From a Left-Wing Loon: An Open Letter

(I was going to send this to the editor at a weekly called the Dayton City Paper, but decided against it.)

To David H. Landon, former Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican central Commitee:

I have a few questions with regards to your column in the Dec. 2nd edition of the Dayton City Paper:

Do you really think that Palin's dismal interviews on ABC, NBC, CNN, Oprah Winfrey's and Sean Hannity's talk shows amount to substance? In case you missed the memo, her "autobiography" was totally ghost-written. I do believe that she read early edits of the book, and that she might even have had someone in her publicity team slice up a few blurbs from national news so she could pretend to know what she was talking about when asked milquetoast questions on national television. But to call her "well spoken" after countless examples that the woman knows little to nothing beyond plattitudes about the country she wants to lead should be very, very frightening for the GOP.

Halfway through your condescending, fact-ignoring assessment, you say "The election of Barack Obama has taught us the hard lesson that substance can be overcome with sizzle." By the virtue of that statement, you think that Obama's whole campaign really did rest on a slogan and that, consequently, the independents who voted for him failed to examine his policies; that the 2000 election was decided on Bush's mastery of the facts when, in fact, he coasted on scaring us into a spending freeze and a constant accusation that the word "liberal" is somehow equivalent of a racial slur.

And what, pray tell, is really so "compelling" about the Barricuda's story? That she was a former beauty runner-up who became mayor of a town of 5,500? That she was able, for half a term, to run a state with the smalles tpopulation in the union while simultaneously pretending to raise five offspring?

Yes, I said "pretending." I watched with absolute disgust as she trotted out her youngest, Trig, to prove that her child with Downs Syndrome made her more a "woman of the people" than anyone else. She used her youngest and eldest children as props, and you cynical bastards in the GOP leadership ate it up.

The best thing Sarah Palin can contribute to the national debate is to force a third-party candidate in the 2012 election and expose just how broken the two-party system really is. She will prove that populism is sometimes sexier than substance, and that a good catch-phrase masking plain stupidity will energize a group of people too easily manipulated to see that they're being had. Maybe, after all of the smoke and mirrors behind her celebrity has faded, all of you angry white men will finally shut up and realize that the President you've been calling "arrogant" in public and "nigger" behind closed doors is actually making the attempt to do something substantive for this country. I'm not naive enough to assume that you'll let him without a fight. But I have enough faith in your intentions to assume that you will eventually stop turning your own party into a tabloid and make it into one that espouses real alternatives rather than insults. Maybe she's the best thing that ever happened to you: maybe she shows the rest of the country just how backwards your tactics really are.

But there's my naiveté again. I assume that the country will start to actually examine what they're being told, rather than believe a slogan on one side and fear-mongering ont he other.

An Unlikely catalyst to a Three-Party System

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Before you read on, you should watch some of this. Otherwise everything written after this point will just seem like run-of-the-mill Sarah bashing. As it is I think her new book does enough to bolster the Barracuda's ego. there was a crazed media frenzy surrounding the release of this book-- ghost-written, of course, and light on policy, heavy on colloquialisms, and riddled, I hear, with just a touch of self-aggrandizement.

Of course, you should watch this video and notice something: this woman-- who wants to be President, and whose crazy right-wing nut-job fantatical supporters are busy circulating ad campaigns to sell her book and, consequently, build momentum for the run (or at least a long set of fundraising events)-- seem not to remember this interview when they hoist her up. I have heard tons and tons of people bemoan that this interview is edited badly; that the edits we saw on national television were too simplistic and failed to show us the "real sarah" because of this bogeyman left wing liberal media bias. Well, to those of you who say that, I invite you to do what Palin never did while accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" or any of the other silly lies she parroted during the campaign, I challenge you to actually watch any of this man's speeches and tell me you can't find anything that, while inflammatory, is also undeniably correct.

If anyone puts her on the ballot, the Republicans get exactly what they deserve: a long, slow, painful re-alignment.

