Category Archives: Political thoughts

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It’s all about expectations

Our national pastime is not baseball, though I wish it was. Our national pastime is building people up to bring them back down. As Jon Stewart said on his iconic Crossfire appearance, “I don’t know much about democracy, I have only lived in this country” I don’t know if this is something other cultures do. We love it.

Britney Spears. Lindsay Lohan. Barack Obama. Even DC Mayor Adrian Fenty.

1. Mayor Fenty – possibly a victim of his own success, was a phenom. The youngest mayor in DC history, he was the post-racial symbol of how far the city had come. From several decades ago when there was no ‘home rule’ to Marion Barry, this has been a wild ride. And Marion Barry had a tagline before ‘the bitch set me up.’ Before he said that, he was popular for creating jobs. His later mantra was one of redemption; a message too many people here can relate to. And then we got Anthony Williams. Maybe Adrian Fenty is as much a victim of Anthony Williams’ competence as his own. It should be noted that Mr. Williams was not perfect either – he had to be write in candidate when his campaign workers could not procure enough legal signatures – but he was a good mayor. “At least he’s not a crack head,” was no longer good enough. And then we all met Adrian Fenty. Sporting three blackberries he seemed really interested in a dialogue with the city. I was moving when he approached me. I was impressed and went out of my way to vote for him. My expectations were too high. He was a good mayor and yet I voted for Vincent Grey because, as I told WJLA, Mayor Fenty was not the person I expected him to be. Despite the fact that the schools got better, crime went down and the city has a great new bike program. I just didn’t like him. Sorry.

2. President Barack Obama faces a similar dilemma. He promised ‘change you can believe in’ and people expected monumental things. He has actually delivered. Remember, when he entered the White House he had a series of what I like to call ‘Himalayan problems’ – each one is gigantic alone but seen with the others, they appear smaller. The worst economy since the Depression. Two wars. Global warming. The Gulf spill. And he got heath care reform passed. He got financial reform passed. He may have saved the economy with stimulus that was a third tax cuts, not that anyone knows that. He may be able to blame Bill Clinton for his problems. I always said Bill Clinton may have been Al Gore’s biggest problem; and not for the reasons you are thinking. Bill Clinton is brilliant. Absolutely, amazingly brilliant. The problem he is also ‘Bubba’ — the guy who feels your pain and you want to have a beer with. Do not, even for a millisecond, this that is criticism, I would jump in front of a bullet for Bill Clinton. The problem is that many voters in 2000 saw Al Gore and George W. Bush as Bill Clinton split in two; you had the nerd who knew everything and the normal guy you wanted to hang with. We all know how that movie ended. And so as our nation faces this great dilemma, one of the worst crises since our inception, we don’t want a professor – though we need one – we want a guy who gets us. We expected an inspirational figure and we got an intellectual.

3. George W. Bush may have been the best thing to happen for people on the right. I made fun of him as much as anyone, it was easy. At the end of the day, George W. Bush is not the idiot the left made him out to be. Did you know he got better grades at Yale than Senator Kerry? Look it up. He is so smart because he maybe the political equivalent of Keyser Soze, whose greatest gift (or it was the devil) was ‘convincing the world he didn’t exist.’ He made us all believe that if he showed up somewhere and didn’t drool on himself, he had done good that day. And what has that legacy been? Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell and Rand Paul. Oh, and Sharon Angle. There are others but it makes me to depressed to think about it. The left dismisses these candidates at our peril.

And so it’s all about building people up to tear them down. I both love that and hate it. Being human, and one of the snarkiest people I know, I kind of like it when some arrogant person gets what they deserve. Being someone who supports competency in government, it bothers me because President Obama has done some amazing things and gotten no real credit while George W. Bush sent us to a war we didn’t need and destroyed the economy but rather than going grey with worry like Obama, he gets to play golf all day. It’s not fair.

Of course, neither is life and that’s why I don’t regret my vote for Vincent Grey. Hope my expectations for him are low enough for me not to be disappointed.

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I hate Arianna

Everybody loves Arianna Huffington.  Except for me.  For some reason, writing that makes me think of the Flanders song on The Simpsons:

“Hens love roosters.  Geese love ganders.  Everyone else loves Ned Flanders.

Not me. (Homer)

Everyone who counts loves Ned Flanders.”

I don’t like Arianna, and have a really hard time reading the insufferable Huffington Post, because I don’t trust her.  Sure, she seems like a good liberal/progressive today.  Today, on September 20th, 2010, Arianna was on Hardball dutifully playing a reasonable person.  One might totally forget her history – most seem to have – but I am not in that group.  I remember her history.

