On Picking Warren

I am trying to maintain a positive attitude about our next president in the face of his pick of Rick Warren to be part of his historic inauguration, but I just simply cannot consider it with anything other than serious disappointment and misgiving.

John Harwood on Countdown claims that because we like so many of the things that Obama is doing that we must therefor accept without complaint everything that he does. We should not complain about his pick of Rick Warren because he is getting the troops out of Iraq, cutting taxes on the middle class, etc.

While actions do exist within a pattern of the whole, I do not agree with Harwood. To me each action must stand on its own merits as well as being seen within the context of the pattern.

"We must learn to disagree,” Obama says, “without being disagreeable.” And he then picks a person to give the invocation who compares gay marriage to incest and pedophilia; who compares abortion to the Holocaust. Rick Warren disagrees in the most disagreeable terms imaginable.

“We must have a policy of including everyone,” Obama says. Rick Warren preaches exclusion of an entire class in the most disagreeable terms that one can think of and Obama, in the name of inclusiveness, gives him a world platform.

But perhaps this should not surprise us. Barack Obama says he supports equality for gays and lesbians, but he has told us that he would exclude them from the equality of marriage based on his own personal religious definition of that word. He does not care how you or I define it, or how they define it, or how any other church defines it; he would base that exclusion on his definition. He has repeatedly dodged the question of how he intends to deal with the issue of gays serving in our military.

There is an old saying that goes, “Your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.” Perhaps, with this action, we just learned something about Barack Obama that we did not really want to know.

Changing of the Guard

The Obamas visited the White House today and were treated with great courtesy by President and Mrs. Bush. Pictures and commentary have been on all of the news talk shows, and I have found myself being oddly moved by it all. What the hell; this happens every four to eight years. And then I realized: Zimbabwe.

In that unhappy nation elections are held and the losing incumbent refuses to relinquish power. The UN has to step in and work out a “power sharing” arrangement, and the losing incumbent refuses to honor that agreement, maintaining office by threats and the use of terror tactics on his people.

Here we have had eight years of a presidency that took executive privilege to unheard of extent, that gave new meaning to the term “unitary executive.” This is a president who has wrapped himself in the title “Commander in Chief” and called himself “the Decider.”

And yet when the time comes, he meets his successor at the door of the White House, shakes his hand and says, “Welcome to your new office.”

This is a great nation.

Noted in passing:
Chris Matthews referred to the office in passing as “the nation’s chief executive.” Thank you, Chris, that was music to my ears. I hope it is a sign of things to come.

Robert Reich, financial advisor to Barack Obama, in discussing the financial crisis and pending ways of dealing with it mentioned Obama, “mobilizing the people to be pressuring Congress to be sure things get done.” Not even a week since he was elected and here is a hint, however small, that Obama might be keeping his campaign promise to make “change happen from the bottom up.”

And I'm going to have to quit bragging about the weather. It's clear today, but it rained almost a tenth of an inch yesterday and the high today was only 67. It could reach 90 this weekend though.

(Obviously that last was snark and I'm still bragging.)

A More Perfect Union

On Election Day 2008 America cast off the threadbare jacket of ethnic tolerance and wrapped itself in the new, warm mantle of acceptance, equality and justice.

Tolerance was the result of a movement in the 1960’s that involved anger, strife and violent protest. It was a necessary and valuable movement, it was a movement that I supported strongly at the time, but it was a movement that in the end divided a nation and resulted in laws that coerced tolerance.

Barack Obama started a movement that united a nation, united a people. Asked why he would not be critical of the opposition party, he asked in response that if he spoke only to members of his own party how could he reunite a country? He appealed to our better nature and he made us a better people. We looked at this man, we saw the color of his skin and we elected him President.

We, the people of this nation, chose this man.

In a moment of symbolism, it was no one state that put the electoral vote over the top. Immediately when the Pacific states polls closed, three states were called simultaneously and Obama was projected as the next President. That was a nice touch.

Better than the happy crowds was Jesse Jackson, standing silent gazing into the distance with tears streaming down his face. I can’t help but think he was seeing Dr. King, and all who marched with him and are no longer with us, finally at peace.

This, not tolerance, is what they marched for.

