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My “Morning Joe” week & my monthly call for civility in politics

I write posts like this often enough that I feel a bit like a broken record but I am not going to be deterred.

This morning, someone sent me an article that lambasted Bruce Springsteen’s “41 Shots” and said he supports the killing of cops.  He continued to say “IF YOU LIKE KILLING COPS, YOU ARE A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT.”  (Emphasis HIS)  As a liberal Democrat, who does not support cop killing but lived in NYC at the time of the incident that inspired that song I think the writer has really misunderstood the situation (in the interest of full disclosure, I will blog about my thoughts about that sometime this week).

If we are going to succeed at turning things in this country around, both parties need to stop seeing each other as adversaries and more like partners.  If our economy tanks this summer, for example, it won’t be only blue or red states that are hurt; it be all of us.

While this is not solely the media’s fault, it isn’t helping.  Shows where people yell over each other or merely wait for their turn to talk without listening – these are not discussions, they are debates.  And no one really learns anything.  That was my problem with “Crossfire.”  I knew where each person stood on each issue and it became a huge waste of my time.

One thing about the popularity of some shows now that baffles me is that I hate being yelled at.   I don’t want other people’s opinions screamed at me (after admitting my political affiliation, it should be a given that I am not a big fan of FOX News) but I don’t need to have my own yelled at me either.  I am pretty clear on where I stand; I don’t need Ed Schultz to holler it at me.  And for the record; Keith Olbermann makes my ears bleed.  When my TV yells at me, I end up yelling back and I really don’t need my neighbors to think I have lost it.

Joe Scarborough

And now we come to the “Morning Joe” portion of my point.  I love this show.  LOVE IT.  It has even eclipsed “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” (love that, too but I don’t watch it for three hours a day, five days a week.)  This is something that I never thought I would write.

The show’s creator, Joe Scarborough, is a former politician.  He was elected in 1994 to represent Florida’s first congressional district and was part of the “Republican Revolution” that year.  This was not a freshman class of moderate and liberal Republicans.  It was a bunch of fire breathing conservatives.  My first job was for Senator Feinstein (D-CA) and that’s where I was working when he took office.  From my side of the aisle, he looked a bit fringy.   I am not alone in this theory – he has said it, too.  One of my friend – a former Congressman himself, one who was the only member of the Conservative Party when he was in the House asked me, “How can YOU like Joe Scarborough he was a right-wing nut job in Congress!”

One belief that I will surrender only upon my death is one of the reasons I like Scarborough.  When I meet someone who is active politically, either on a professional or volunteer basis, I assume (until/unless I am given reason to think otherwise) that they are in this business for the same reason I am – to make the country and world a better place.  If you start conversations with people who disagree with you assuming that makes them Hitler, you are never going to get anywhere.  If you start from the position that your disagreements are more akin to having differing opinions about the route you should take to the same destination, you can have a real discussion.  Have you ever heard of someone thinking someone else was evil because you thought you should take one road to the grocery store and they thought you should go another way?  No?  Right, because it is a ridiculous thought.

Mika Brzezinski

“Morning Joe” provides these kinds of discussions.  From the hosts themselves – Scarborough, Mike Brzezinski and Willie Geist – to the guests they bring on, the topics they discuss and the atmosphere they provide, real ideas can be exchanged and I learn something every morning.  I have not been keeping track of how often I agree with Scarborough on his politics but it’s not often but then again, agreeing with me has never been a prerequisite for me liking someone.  I have no patience for that sort of thing.

Willie Geist

So why was this week more of a “Morning Joe” week?  Well, I’ll tell you.  (My job does require me to keep up on the news but even if it did not, I am a total political/news junkie and all around nerd, I know this already, no need to tweet me about it.)

