deflect criticism and accountability.

Other Sources:

William Yardley, "Palin's Start in Alaska, Not Politics as Usual," in The New York Times, Sept. 2, 2008.

More about Anne Kilkenny, and another reprint of her letter, here at Alaska Daily News (adn.com).

Erika Bolstad, "Palin was for Earmarks Before she was Against Them," McClatchy Newspapers, at www.mcclatchydc.com, posted September 4, 2008.

More about Palin's tenure as mayor of Wasilla, at The Wall Street Journal: "Palin's Hockey Rink Leads to Legal Trouble in Town She Led," Michael M. Phillips, Sept. 6, 2008. (Hat tip to Hilzoy, at The Washington Monthly.)

For the Troops

In the middle of all the campaign rhetoric about "the troops," I wonder: "Who ISN'T for the troops?" Sarah Palin's son is heading to Iraq. So is Joe Biden's son. "The troops" are not Republican; "the troops" are not Democratic. They are individual citizens with various political persuasions. The Republicans would have us believe that only Republicans are patriotic, only Republicans are "for the troops," and only Republicans have values. (Off message, I know, but I'm really, really tired of the phrase "values voter," as it always means someone who is going to vote Republican. I'm a values voter, too, and I'm--usually--a Democrat.) So--for "the troops," here are some voices you're not likely to hear from--and some information you're not likely to hear about--at the Republican National Convention:

• Brandon Friedman, "Republicans Use Fake Troops for RNC Video," posted at VetVoice: A Project for VoteVets.org.
• Jon Soltz, "Is the McCain-Palin Campaign Violating Operational Security?," posted at VetVoice.org. (Hat tip to Steve Bennen, whose link at Political Animal led me to the VetVoice website.)
• Information on troop-giving to the presidential candidates at OpenSecrets.org: "Troops Deployed Abroad Give 6:1 to Obama."

Just saying: "The troops" don't fall into one category of any kind.

Palin's Mockery of Community Organizers

In my post last night, before I had read anyone's response to Sarah Palin's Republican Convention speech, I described a couple of things that really bothered me about the speech. One was the sneering remark about Barack Obama being a "community organizer." This comment hit a nerve with others, too:

• Steve Benen's at Washington Monthly's Political Animal: "In Defense of Community Organizers." Benen provides links to more responses at the end of his post.
• Alan Wolfe, at TNR's The Plank, "Why Sarah Palin's Speech will not Win Over All Evangelicals."
• Blogger Gina Telaroli, "Community Organizing No Laughing Matter."
• Blog dairist trenttsd, a self-proclaimed "dissatisfied Goldwater Republican" and former Ron Paul Supporter, posting at Daily Kos: "A Palin Convert."

Sarah Palin's Republican Convention Speech

Just minutes ago, Sarah Palin finished her acceptance speech as John McCain's VP choice on the floor of the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was poised and forceful; she gave a great delivery. Most of her speech was a recommendation of John McCain for president of the United States, and over and over she invoked the spirit of small-town America. The Republican crowd loved her.

I was not as charmed--but that's because nothing I have read about the woman convinces me that she is ready to lead this country. She continued to repeat the lie that she was against the "bridge to nowhere"--even though there's clear evidence that she was all for the "bridge to nowhere" until public opinion indicated it WASN'T going anywhere with the rest of the country. Of course, she kept the money for other projects in Alaska. I'm guessing that the speech writers are gambling (just as John McCain gambled with his choice of VP) that most citizens will take these claims at face value. But what does this tell us of Sarah Palin? The Republican playbook of the past eight years has been to repeat lies over and over again until they are accepted as truth by too many people. So Sarah Palin is a reformer? So Sarah Palin will stand up to big government, to party insiders? The claims sound great. Now she's on a bigger stage, with more at stake. The actions do not follow.

Clearly, this was the night to go after Barak Obama. Okay--that's politics. But Palin's belittling of Obama's community organizing--community service--seemed particularly partisan and demeaning:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

The sneering italics around "community organizer" could be heard in her voice. The delegates laughed. Isn't community organizing a good thing, an honorable thing?

Sarah Palin came roaring out of her corner, and the Republican crowd roared back, happy and relieved to see that she can pack a punch. Well, now she's out of her corner and into the public arena. I hope that reporters won't be so intimidated by the McCain campaign's petulance that they fail to investigate as thoroughly as they should the background and ideas of this person who could become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. I saw Campbell Brown's interview with John McCain's spokesperson, Tucker Bounds, on CNN, and I thought Brown did just what a reporter should do when a political operative tries stonewalling--keep asking the question, keep going for a real answer. The American people deserve real answers; the American people deserve the truth.