Great Pick

Of course Obama’s message of change is not harmed by selecting Joe Biden. To implement change you have to “make it happen,” and Joe Biden is the man who can be the good right arm to that end. Obama is the author of that change, Biden the counselor of method. So rather than diminished, Obama’s message of change is enhanced by this choice; we’ve always known that he believed in it, now we believe that he can get it done.

To the extent that any change is actually going to be implemented, of course. Obama is not the agent of change that he pretends to be. He will maintain this nation’s ruinous course down the road of world domination and empire. And any changes he makes in the national defense/security leviathan will at best only slightly modify its track record of succeeding only in it’s real purpose of rewarding corporations while failing at actually making the nation more safe. But he may shift the regulation of commerce slightly more toward a populist direction, and he certainly will be better for this nation in terms of women’s and civil rights than his opponent.

Anyway, why not Clinton in the role that Obama chose Biden for? Because no one would ever have been sure that Obama was in charge. We’ve been there before, haven’t we?

The media keeps trotting out this meme of “America doesn’t know who Obama is.” What? He’s been campaigning for nineteen months. His life story has been pored over in detail for more than a year and a half. Of course we know who Obama is, but the media is telling us not to believe it. Joe Biden is going to tell us to believe it and, coming from Joe Biden, we will.

The Obama campaign has been unwilling or unable to cut through the media preservation of the honorable, straight talking, maverick image which, if John McCain ever deserved to begin with, he abandoned in his current quest for the presidency. It took Joe Biden a matter of minutes after his nomination to show precisely how willing and able he is to cut through that particular brand of nonsense, and to attack based on issues and actions rather than on character. His charges will be based on what McCain is doing and on his policies, not on what qualities McCain possesses or lacks.

Joe Biden: “His policies are…, he has supported Bush, he has voted to….”

McCain: “He is inexperienced, not ready to lead, he lacks judgement.”

Which of those is the honorable campaigner, the “straight talker.” Facts can be substantiated. Character assassination can never be more than an empty threat.

Joe Biden is a fighter. You won’t see Joe “working the refs.” He’ll leave complaints about media coverage and unfair treatment to others. Complaints about fairness is for wimps and Joe Biden is no wimp. “Just get up,” he says, “and get on with it.” And he says it with a charming smile.

The Democratic ticket just got better.

This is Leadership?

During the primary campaign, when Clinton and McCain were both pandering with the “gas tax holiday,” Obama stayed the course with a principled position that it was a bad idea which sounded like it would help taxpayers but which would actually harm them while enriching oil companies. That was leadership, and it resonated with voters and won him a couple of states.

Since the campaign has entered a general mode I’m seeing a different candidate; a candidate who seems unable to stand on any kind of principle at all. First he caved on the FISA bill, with stated reasons for doing so that were transparently bogus. Then he decided than he could support offshore drilling. Then he proposed a “windfall tax” on oil companies and justified singling them out by claiming that they are uniquely able to raise prices by limiting supply, something that in fact any manufacturer can do. Then he first made a statement about the Russian invasion of Georgia to the effect that we need to exercise some caution and promptly changed tack in response to McCain’s belligerence to echo George Bush and show that he (Obama) could be just as belligerent as anybody else. Now he’s pretty much surrenduring the Democratic Convention to the Clintons with a bunch of hooah about how that’s going to “unify the party.” He looks to me like someone who lacks the courage to stand up to the Clinton collective ego.

I don’t expect that I will be in harmony with every single stance that a candidate takes. During the primary I was in agreement with Obama far more often than I disagreed. Since the primary ended, I have not agreed with one single thing that Obama or his campaign has come out with in their frantic dash to the center of the political spectrum and their cynical attempts to attract Republican-lite voters.

Conventional wisdom is that he’s showing that he can be “bipartisan,” but bipartisanship is a method of governing, not a campaign strategy. Save that for after the election. I favor compromise that leads to effective governance, but not compromise for the purpose of getting elected. In a campaign I want to know that the candidate is going to stand up for the causes and principles that are important to me, if not all of them then at least for some, and I’m not seeing that Obama is going to stand up for anything other than the advancement of his own political career.

I have not donated money to any political campaign in more than twenty years because I have not seen any politician who been dedicated to any principle other than his own election. I toyed with donating to Obama, and am grateful now that I did not do so. The only money contribution I have made has been to The Accountability Now PAC, an organization dedicated to ousting incumbents without regard to party affiliation.