Eating Rights Movements in One Gulp

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I saw a link to this story on the Huffington Post last night and have been chewing on its implications since then. It hasn't yet completely digested. At first reading I was a little taken aback. It was as if my own prejudices against the obese were being called out even though neither the writer nor the subjects of the piece knew that I was reading it. I felt what I can only assume can be called fit guilt. Don't misunderstand: I'm not in perfect shape buy anyone's standards. On the other hand, I have always been able to maintain a physique wherein I could see my toes without bending over. Ultimately, I view morbid obesity as a choice: there are always going to be people of different shapes and sizes; but if a person is winded after walking up a flight of stairs and they're not attached to an oxygen machine, I don't see a moral pull to sympathize with them.

But this article led me to sites of associations that treat obesity as if it's a matter of civil rights; that the media's treatment of the obese is offensive and discriminatory and that it has to be stopped. Take these folks, for example: they're called the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Awareness. They've been around since 1969 and up until this very night, I'd never heard of them. Is this because I grew up in a household that looked at the obese as physical abnormalities or because, as a child, my father always made fun of me (and my whole generation) for not ALL having six-packs and taut biceps? I don't know.

On the other hand I can't fathom a reason why a series of lifestyle choices could eve be compared with a civil rights matter. Self-esteem is one thing; making yourself into a societal victim so you can keep up your bad habits is just disgusting.

"By the People": A Kind of Review

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A year ago Thursday I posted a fairly lengthy piece about the hopes and responsibilities this President's election posed to a country that so desperately needed a paradigm shift. I kept thinking about that piece as I watched By the People, the HBO documentary about Barack Obama's two-year quest for the Presidency. Press releases for the highly-touted piece promised a candid look into the lives of the people involved in this campaign. being tha thtis was a doc about the current President and not an outgoing one, I expected less of a real doc and more of a hagiography. And I was right.

Successful political campaigns all seem to evolve into short-run cults based around human beings we elevate into demi-godhood for the months leading up o their elections. The high priests and priestesses of these cults are the campaign managers, political strategists, and operatives. This campaign was no exception. It just so happens that the demi-god behind this particular cult gradually evolved into the demi-god for most of my generation and, as such, the political operatives (aside from then-Senator Obama's innermost circle) happened to all be around my age. then-Senator Obama's chief speechwriter is seven months younger than I am. That age bracket is the most empowering portion behind this President's rise to power: we were the chief creative force and the majority of the energy behind his rise to power, and for that and that alone, we deserve to be proud of ourselves.

That said, the film kid in me took a look at this film and began to dissect at about minute three of the picture and never really let up at the film's end. Here were some of the notes I took (and, yes, I was the asshole watching this at home, taking notes):

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The Obama family has been adamant that Sasha and Malia are kept out of the fray of political gossip and tabloid; at the same time members of the campaign staff and this film took great care in showcasing the cute kids involved with the campaign. Do you remember the first full night of the Democratic National Convention? I do: after Michelle Obama gave a fabulous speech, out trotted Sasha and Malia Obama, beaming, as a screen the size of a house descended on the stage so that the cameras could get a shot of them-- Michelle flanked on either side by those cute little girls-- with the Nominee for the Highest Office in the Land in the background towering over the rest of us. The film had at least three instances where the kids involved with the campaign were put on prominent display for their (albeit immense) cute factor. Sasha-- who winks and waves in an early scene about a phone call Obama makes to their house in Chicago from the road-- indulges in the limelight her father casts. I got the distinct sense that the film-makers were acting more as Reality Television producers: Okay, so we need to make sure that the phone call comes while they're doing something homey. Okay, Sasha: are you ready? SMILE! Aaaaand cue phone. . . And of course, there's this sense that Gibbs can't help but make sure his son talks about the election every time he's on camera. The scene with the 11-year-old on the phone is a classic, but of course HBO knew that: they play that snippet in every promotion of the film.

Speech Coverage

The filmmakers employed the same sort of restraint in directing the reverent tone of the film as did Obama's camp in carefully crafting and aggressively moving forward with getting their candidate into the Oval Office: They covered every major speech he made that we remember, from this one all the way to this one. My favorite speech coverage from this film, though, is from a rally I had never seen before. The Senator's grandmother had just died. He was tired, he was grieving, and he spoke anyway. With a slight break in his voice and two tears eking their ways out of the corners of his eyes, the man who would be president talked to the adoring crowd about silent heroes. It was the only time during the entire film where I felt the camera captured him as a human rather than a saint.