Update

Okay, I've now taken a few minutes to read what some of my favorite bloggers/journalists are writing about the speech, and I think James Fallows' analysis is a good one because he discusses some things that had struck me, as well. Now that Sarah Palin has given a biting, sarcastic speech at the convention, the Democrats can take off their gloves, too. And those who call foul because Palin is a woman, shame on them. Also, I'm already tired of the Palin family. Every politician parades his or her family across the stage for the obligatory smiles, but Palin has done so incessantly in a really short time. Some Republicans have been yelling that the Palin family should be off limits to the media, yet they trot out the pregnant daughter and her boyfriend who has promised to marry her, and little Trig has become a particularly important prop.

Oh, and one last thing: Palin's speech went right to the folks there on the floor, but will it resonate with the rest of the country? Will she and John McCain continue the divisiveness of the Bush administration? At this convention, Bush gave a speech, by video link, comparing John McCain's torturers in Hanoi to "angry leftists." Now, that's presidential for you. Palin's speech doesn't promise much more. I was particularly appalled by the following excerpt. I gasped at the sneering reference to the rule of law and human rights. And Palin's appeals to fear certainly don't indicate change:

I've noticed a pattern with our opponent.

Maybe you have, too.

We've all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers.

And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.

But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?

Like Nixon on Crystal Meth

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are taking the stage tonight at the 2008 Republican Convention to support John McCain's bid for the presidency. Hearing that they will have very negative things to say about Barack Obama, I thought of what John Dean had to say about the two men during a joint appearance with Robert Scheer in Decatur, Georgia, at the 3rd Annual Book Festival:

Romney strikes me so clearly as Richard Nixon on Prozac. . . . and Rudy Giuliani is Richard Nixon on crystal meth.

Learning by Osmosis

Maybe sarcasm does work, politically. At least it seems to have done so for Republicans, according to Michael Crowley: "Here's Johnny," posted online at The New Republic. Republicans, according to Crowley, have increasingly used sarcasm in their political campaigns, and the tactic "seemingly reached its pinnacle in the McCain campaign."

I have recently learned a lot from the McCain campaign:

• I wish I had known in college what I could have learned by "osmosis." This could have saved me A LOT of study time:

  Speaking of geography, Alaskan territory is also along the trajectory of ballistic missiles launched eastward out of Stalinist North Korea. For that reason, among others, Alaska's Fort Greely was selected as the site for the principal U.S. ground-based defense against such missiles.
  
  As that state's governor, Sarah Palin would know more by osmosis – if nothing else – about the necessity for U.S. anti-missile systems than either Messrs. Obama or Biden. (Frank Gaffney, Jr., "Sarah Palin's Experience," Sept. 2, 2008, Center for Security Policy.) Hat tip to Hilzoy

• Or perhaps just sitting across the aisle from the brightest person in class would have worked--proximity, you know: That's all Sarah Palin needs to understand national security.
• Oh, and of course, one shouldn't exploit the children of political candidates. . . . unless the exploitation reflects positively on the candidate and garners support:

  According to [Grover] Norquist, the council [secret conservative organization, Council for National Policy] members, who include the country’s leading social conservatives, became enthusiastic about McCain when they heard of his choice of Palin. “They were uneasy before, and they suddenly became very excited,” Norquist explains, as we talk in the lobby of the St. Paul Hotel, after he has finished addressing the Arizona delegation. Norquist says the story of Palin’s child with down syndrome was particularly important to the social conservatives. Even Richard Viguerie was enthusiastic. I’ve never seen him excited about any Republican presidential nominee. [my emphasis] From: "Republicans Headed for an Iceberg," posted by John B. Judis on TNR's The Stump.

And More on Sarah Palin

The McCain campaign and other Republicans have been touting Sarah Palin as ready to be vice-president of the United States of America because of her "executive experience" as mayor of a small town in Alaska and governor of a state with as many people as live in Austin, Texas. Now we're learning something about Sarah Palin's executive experience, and as one blogger points out, it looks like the kind of experience Bush Republicans should welcome. Remember how those inexperienced folks were sent to Iraq to rebuild a country--and their only qualification was party loyalty? Remember the Republican DA's dismissed because they didn't quite toe the far-right conservative line? Remember those DA's hired because they DID?

Well, it seems that Mayor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, also fired city employees she "believed in her heart" were not loyal enough to her. She was hostile to open government, requiring city employees not to talk to the local press. The picture of John McCain's pick for vice-president is beginning to focus, and it looks alarmingly like what we have seen already.