Obama as President will probably do no great harm to this country, while McCain will most likely be an utter disaster, so I will certainly hold my nose and vote for Obama. I will do so wishing, as I have wished with virtually all of my votes, that I had better choices.

What Changed?

I'm not going to tell Senator Obama how to run his campaign. He knows how to do that very well indeed, and is probably going to become president. Probably.

I can only say that what he is doing now is not exciting me at all. His primary campaign excited me. This one is sort of keeping me at the point that he's better than McCain and I'll vote for him if nothing better comes along.

Selling The Point

Many years ago the Hamm’s Beer commercials on television featured a cartoon bear that kept getting in trouble. I loved those commercials, as did everyone who saw them. The bear’s misadventures were a frequent topic of conversation around the office water cooler, and we couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen to him next. Hamm’s was extremely popular for sponsoring that bear.

The only problem was that everyone was buying and drinking Schlitz and Budweiser, not Hamm’s. Advertisers were finding out that the commercials that sold products were not the ones that entertained, but the ones that were repeated so many times that they became annoying. Those were the ones that made the brand name stick in peoples’ minds when they were standing at the point of sale.

John McCain knows that. He is getting killed right now by current events. He has nothing on which to sell himself other than his personal valor in combat and in the face of torture, and the fact that he supported the surge. And so he repeats these truisms to the point of annoyance. When asked about removing troops from Iraq he responds by saying that he was right on the surge and Obama was wrong. When asked about Afghanistan he responds by saying that he was right about the surge in Iraq.

It is annoying, it is unresponsive, and it works. It makes people remember his name. People only need one fact to remember a person, and they remember that fact and define that person by that fact.

A friend of mine once told me, when I asked him if his razor broke, that he was growing a beard and that he was going to let it grow out to be a large full beard. I asked him why and he replied that it was so that people would then refer to him as “the guy with the beard” instead of “the big fat guy.”

Do not think that John McCain fails to respond to a question because he didn’t understand the question. John McCain is not stupid. He knows how to campaign. You craft a message, a simplistic talking point that defines you, and you repeat that message until your audience cannot see a picture even remotely relating to that message without your name entering their mind.

Yesterday McCain gave the same answer, “I was right on the surge and Obama was wrong,” to three questions in succession. The answer was responsive to the first question, at least moderately so, but it was totally unresponsive to the next two. McCain knows that to get a point to stick in the listener’s mind he has to annoy them with it. A few people will remember it if he says it once, but virtually everyone will remember it if he says it three times. One news station might play a clip of him saying it if he says it once, but by saying it three times he can be all but certain of getting the statement on television.

John McCain is not interested in answering questions. He is interested in getting his talking points on television and, more importantly, implanted in the memories of the voting public.

Is Obama any different? Well, I think the answer is both yes and no. Obama is a politician, and certainly he knows how to do the “talking point” thing.

But Barack Obama is "tainted" by idealism. There are all of these ideas bouncing around inside his head of things he might actually do if elected. They distract him from the cynicism of merely repeating the talking points and these ideas keep getting into his speeches and into the answers he gives to questions. He knows he is supposed to merely provide talking point number four, but he actually has an answer to the question and he just can’t quite prevent himself from giving it.

It makes it hard for the electorate to get a handle on him, though. They want that talking point. That want that one simple fact that defines him and, so far, he isn’t really providing it the way that McCain is. One thing is for sure, though, if Barack Obama is elected,

Either he is going to change Washington, or it's going to change him.

Obama Spurns NASCAR

Do not be deceived, he did nothing of the sort. What actually happened paints a significantly different picture.

An outfit called BAM Racing has been without a commercial sponsor since the beginning of this season, and has been sitting out most of the NASCAR Sprint Cup races. They have a car, driver and enough money to put fuel in the car but they do not have enough money to field a pit crew for the race, which NASCAR requires. So they made an offer to Obama’s campaign to be a sponsor to their car for the Pocono race later this year, which would involve the Obama campaign giving them a lot of money in return for which BAM Racing would put “Obama for President” on the side of the car.

They made the same offer to the McCain campaign, and to several lower level politicians, and then spread the rumor that Obama had accepted. I’m guessing at the latter, but sports writers were all over the idea that Obama was on board, and the rumor had to come from somewhere.