Media bits

The filmmakers covered the most famous and incendiary video blurbs that I could remember; namely, this attack ad, the section of this otherwise brilliant speech that Fox and the Hillary camp both used to scare moderate white people and, of course, this well-placed PR stunt. Call me an idealist, but I tend to hold documentary film makers above the level of PR campaigns. I never saw a skeptical reaction to the way the candidate dealt with any of these contentious issues. Let's take the crying fiasco: are you telling me that a film crew with absolutely unfettered access couldn't come up with a single instance of a staffer (or, better yet, the candidate himself) ranting about this? Sure, there's a section where Obama, in a rehearsal for one of the debates, admits that he doesn't want to sound whiny while responding to lies told about him on the campaign trail; but that's the closest we come to seeing him almost honestly assess what it was like to have to be on such a high guard about his image and positions.

All in all, this was a great piece of PR material for the President. It wasn't necessarily a great and nuanced documentary. I don't think it will dispel any of the animosity his opponents have built around him in the ten months since he's been in office. Anyone who wishes and prays that hte Obama Presidency ends in 2012 will still feel that way by the end of this film. On the other hand, for those of us who want to be able to tell our grandchildren that the first Black President of the United States became so in no small part to the sweat, tears, and sleepless nights of members of our generation, we can point to this film as evidence and say "Yes. We did."

Dan Savage and Maine: One step Forward. . .

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I know I'm late on this, but I saw Milk for the first time a little over a week ago. Granted, this guy will never run for public office in Seattle; his activist streak is more comfortable in popular culture, where he can enliven his community at the same time as he can make lots of money doing so. But in watching the poll results for the Maine vote last night, I couldn't help but think that someone in the public sphere would have to take it up. The overtly organizational ends of that movement are too busy having the President placate them to fight back with any real amount of force.

I was in college when I was first introduced his to work. It was in the back of the Theater section of the Chicago Reader, an amazingly huge free weekly publication where every week I would plumb through the classifieds for work (that I never got,) twist my head around the crossword (which I never finished,) and laugh my ass off at his column. it wasn't so much the relationship work that interested me. Don't get me wrong-- as far as advice columns go, what drew me to Savage was its absolute candor; what drew me to Savage's writing style were primarily two things: first, he's mean and still incisive. Second, he can't help but inject his own activist streak into his advice column. Of course, the funniest instance was the santorum affair; but his rants about everything from Prop 8 to the recent Hate Crimes legislations have been fun. After years of tirades and active, articulate (if vitriolic) regular commentary on every gay issue to come down the pike since I began reading him seven years ago, here's what he said about the brou-ha-ha from last night.

"Fuck you Maggie, wherever you are."

I have no idea who Maggie is (and I'm sure given the obscurity of this start-up, I might never find out.) On the other hand the terseness of Savage's response is pretty telling. At the middle of the decade the GOP made killing gay marriage a rallying point around which conservatives could unify. For us straight folk to even have a remote say in gays' right to marry was absolutely out of my imagination; for us to suddenly assume that gay marriage will sully the sanctity of marriage (as if it were ever sanctified int he first place) is equally insane. The moment you try to tell any of the Gun-and-Bible crowd that, of course, you'll be decried a blasphemer and, as such, never be allowed to sit at Christmas dinner ever again.

Of course Savage isn't the only gay writer of prominence with a national appeal. Kushner is brilliant, but nobody sees plays except us crazy theatre kids. Sullivan's exceedingly bright, but he has always seemed to me to be a William Baldwin or Gore Vidal for our generation-- too erudite, too haughty, too. . . wordy. The LGBT Community is looking for its next Harvey Milk, and at a time when he seems to be needed most,

On the other hand, Maine, congratulations: the fiercest prominent opposition your bigotry seems to have gotten thus far is a big old "Fuck you, Maggie." Whoever she is.

What does it all mean?

It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president's liberal agenda

Michael Steele

It should come as no surprise that that's how the leader of the RNC is spinning the GOP's victories on November 4th. It's perhaps somewhat surprising that he didn't throw in a "baby," or any of the numerous rhetorical devices he uses to remind people that he's black. But I digress

It's easy to spin the results of last night's election as a referendum on Obama, and a few of yesterday's headlines did just that

GOP victories send message to Democrats

Los Angeles Times

Contests serve as warning to Democrats

Washington Post

GOP Victories Offer A Warning To Democrats

NPR

One Year Later, Big Test for Big Government

MSNBC

Oddly enough, (given its recent track record of selling its centrist bias as a lack of bias) CNN is the only news outlet that seems to be answering the question with a clear "no"

So what's the deal with last night's results?