On Wednesday, I went to a Politico event on Capitol Hill.  Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were doing a book signing for her new book, “Knowing your value.”  I have never recommended a book as much as I recommend this one.  At first, I thought that I wanted to buy it for all the women I have ever – or will ever – meet but now I just want to buy it for the entire planet.  I was able to talk to both and it was really fun.  So when I was thinking about writing my monthly plea for people to remember we are all really on the same side, “Morning Joe” seemed like a good example of a way we can communicate and not just yell.   You can download part of the book from iTunes here.  You can also buy it from Amazon here.

As cheesy as this feels to end with, I often think about President Clinton’s line that “There’s nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what’s right with America.”  I think we can say the same about our political system.

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My post mortem on the Trump candidacy

Donald Trump was never in the 2012 presidential campaign for the long haul.  I am not saying he had no interest in being president, I think he did.  He probably still does.  But this is my take of how this all went down.

 The 2012 campaign began almost the day after the election in 2008 but it really started up after the 2010 campaign.  Speculation about who was going to run on the GOP side seemed to be everywhere.  If there is anyone who understand the adage that “no press is bad press,” it’s Mr. Trump.  I grew up on Long Island where we seemed to get a ring side seat to the Trump Show.  I think he had been asked to do this and thought his campaign would be credible; a credible stunt.    Now, because he has a considerable ego, had been considering this, maybe his real interest was at 10 percent.  Anyone who has worked on a presidential campaign has seen the cottage industry that springs up when someone looks like they are running for president.  Would be candidates end up surrounded by a growing chorus of people telling him to run.  I used to wonder about candidates who have no chance, do they have no one in their life who can tell them this is a bad idea?  No, no there is not.

 So after a bit of this, Mr. Trump’s seriousness may have grown but I can guarantee that he did some checking into this – before he announced he was looking into it – and one of the very first things he would have learned,  was that he would have to release his financials and anyone who has ever really followed his career understands that this was never going past the summer.  Add to that his discomfort at shaking hands (a campaign must-do) and hatred of being seriously questioned (another campaign must-do) and you’ve got your three strikes.

 I think Mr. Trump started this thinking it would get decent press and raise ratings (can they ever be too high?  Not to him).  He starts out talking about the issues that he thinks makes him a credible candidate – the economy and our relationship with China.  He makes progress in the polls but the progression is more of a stable growing of support (good for politics, not so much for TV ratings) but not the meteoric rise he was looking for (bad for a campaign of a year and a half but good for TV ratings).  What’s been the hottest topic for many on the right?  President Obama’s birth certificate.  Mr. Trump takes a hard turn right and into loonie land, his polls numbers soar and the media eats this up like crazy.

 Note to the news media:  you have what, 17 months left of this campaign to cover?  Ask yourselves if you took his candidacy more seriously – or claimed to – to give you an excuse to cover something interesting.  If your answer is that he repeated (over and over and over) how serious he was – his stunt would not have worked without that.  If you really believed this, you would take Chris Christie at his word when he tries to make that same claim the other way.  Oh, and I also have a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

 With his poll & ratings numbers soaring (not sure about his actual show but he dominated the 24 hour news cycle), the White House sees some of the crazy rhetoric is having an effect on what average people were starting to think about the President’s place of birth.  They release the long form certificate.  Mr. Trump is a allowed a small victory lap before his Icarus (thank you Chris Cillizza) candidacy crashes to earth.  We all know what happened next, Mr. Trump is eviscerated a few days later at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and to add that last nail, his NBC show is interrupted by the announcement that President Obama caught and killed Osama bin Laden.  Done.

 I would like to draw a clear comparison between this media type candidacy and that of Mike Huckabee.  Governor Huckabee was the clear front runner, which means as much as that can in 1.5 years out.  He also wanted to be president but this is a long grueling process.  One thing I always try to remind people about campaigns is that there are two things that you always run out of.  While you can theoretically make more money (as hard as that is), you can’t get more time.  Once the race starts, you get a finite amount and that’s all you get.  I think he looked at his life and weighed the real chances – even locking in the GOP nod would not guarantee him the prize, and it probably just seemed to be too much.  I am only laying all that out to show just how genuine his reasons for ending his campaign were.  No, Cenk Uygur, he did not “get too fat and happy to run.”  That’s just petty and mean.