The owners of BAM Racing are staunch Republicans and have donated heavily to that party and its members for years. The driver of the car is also a staunch Republican, has spoken favorably of a number of members of that party for several years and is known to be a McCain supporter. A couple of other pertinent facts are that BAM Racing seldom has even finished a NASCAR race, let alone won one and that the driver, Ken Schrader is a very nice guy and at one time was an outstanding driver, but he is about the same age as John McCain and is about as effective behind the wheel of a racecar as McCain is at a teleprompter.

NASCAR is generally a hotbed of Republicanism anyway, so the side of any racecar is probably not the best venue for Obama’s advertising dollar but, given that it has a proclivity for running about a third of the race at the rear of the field and then heading for the garage, this car would seem to be a particularly poor choice. Obama’s campaign followed the lead of dozens of knowledgeable automotive sponsors and kept their name off of the quarter panel of BAM Racing’s car.

My guess is that BAM Racing spread Obama’s name as the rumored sponsor because they were pretty sure that no one would take them up on the offer and they didn’t want to embarrass any of their favored candidates. Actually, making it appear that Obama was spurning the NASCAR crowd may have been… Nah.

Speaking of the IRL,

(Which I wasn't, but...) I watched the IRL race at Nashville last night, and Danica Patrick has got to be the least charming person I have ever seen on television. According to her all of the rest of the drivers are talentless ill-mannered boors who are conspiring to deny her the opportunity to showcase the skill which she and she alone possesses. Gack.

Obama as Will Smith

No, not in Hancock, I haven't seen that yet. As posted on Outside the Beltway today, there was an item today in the Washington Post about the two presidential candidates. This excerpt is worth repeating,

Wonderful moment in John Ford's "The Searchers," from way back in 1956: John Wayne, as the surly, violent Ethan Edwards, signals to his young compadre that it's time to move on in their pursuit of Scar, the Comanche chief who's murdered their family and kidnapped the youngest daughter, Debbie.

"Let's go, blankethead," he scowls to the young Martin Pawley.

I love the Duke's pronunciation of the word "blankethead"; it radiates contempt for the young and the untested. Ethan is using the blast of scorn to tell the young man not only to get going to his horse but to get going in growing up, to acquire sand, grit, salt and all the other granular metaphors for old-guy toughness and savvy. Blankethead: It's a three-syllable telegram on the theme of the fecklessness of youth, and nobody but Wayne could turn it into poetry.

But in the same instant, I remember Will Smith in the original "Men in Black." The hotshot young cop has been recruited to an alien-hunting team secretly HQ'd in a New York bridge, and now he's working for Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn. Torn and Jones are babbling about something and not paying attention to Smith. There's a moment of frustration on the young face, and he interrupts with his own blast of scorn: "Hey, old guys !"

It's a voice full of impatience, annoyance, even contempt, suggesting they haven't the energy, the quickness or the attention span to take care of business. It's on him, now, the new guy, the kid: He's got to keep them from wandering off, losing track, drifting as the old are wont to do.

I can just see Barack Obama in shades, "Hey, old guy !"

There are also more than a few photos of him that could be captioned with the Will Smith famous, "I make this look good."

The Religion Candidate

In last week’s episode of Army Wives a unit was shown returning home from deployment. The C-5 landed and troops deplaned and formed ranks while the families stood behind ropes breathlessly waiting to welcome their soldiers home. The commander then led the troops in the Lord’s Prayer as they stood in ranks, after which they were released to be greeted by their loved ones.

No, not a final muster or a patriotic speech; not the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem; the Lord’s Prayer. Is that a chilling scene, or what?

(I find that series a little hard to watch anyway. If this is our modern Army, we are in trouble. The commanding general in this drama spends more time weeping than he does issuing orders. I mean, really.)

For several election cycles, now, the Republicans have catered to the religious right with such rhetoric as “compassionate conservatism” and George W. Bush’s “Faith Based Initiative.” Rhetoric from the media has increasingly examined the religiosity of the candidates, despite the constitution’s Article VI clause that “no religious test shall ever be required” for any office, including president. Far less time is spent discussing the candidates’ educational background than is spent on discussion of what churches they may have attended.

In this cycle the parties have somewhat reversed the tradition, with McCain avoiding religion and Obama devoting entire speeches to demonstrating how religious he is and the extent to which religion influences his life and his decision-making. Of such stuff are theocracies made.