History, for one. Neither Virginia nor New Jersey has elected a governor of the same party as the sitting President in recent years. In Virginia the trend goes back to 1973. In the New York 23rd, history tells a different story. Democrats have been locked out of representing that area of New York since the Civil War.

Dede Scozzafava was all set to take the seat without breaking a sweat until the Tea Party fuckwads and their cheerleaders amongst the big names in the National Conservative Movement decided that their tent wasn't big enough for her, because she didn't play along with their vilification of everything Obama. They instead backed Conservative Doug Hoffman who doesn't live in the district and doesn't know anything about what's important to voters in the district, who voted for Obama last year

While Michael Steele was busy declaring total victory in two races that anyone who knew which political party the President belonged to could have predicted, his inability to lead his party dealt him a loss that broke a streak more than a century long. That the early word on the 2010 strategy for the GOP isn't looking all that different from their brilliant gambit in the New York 23rd should be all the more telling.

Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story either. As Nate Silver wrote, this election was an affirmation of Tip O' Neil's axiom that all politics is local.

Which isn't to say that Progressives shouldn't feel a sense of urgency. The economy is beginning to recover, but job numbers are still lagging. If we want to keep the ball rolling on healthcare and climate change-- if we want to, indeed, continue to move the country in the right direction on any front at all-- those numbers need to rebound. If that means pushing through a second, all-infrastructure stimulus with 50 votes in the Senate and provoking further rage in the short term from the teabaggers who hate us already? So be it.

Write your representatives. Tell them it's time to put Americans back to work. There's no shortage of things to get done.

Congressman With Guts...Sometimes

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) may soon lose the shine on his image. He deserves to, but not for the reasons that are making headlines.

He's apologized since, and curiously the apology was to Linda Robertson rather than whores everywhere who didn't deserve to have their profession associated with her sociopathic behavior. Grayson brands himself as a Congressman With Guts, and in fact has a fundraising website with that title. He certainly has guts when there are campaign dollars in it for him. But what if there aren't?

Take, for instance, this interview with Bill Maher on Real Time a couple of weeks ago.

Oh boy, where to begin.

I don't fault Grayson for his sound bytes. Washington is beset on all sides by unscrupulous people, and pointing them out--in whatever language one chooses-- is a good where it cannot be shown to be an evil. His characterization of the Republican Healthcare Plan is obviously hyperbole, but it fairly accurately captures the let-them-eat-cake attitude that the GOP has been showing on the issue of healthcare reform, and on top of that, "Don't Get Sick" more or less describes the Health Savings Account plan that John McCain proposed during the campaign, which would have been great-- so long as you don't need healthcare.

But when Maher questioned the "Die Quickly"portion of his premise, Grayson sidestepped the very real issue that there's a profit motive for treatments rather than cures and took a shortcut to his latest one-liner. And it was a great line, but you get the idea that of the two of them, it's the professional funnyman that actually wants to talk substantively about healthcare.

Which Grayson did nothing to dispel later in the interview.

A recent study shows that our healthcare system's waste level may be as high as $850 billion, and even though the study was released after this particular interview, it's been long known that over-utilization is the primary factor in healthcare inflation. The fee-for-service model puts a profit motive on waste, compensating doctors for treating patients rather than curing them. And it's a difficult issue to tackle, because the means of correcting it can be easily construed as denying options to doctors and patients, and that spectre has been fraudulently invoked by the GOP and the anti-reform lobby since day one.

And Grayson's response? “One person's unnecessary test is another's lifesaving test.”

Gutsy, Alan.

Grayson's heated rhetoric on the floor of the House earned him a media spotlight, and with it an opportunity to contribute to the discourse at a time where the final shape of healthcare reform is still to be determined. Instead, he's cashed in on his visibility with for his 2010 campaign.

Bombast and substance are not mutually exclusive. It takes courage to launch broadsides at an opposition unburdened by truth and more than willing to retaliate, but true grit as a politician lies in the willingness to make arguments based on the whole truth and trusting the American people to understand them.

We as citizens deserve better than the likes of Alan Grayson. And we should demand it.