 PS.  Dear Mr. Trump, this might be a good time to revisit that plan you had to save the Mets.  That’s a financial/sad situation that really might need you.

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Is there a method to all this GOP madness? Methinks so.

This should be a great time to be a Republican.  Despite the apparent jubilation that followed the news we had finally killed the world’s most famous terrorist and our self-described arch nemesis, President Obama did not get the same poll surge other presidents have gotten after these kinds of things.  Now, I am not ready to say he will lose in 2012 but I think there are plenty of opportunities for the GOP to take advantage of the current climate of worry and real pain.

 What makes me nervous is that even with their army of message disciplined warriors and plethora of seemingly willing candidates, something just seems off.    Most of the cast of characters we have out there now all have one strange thing in common; they all have some potentially fatal flaw.  And it’s making me suspicious.  Think about it.  Let’s look at our current crop of candidates (in no particular order). 

 Mitt Romney: Romney care.  One of the top priorities for many on the right is the repeal of “Obamacare” and many – on both sides – can tell you that without the former, the latter may not have happened.  It is going to be hard to convince conservatives who think the individual mandate poses an immediate threat to the American way of life that while Romney thought it was good for Massachusetts but would not impose it on everyone else.  Add in his statements on climate change and his religion – more than a few evangelicals aren’t thrilled with it – and he may not be able to wrap this thing up this quarter like his campaign would like.

 Michelle Bachman: she is either really stupid, really insane or a liar.  Seriously.  She has a law degree and she still cannot keep basic US history straight.  She seems to just say whatever words come to mind and hope they form thoughts that make coherent sentences and while they do, they still don’t make sense.  When fellow Tea Partier and non-witch, perpetual candidate Christine O’Donnel says “We should change the phrase ‘shooting fish in a barrel to fact-checking Michelle Bachman,’” it’s hard to see how far she’ll get.  PS – Ms. O’Donnell please run for something again.  Anything, one of my hobbies is stand-up comedy and you make me very happy.  PPS.  If Congresswoman Bachmann does get into the White House, I am moving to whatever country will have me.

 Sarah Palin:  Not possibly credible.  Governor Palin shares a lot of Congresswoman Bachmann’s problems in terms of how she comes across.  While she may not butcher well known facts and history as badly, her knowledge of both what has happened in the past and what’s happening now does not seem to be “encyclopedic.”  Moreover, she had a reality show.  Can anyone really take that seriously? One woman in Alaska made a really great point about the Governor’s decision to quit mid-way through her first term; she was hurt and upset that after all the work that Palin’s campaign supporters gave her – both in money and volunteer time, their loyalty was not reciprocated. 

 Newt Gingrich:  Where do you begin?  His hypocrisy? His tendency to flip flop or just run off the reservation?  The former speaker’s campaign will self-destruct for reasons that have nothing to do with his infidelity but that’s where I am starting.    Other than the fact that I think divorcing your wife while she is still in the hospital recovering from cancer is incredibly wrong, his attitude towards marriage and infidelity was absolutely none of my business until he pushed though the Clinton impeachment for doing something he was doing at the time.  The upside to Newt ‘s candidacy is that he will do himself in for completely different reasons.  His verbosity – an addiction with him – will sink him.  He will contradict himself (when the Libya situation broke out he said that he wanted us to go in and the minute we did he said he never would have done that) or he will have some hissy that does him in.  Anyone remember the reason he gave for the government shut down in 1995?  “President Clinton was mean to me on Air Force One, he made me sit in the back of the plane.”  It just occurred to me now ironic it is that he was upset about being forced to sit at the back of a plane, would he have felt the same about other forms of transport – say buses?