Obama accuses McCain of attempting to run for George Bush’s third term, but it is he who seems to be trying to be the “religion candidate.” He is the one touting his religious credentials and his “born again” position with respect to faith. McCain is not the one proposing a “Faith Based Initiative” to mimic the Bush Administration, Obama is the one doing that. If anyone is going to continue the Bush Administration’s attempt to turn this nation into a theocracy, it would appear to me that McCain is much less likely to do so than Obama.

At least he is, as the crux of his religiosity, backing things like social safety nets rather than obsessing on homosexuality and abortion, but the focus on religion simply does not belong to be part of a political campaign under our system of government and the degree to which Obama is indulging in it makes me uneasy.

Obama’s proposed version of the “Faith Based Initiative” plan would require that either government oversight into religious organizations be required to assure that the requirements he has proposed were met, or that funding would be provided to religious organizations with requirements which would not be monitored for compliance. The former is unacceptable to those of faith, and the latter is unacceptable to those with governmental concern.

Perhaps he is just pandering for the votes of the religious right; perhaps this reflects the actual position that he holds. I’m not sure which of those two alternatives is less attractive to me.

Words and Deeds

“Your actions speak so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”

Updated below: July 4th, 7:00am

We now know why the Clintons have been able to reconcile with Barack Obama, why Hillary was smiling and looked so comfortable with him on the stage in New Hampshire. He has demonstrated by his actions that he is no threat to the established ruling class. He is one of them. He is a fully vetted member of the moneyed governing elite, and they can safely work to elect him, since he does not threaten the hold that they have on power.

He is worth electing, in fact is quite necessary to elect him, because he is the least bad of the options that the power system is offering this election.

All through the primary he told us that he would “defend the constitution,” that he would “restore the constitution,” that he “understood the constitution” because he had “taught the constitution.” And now, promptly after winning the primary, he votes in favor of a bill that erodes the constitution. Before the primary he promised that he would support a filibuster to prevent any bill from passing that would grant immunity to companies that had broken the law by spying on Americans, and now he joins Bush and McCain in deciding that such an issue is less important than “keeping America safe from terrorists.”

In defense of his vote in favor of the FISA bill he allows his staff to feed us lies about the need to pass a compromise in haste before the “FISA Law expires,” hoping that the voters are all sufficiently ignorant that they will not know that the FISA Law has no expiration. He himself gives as a reason for his support of this bill that it “restores the FISA Court as the sole authority” when it actually grants vast new powers to the executive with only the most bare and cursory oversight by the FISA Court.

All during the primary he said that he would end the war in Iraq, that he would not be a “war president.” Now he talks of escalating the war in Afghanistan, ramps up talking tough in Iran, and is talking big about increasing the size of what is already the largest military force in the world. We spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, and he wants us to spend more. The “call to arms” that has been missing all these years is finally issued. But why now? Why a call to arms for a war you promised to end?

The media and blogosphere is up in arms about McCain’s denial that he ever said he was “less than expert” on the economy, and declaiming at length about his reversals of position on various issues. Yet Obama is doing exactly the same thing. Last month he was opposed to granting immunity to telecoms, now he is okay with it. Last months he was opposed to passage of wiretapping legislation that broadened the power of the executive, now we need it. And when asked about it, he denies that he has changed his position.

That’s what politicians do. They say whatever is convenient to the moment, whatever the audience in front of them is most likely to respond to. The truth means nothing to them. They cannot speak to their principles because the only principles to which they are dedicated is their own election and the preservation of their own political party’s supremacy. That’s what politics is in this nation.

Obama campaigned on a promise to change that way of doing government and, not even yet elected, he is breaking that promise. That makes him no worse than anyone else who has ever run for office. It just means he is no better, and I had hoped for better. He won’t do the good things he was promising, but he won’t commit the horrors that John McCain threatens, so he still has my vote. He has lost my enthusiasm.

Markos Moulitsas said, “I don’t want to see him talking about leadership. I don’t want to see him talking about defending the constitution. I want to see him doing it.”

When he had that chance, Markos, he settled for talking.

Update: July 4th, 7:00am
Gleen Greenwald, who has been and remains a supporter of Obama, has an outstanding analysis of Obama's support of the new FISA bill at this post.

Change You Can What?