My personal history with her is long.  No, I have never met her but she was a big part of the start of my career.  And yes, I apparently hold grudges.  My experience with her started in 1994 but to get a full picture you need to go back further than that.

Arianna Huffington (née Stassinopoulos) was born in Greece.  In 1960, she moved to the United States.  One of the first things she was known for (here, she hosted a show in Britain before moving here) was dating Jerry Brown.  You know, the liberal.

Mrs. Huffington later married Michael Huffington, a Republican.  The couple moved to Santa Barbara in 1992 so that he could run for the House of Representatives.  He won.  She not only campaigned for her husband but she debated his opponent in his place.  In 1994, the duo ran one of the most expensive campaigns in US history (at the time) to unseat Senator Dianne Feinstein.  Almost $32 million later ($28 million of his own), Michael Huffington almost became a Senator.  That was the year I got my first job in politics.  I was  a press intern for Senator Feinstein.  Most of the time I love elections because they have outcomes that are pretty quick and decisive.  You know (usually, the country learned the lesson I learned that year in 2000 when hanging chads entered our collective vernacular) on election night if you won or lost.  Not in 1994, that election was so close that it was determined by absentee ballots.  This was a painful time for Senator Feinstein because she lost the California gubernatorial race in 1990 because of the same thing.

This was also a painful month for Senator Feinstein’s staff.  The Huffingtons made this worse.  I do not fault either of them for fighting the election night outcome; that’s normal.  I fault them for the incredibly poor sportsmanship they showed in the months between that night and when they finally gave up –I believe it was January when they did.  I could look it up but I want this account to be as much from memory as possible.  Congressman Huffington positioned himself in the path between where Senator Feinstein was sworn in to her office; he was giving a press interview (I was there, I saw it).  He was seen riding the “Senators Only” elevators (not as elitist as they seem, it’s to allow them to get to the Capitol in time for votes).  Arianna was seen measuring offices and picking out furniture.  At least once (when I was there anyway), they walked by our office and waved.  Classy.

The Huffingtons split up because he is gay.  There is nothing wrong with being gay.  Arianna is an immigrant.  There is nothing wrong with being an immigrant.  It is, however, incredibly hypocritical to run a campaign based on discriminating against homosexuals and immigrants when you are both.  It is pretty inexcusable if you aren’t but there I cannot forgive Arianna for supporting Proposition 187 (the anti immigration ballot initiative that would have prevented the children of immigrants from attending public schools).  Yes, Arianna, I kind of wished that had passed.  If only we could have made it retroactive to the day before you got here.  Do I sound bitter?  Kind of.

Once she was on her own, Arianna went on a crusade against the media.  She became a conservative columnist/panelist.  She wanted to start a show Beat the Press.  She hosted a show with Al Franken where she was the conservative and he was the liberal.  I think it was called Strange Bedfellows.  I still haven’t forgiven Franken for that.

And then it gets interesting.  Arianna started the Huffington Post. To whom did she turn for help?  Andrew Breitbart.  You may remember him.  He’s the rabid, Tea Bagger whose web site ‘broke’ the Acorn scandal last year.  He’s a peach.  And yet, I have fewer problems with him than Arianna.  Say what you want about Breitbart; he’s honest about his agenda and position.

So I don’t like Arianna.  It bothers me to no end that her web site is given so much weight and influence. I don’t trust the liberal turned conservative turned liberal.  No self-respecting progressive should.

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Really?

Really?  Yes, really.

This has become my favorite word.  I think I must say ‘Really???’ about a hundred times a day.

  • Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his opponents use ‘Hitler tactics.’  Really? Mr. Abmadinejad, one of the world’s most famous and infamous Holocaust deniers, has accused his political rivals of behaving like Adolph Hitler when they insulted him:  It is illegal to insult  the president in Iran.  He furthermore threatened to put them in jail for saying that he had lied about the economy.  And they’re acting like Hitler?  So the man who thinks Hitler really didn’t do anything all that bad is threatening to throw people who disagree with him in jail.  Really?  Yes, really. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5592OM20090610
  • The GOP ‘disses’ Sarah Palin. Palin disses David Letterman.  The press wonders what this means for the Party.  Really? Sarah Palin was invited to speak a fundraiser in DC but the offer was rescinded when she didn’t give a firm answer and Newt Gingrich stepped in.  Her response seems to have been to call David Letterman ‘pathetic’ and the media ‘buffoons.’  Before jumping on Palin, it should be noted that the press really hyped the infighting and given the current position of the GOP in America, this is what makes them think it is in disarray?  And Mrs. Palin, this is the battle you want to have?  With Letterman?  Really?  Yes, really.
  • Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) thinks President Obama’s ‘paygo’ idea is hypocritical.  Really? Eric Cantor sure is living up to his new nickname, ‘Dr. No.’  He has opposed pretty much everything President Obama does or says.  First he accused the president of being a hypocrite when he asked Congress to make the ‘PayGo” (any spending needs to be paid for) rule law – mostly because of the new spending.  Apparently, he was absent during his first eight years in office when the Dubya admin spent like drunken sailors and ran up our deficit and debt.  Of course, it didn’t look as bad then because the costs for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were included in the budget (nice accounting trick there).  Then he said “the stimulus package is not a success story, people are still suffering.”  Note to Rep. Cantor – the bill passed about six months ago, it took us longer than that to get into this mess, it will take longer to get out. So, the Minority Whip both thinks it is ok when his party spends money on unnecessary wars (Iraq) and tax breaks for the uber-wealthy but cannot stand to see it spent on Americans and wants policy changes he doesn’t like to work immediately. Really?  Yes, really.
  • When all else fails, we know Joe will find a way to remind us all what a (insert your favorite expletive that means jerk here) he is.  Really? Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have said they plan to do everything in their power to block CIA photos of ‘enhanced interrogation’ from being released.  By anything, they mean stop the Senate from getting any work done until their amendment is added to a bill that would fund our troops.  Hey, it’s not like the Senate has work to do, right? They only have to hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee, work on overhauling health care, fix the economy, deal with escalating violence in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq, prevent a pandemic, keep an eye on North Korea….  And did I mention the first bill they want to filibuster is for funds for our troops?  Really?  Yes, really.

As a final note on torture, mom you might not want to read this, this quote seemed really appropriate for the torture debate: “If you beat this motherfucker long enough, he will tell you he started the fuckin’ Chicago fire but that won’t make it true.”  ‘Nice’ Eddie – Reservoir Dogs. Exactly, thanks Eddie for making my point so eloquently.

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Thoughts on abortion

More thoughts on abortion…

FYI:  Whenever I write about, or mention, abortion I get emails asking why I enjoy killing babies so much.  No one enjoys killing babies.  My sarcastic side, commonly referred to as ‘me,’ wants desperately to add the words more than me but there are a lot of people who cannot understand sarcasm and would probably think I was serious.  Actually, there are probably people out there who a, really like abortion and b, really like killing babies but I would argue they are probably insane and hopefully there aren’t many of them.

My view is the same as the Clintons’ view. Abortion should be safe, legal (available) and rare. The recent killing of Dr. George Tiller (http://remembertiller.com/) has brought the issue back front and center, though next month’s Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotamoyor would have done the same thing, only with less violence.  What troubles me, other than the obvious pang one has when one reads about senseless violence, is that this tactic worked.  Dr. Tiller’s family will not reopen their clinic.

While this may seem like a hollow victory for anti-abortion groups, they have said they are glad the clinic will close but worried about the legal ramifications this will have, really the end result may be more chilling.  Abortion may be legal in the United States but legal does not equal available.  As we debate Roe v. Wade, I have to wonder about its relevance today.  I do not want to see it overturned but would like to see access expanded, funding restored and better sex education promoted.

Dr. Tiller’s clinic was one of three in the country that performed late term abortions on fetuses with horrific abnormalities. Clinics that provide reproductive services all over the country are beefing up their security in the wake of this tragedy.  This can only limit people’s access to care, not just abortions but health care.

lowincomeIt is already more difficult than most people realize for women to get abortions.  For low income women it can be almost impossible.  This map shows states that restrict access for poor women to abortion.  There are 33 states plus the District of Columbia – seen here in red.  The blue states (no, the political parallel is incidental) provide them with access, there are 17 of them.

Currently, 23 states have laws banning abortion at 12 weeks or after (red) but these laws are considered to be

12weeksunconstitutional and unenforceable.  Five states (blue) have enforceable laws against abortions at 12 weeks and after.

 

 

 

spousal consentFive states require women to get written permission from their spouse before getting an abortion.

This study has data for both side .  One alarming number from it is that 86 percent of US counties do not have any abortion providers at all.   One could argue that the decline in abortions, which began in 1991 following an all time high in 1990, accelerated under President George W. Bush.  But I would point to the fact that the high point was under the first President Bush and that 2000 saw the introduction of mifeprisone (RU-486) and cases in which this was used may not be counted in the full abortion count.

All this just makes me more grateful that Barack Obama was elected president.   Not only because he will pick judges who are less inclined, or not inclined, to overturn Roe but his Justice Department will take seriously the threats clinics face.  That’s good for women and medical professionals in every state.