More Courage Needed

Yesterday, my husband, daughter and I attended the Book Festival in downtown Decatur, the third year of this wonderful event hosted by the town of Decatur, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and DeKalb Medical Center. The festival began Friday evening with a keynote speech from poet Billy Collins and continued into the weekend with poetry readings, music, workshops, displays of local writers and organizations, and presentations of national writers and celebrities. We scheduled Sunday afternoon for our participation in events because on Saturday we were planning an evening party for our daughter's 16th birthday.

Although all the events we attended were good, the most compelling one was the joint appearance of John Dean, former White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, and Robert Scheer, journalist and host of "Left, Right, and Center" on Public Radio International.

Both Dean and Scheer are critics of the present Republican administration, though their criticisms of government precede this particular administration, as well. In a city whose citizens are more liberal or progressive than conservative, they had, by and large, a friendly audience. However, Dean's opening remarks revealed the truth of what others in the blogosphere are advising the Obama campaign: Don't condescendingly attack Sarah Palin herself. When John Dean opened up the panel with negative comments about John McCain's choice of running mate, the capacity audience in the sanctuary of Decatur Presbyterian Church was with him. John Dean said that he was "baffled" by McCain's choice and that Palin was woefully unprepared to be Commander in Chief should McCain become president and then have medical problems or die. Then he said: "The good thing about Sarah Palin, however, is that she doesn't know anything about neo-conservatism." The audience laughed. He added: "In fact, I don't even know if she can spell it." There was dead silence in the church.

Condescension like this just doesn't work publicly--even with people who agree with the sentiment. It invariably blows back on the speaker.

Despite this one faux pas, however, Dean's comments were well-received, as were Robert Scheer's. Both men were thoughtful, serious, insightful, and knowledgeable. I could have listened to them for a couple of more hours than just the forty-five minutes they were allotted.

One of the points that Dean and Scheer touched on together, as they shared the microphone in what was sometimes a monologue and and at other times a dialogue, is that the Republican Party now represents a majority of people with authoritarian personalities. The right-wing of the party is highly submissive to authority, denies the patriotism of anyone who questions that authority, and demonizes the opposition.

Scheer commented that in those years in which this nation was being formed, the difference between the Old World and the New World was the difference between Empire and Republic. The Founding Fathers were quite concerned about the pitfalls of Empire, and the Constitution reflects the fears of the lure of Empire. The bulwark against empire and the foundation of democracy is an informed citizenry. However, in a government in which information is highly classified, in which the Supreme Court does not act as an independent agency, and in which the president accrues more and more power to the executive branch, information is withheld and democracy is undermined.

Today in government, Scheer said, "lies dominate." And he asked the question: Are we to be an empire of the world or a republic?

Robert Scheer strongly encouraged the audience to read George Washington's "Farewell Address," and he read a section of it to us, emphasizing Washington's warnings "against the postures of pretended patriotism" and "those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to Liberty and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty." Scheer reminded us that the United States' military industrial complex now spends more on military than all of the other countries combined. "We have weakened this country on every level since 9/11," he and Dean agreed.

A question from the audience elicited the comment from Scheer that "lying is not a Republican trait or a Democratic trait," that it is a trait of imperialism.

When asked by one audience member why books being released about what's going on behind the scenes in this administration haven't received more public traction, Dean responded that the whistle-blowing was more the equivalent of dog whistles than police whistles. He used Scott McCullough and David Frum as examples of insiders who really haven't revealed much in their publications. "The Bush White House," he said, "has learned well by Watergate--you will die if you breach the code of silence."

Another questioner brought up the responsibility of the media. One of the men responded (I think it was Dean): "The media has given this administration a pass." Robert Scheer added that newspapers are in trouble, that journalists do not have enough money for investigative journalism and that, just as importantly, this administration has been very effective in stiff-arming the press by threatening to take away access to the White House in punishment of unwelcome coverage. This administration, he said, "is the most secretive presidency in history."

Finally, Robert Scheer pointed out the role that over-weaning patriotism plays in muzzling critics. Why isn't there more rage about how torture has been used in the war on terror? Why haven't people recoiled publicly from the testimony of FBI agents about the use of torture in interrogating prisoners? "We are insulated from decency by patriotism," he answered. "We have to challenge this idea" that being patriotic means accepting whatever the government says must be done to fight terror. "We thrill" to stories of people who stand up to dictatorships, Scheer said. But in our society, we punish such people. We accuse them of being unpatriotic. "We get more John Deans," who speak truth to power, "by upping our demand." He concluded: "I want to see more courage on the part of the Democrats."

Other Sources:

• Robert Scheer, Even the FBI is Outraged Over U.S. Torture," posted on Alternet.org.
• Bernard Weiner's review of Dean's book, Conservatives Without a Conscience.
• Amy Goodman's interview with Robert Scheer about his book The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.