More proof that electing Democrats is going to change little (if anything) about the way our nation is governed. Glen Greenwald is the “go to guy” on the FISA debacle in Congress, but I warn you, do not read that right after eating lunch.

And “debacle” may not be the right word, as it implies some kind of ineptness at work. This Congress is anything but inept, nor are they as cowardly as many are accusing them of being. A lot of posts I read claim that the immunization of telecoms is passing because Congress feels the need to update FISA due to fear of being blamed for an impending terrorist attack. I have no doubt that the real reason has more to do with the huge amount of money that the telecoms have poured into congressional campaign contributions.

We need leadership to change Congress, and it does not appear that we can look to a Democratic President for it. Barack Obama is remaining totally silent as this FISA bill makes its way through Congress. He has said in the past that he opposes the immunization of telecoms, but he stands aloof when Congress takes action to actually do it.

The telecoms are being immunized, the illegal spying activity of the Bush Administration is being buried even as it's power to do it is being enhanced, and Barack Obama is emulating the sound of crickets.

This is the same Barack Obama who is continuing the party’s policy of protecting its own, having taped an ad just this week supporting a Blue Dog Democrat, John Barrow, against a viable challenger in the Democratic primary in Georgia. Barrow is one of the primary backers of this latest FISA bill, and has unfailingly backed Bush’s abuse of power. Barrow’s challenger, Regina Thomas, has been quoted as saying that she decided to run against Barrow due to, "Barrow's failure to support his constituents against the encroachments of powerful Big Business interests."

Remember that Obama, in another instance of supporting the existing Democratic Party machinery against intrusion by outsiders, supported Joe Lieberman in a local primary contest against Ned Lamont.

Barack Obama is still immensely preferable over the alternative, an elderly and even less rational version of George Bush, but I am less than enchanted by his mantra of changing Washington or his claims of leadership.

Deranged Narcissism

The pundits are pretty much unanimous in saying that the first thing Barack Obama must do, having won the nomination for President of The United States of America, is go kiss Hillary Clinton’s ass. The pundits should kiss my ass. Only in the mind of a pundit should the nominee for leader of the world’s most powerful nation go and court the junior Senator from New York.

Having lost that nomination, Hillary Clinton is saying the same thing the pundits are. She let it be known through a news anchor that she wants a private meeting with the nominee as soon as possible. I sincerely hope that Senator Obama lets it be known that he is too busy at the moment. I hope that he lets this Clinton person, the one who lost the nomination bid, know that the loser does not dictate terms to the winner.

Her speech last night has been referred to as “deranged narcissism.”
Given that it included no more than a brief mention of her opponent without acknowledging his victory, a statement that “South Dakota had the last word” without acknowledging that Montana had yet to close its polls, the same spurious claims of superiority in popular vote and in “states with the electoral votes to win in November,” a list of her demands, and a final statement that she will make “no decision tonight,” I would say that description fits rather well.

Especially since all of those self-serving claims and statements were preceded by a vow to unite the party for a victorious election in November.
“I will unite the party,” she says, and adds without saying it “but only on
my own terms.”

“I will make no decision tonight” she says. The decision is not hers to make. She is so narcissistic that she cannot see, or so arrogant that she will not accept, that the voters have made that decision. The decision belongs to the voters, and they have made it. She can try not to accept it, but is made.

And now she wants to dictate terms. She stands at the podium on the night that Barack Obama wins the nomination, on the night that Barack Obama makes history, and dictates terms about what she wants.

Clinton has let it be known through her news contacts that she wants to be on the ticket in the number two slot. For her to make that demand, to even hint at it, is an unconscionable intrusion on the prerogative of the nominee to name his own running mate.

All of this is business as usual in Clintonland. She is going out with power plays, dictating terms under which she is willing to play her role in reuniting the party. “I have my loyal voters,” she is saying, in effect, “and if you want them back in November here’s what you have to do for me, because this is still about me.”

Hillary Clinton divided the party, and it is her responsibility to reunite it. It is not the responsibility of Barack Obama to come crawling to her begging for forgiveness, and the idea of him doing so is repugnant. Even now, the GOP is running film clips of Clinton attacking Obama, of her making statements about his lack of qualification to serve, and they are running those clips as part of their candidate’s campaign for the presidency. She gave them that ammunition and it is her responsibility to repair that damage. She must do that without Barack Obama having to beg her to do so.