 Donald Trump: he’s Donald Trump.  Oh, I am also not convinced he in running.  I don’t dislike him, I actually find him really entertaining but I cannot see this is anything more than a publicity stunt.  It seems that in other areas where he makes this kind of investment, i.e. when he develops anything, he does his research and hires professional to advise him.  Even if he is either serious now – or becomes convinced by the hoards of people who attend his events, his statements up to now have been more about saying what will ever get the most attention than what is the most presidential.  Neither his statements nor his record will stand up to the real scrutiny that will come his way if he makes this official.

 There are two candidates (John Huntsman & Mitch Daniels) whose “issues” seem really petty compared to the people already described.  The former was President Obama’s ambassador to China and his previous support for civil unions could be problems for the base.  It seems that he can argue that he was the best person for the job and our relationship with China is too important to our economic and national security to turn down a presidential request to take it and if the economy is still crappy, well the civil union issue may be anything but.  As for Governor Daniels, his “problem” is that his wife left him, married someone else, divorced that person and went back to Governor Daniels.  Maybe hardcore marriage voters will wonder how she left her children but how does that make the Governor look bad?  He seems to be the forgiving husband and loving father.

 And that’s my point.  Next to the crop mentioned above, these two look pretty good, sane and electable.  Even melba-toast Nick Pawlenty looks good next to Michelle Bachman, et al.  Governor Daniels remarried his wife who left him?  Newt Gingrich is on wife number three.  John Hunstman worked for President Obama?  The vast majority of Donald Trumps political contributions were to Democrats, his views on most issues change depending on the wind direction and he gets annoyed when asked about his own business dealings and records (will he release his financials?).

 And even if these last three candidates are forced out, there are a few others out there that may be tapped.  I believed Chris Christie when he said he didn’t want to run but his recent comments on creationism make me wonder if that’s not a nod to some on the right.  He’s already got the talking points about why he would change his mind, “My country needs me and I cannot resist this call…”

 You may think I am paranoid in seeing a ruse in all this insanity and implied inexperience/incompetence but I worry they are all crazy all right; crazy like foxes.

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Not sad but not excited by the death of a terrorist

When something is thrown upwards, there is a point at which the object’s upward momentum and the force of gravity are equal. For some time period — even if it is incredibly small — when the object hangs suspended. That is the emotional space I have occupied since learning about Osama bin Laden’s death. Any relief/closure/positive emotion has been tempered by my normal instinct that death is bad and deaths, even of bad people, are not meant to be celebrated.

Now, I should confess a few things. I grew up on Long Island and live in Washington, DC. My emotional location vis-à-vis 9/11 had been a strange place. It remains one of the worst days of my life and few things would make me happier than seeing the towers built back exactly the way there were and despite knowing New York as well as I know any place on earth, I still get lost in lower Manhattan sometimes because I still look for the WTC when I get out of the subway. Growing up, that was my compass in the city. It may always be. These are the reasons, my liberal friends tell me my opinion of anything 9/11 related is less valid because I am too close to it.

At the same time, I will never think we should do to ourselves what the terrorists could not; destroy out way of life and take away our belief in the ideals that inspired our republic. Racial intolerance cannot be mistaken for vigilance against terrorism. We cannot convince anyone outside of the US  to believe that we believe in the importance of the rule of law if we do not apply it uniformly within the US. And the Bill of Rights is as important today as it was on 9/10/2001. These are the reasons my conservative friends tell me my opinions on this subject are less valid because I “do not understand the impact 9/11 had on America.”

You can see the paradox. One might think these opinions would give me more reason to hate Osama bin Laden but I don’t. I can’t. He doesn’t deserve that. The closest thing I have had to “joy” at seeing him be killed was when I laughed at a photo of President Obama that had the caption “I am sorry it took me so long to get you my birth certificate, I was busy killing Osama bin Laden.”

At the end of the day though, if I were to become the kind of person who celebrates any loss of life — even of someone as reprehensible as this mass killer — I just become more like them and I don’t want that.