Hillary Clinton is now the junior Senator from New York. She is one of fifty one hundred people to hold the title of Senator, and is not even the senior one from her state. She needs to accept that reality and to deal with it.

Barack Obama will become President without this Clinton person.

"This Is Our Moment"

America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Running Mate

Not too long ago some editorialist, opining on the subject of running mates, suggested that having Clinton as his VP choice would make it easier for Obama to get elected but much more difficult for him to govern. His opinion was that he should choose her anyway, because the main point was getting elected. I don’t recall who it was; I simply wrote him off as an idiot and moved on.

David Brooks has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today suggesting the opposite. He suggests that the effect of governance on that choice is much more important than the electability issue. How refreshing it is to hear a voice of reason. My goodness, governing well is important.

One suggestion he had for Barack Obama was Sam Nunn of Georgia.

I lived in Georgia when Mr. Nunn was one of the two Senators from that state, and the only thing that would please me more than seeing him on the ticket with Barack Obama would be to have seen him run for president four or eight years ago. Sam Nunn is a gentleman and a statesman, and would be a great asset to the nation as well as to the administration he served.

I think Sam Nunn would be an asset on the campaign trail as well. He is from the South and is very well liked. He has outstanding defense and foreign policy credentials, having served on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, and he has an excellent relationship with the armed forces. He is currently working in international affairs, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, preventing the spread of nuclear materials.

He is personally in tune with the goals of Barack Obama, that our government regain its integrity and become more responsive to the needs of the people of this country. In fact, the government’s divergence from those positions was precisely why he decided to leave the Senate. His experience in government and his personal integrity make him the ideal helpmate for the ambitions expressed by the man that I hope to see become the next President of the United States.

Truth in Labelling

To find out that Glenn Greenwald serves as a consultant to the ALCU comes as no surprise (in fact it’s one of those sort of “oh duh” things), but is immensely gratifying. Greenwald’s is one of the first blogs I read daily.

One of my favorite movie scenes is from An American President where Michael Douglas is at the podium and is responding to a charge from his opponent that he is “a card carrying member of the ACLU.” He describes the organization as one “which has as its sole purpose upholding the Bill of Rights,” admits proudly that he is a member, leans into the microphone and says to his opponent, “…and what I want to know is why aren’t you?”

That’s an old movie; additional evidence that there’s nothing new about guilt by false association and twisting words in a manner that, for instance, labels a bill that increases air pollution as the "Clear Skies Initiative."

One more proof that it is time for change that we can believe in.

And Barack Obama responding to the charge of being an appeaser kind of reminds me of Michael Douglas at the end of that movie. Sometimes pissing your opponent off is not your best move.

Context Matters

Jeremiah Wright has been a pastor in an African-American community church for more than 30 years. One person after another, Barack Obama among them, has come forward to testify that Pastor Wright has been of great spiritual help to them. There is no question that this man has provided secular, emotional and spiritual comfort to thousands. He has preached at least 1500 sermons which undoubtedly have totaled more than 90,000 minutes of speaking.

But based on less than one minute of YouTube video the world knows him as a hate-filled, evil man.

What we have seen, however, is not just one minute of video. What we have seen and heard is one minute of video played and talked about endlessly by the media in press, radio and television. In each program where they are “analyzing the effect that Pastor Wright might have on the campaign” they not only play that video, they play it in a loop which repeats it continuously in the background.

We do not have the faintest idea who Pastor Wright is. We only know who the media has painted him to be.

In similar vein, Barack Obama has brought an astonishing number of new voters into the Democratic Party. He has connected with young people in a way that has not happened in this country since Robert Kennedy. He has stirred an enthusiasm for the electoral process that I have not seen in decades. How many of the politicians of my generation have said publicly that “it was my children who persuaded me” to endorse Obama?

Obama has spoken millions of words in thousands of venues for more than a year; words that have stirred and excited voters and brought Obama from dark horse to front runner in a national campaign, but now the media fastens on twenty seconds of poor quality audio to put on their endless loop and evaluate endlessly.

Obama is now what that twenty-second sound bite says he is.

We read from someone who was in the room when those words were spoken, however, that those words did not have the tenor that Obama’s opponents and the media are imparting to them.

David Coleman, writing at The Huffington Post, was at the gathering where Obama spoke. You can read what he writes in full, and I urge you to do so, but the crux of the story is (emphasis added by me),

…a questioner asked, "some of us are going to Pennsylvania to campaign for you. What should we be telling the voters we encounter?"

Obama's response to the questioner was that there are many, many different sections in Pennsylvania comprised of a range of racial, geographic, class, and economic groupings from Appalachia to Philadelphia. So there was not one thing to say to such diverse constituencies in Pennsylvania. But having said that, Obama went on say that his campaign staff in Pennsylvania could provide the questioner (an imminent Pennsylvania volunteer) with all the talking points he needed. But Obama cautioned that such talking points were really not what should be stressed with Pennsylvania voters.

Instead he urged the volunteer to tell Pennsylvania voters he encountered that Obama's campaign is about something more than programs and talking points. It was at this point that Obama began to talk about addressing the bitter feelings that many in some rural communities in Pennsylvania have about being brushed aside in the wake of the global economy.

When Obama speaks the words I’ve emphasized, does that sound like he has contempt for or is looking down on the people of Pennsylvania?

Who speaks for you?

To the Democratic voters in Pennsylvania,

You live in an area known as the “Rust Belt” in tribute to a steel industry that died a slow and lingering death. You have watched your job and the jobs of your neighbors shipped overseas for higher corporate profits.

The cost of feeding your family has increased by 24% recently. The cost of heating your home and driving your car has increased 84% in that same time. The cost of health insurance premuims, copays and deductibles has gone up by 17% and more. While all those costs have risen, your wages have gone down by 4% in the same period.

For decades the politicians have been saying that they care about you and that they will make things better for you, but they pass tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit only those who make far more income than you do. They cannot pass an increase in the minimum wage until they decide to accompany it with offsetting tax breaks for businesses. They are eager to bail out the failed hedge funds and pass tax breaks for failing home builders but cannot decide to rescue homeowners facing foreclosure.

So which candidate is speaking for you?

Is it Hillary Clinton, who appreciates that she finds you to be “optimistic, upbeat and positive” in your outlook?

Or is it Barack Obama, who says that he understands why you are pissed off and agrees with you that things need to change?

Answer that question with your vote on April 22nd.

"A More Perfect Union"

The following is the text of the speech, on race issues in America today, by Barack Obama. You can watch the YouTube clip here.

Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Health Care Plans

Well, last night I listened to one more endless lengthy long, drawn out argument discussion on the relative merits of the health care plans being touted by the two Democratic candidates for president. I’m not sure why these two feel the need to argue so passionately over plans which differ in such minor ways and which offer so little benefit to the people of this country. These plans consist of putting two slightly different shades of lipstick on a very ugly pig.

Deductibles. Copays. “Reasonable and customary.” Pre-existing.

If you don’t know what any of these terms mean it’s because you live in a country where health care is provided, rather than one where health insurance is the norm. The two terms get used interchangeably these days, but they are by no means the same thing and, in fact, they are in many ways in opposition.

Health care is the prevention and treatment of illness and injury.

Health insurance is where you pay money while you are not sick to not get health care when you are sick. Because you had to first pay the deductible, and you were without funds at the moment. Because the copay was more than you could afford right now. Because the specialist you needed to see charged more than the “reasonable and customary rate” as determined by the insurance company.

Health insurance is where you enter into a contract with a corporation that you will pay a monthly premium and they will then pay for the health care that you need. You keep your end of the contract and they frequently do not. Instead of demanding that they treat you as the customer that you are when that happens, you beg and plead with them to grant you some sort of largesse.

No country in the world spends more on the treatment of illness and injury and gets less for their money, and the reason is health insurance.

My father used to say, “Don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining.”

Well right now we have Obama pissing in our one ear and Clinton in our other ear and they are chanting in unison, “Whoo hoo, it’s raining and I have a better umbrella.”

Both candidates say their plans offer universal health care and both candidates are lying because both plans address universal health insurance and not universal health care. Under both plans it will remain true that in this country you will not get health care unless you can pay for it, either in cash or by means of an insurance policy. An insurance policy, please note, which you were able to pay for so either way money rules.

Both plans offer subsidies to help pay for the cost of health insurance, but that money comes from the pockets of the taxpayers so I fail to see how that is helping the taxpayers. Both plans claim to have measures to reduce the cost of insurance, but the specifics are unclear and enforcement of market controls by government has always been suspect at best.

Neither plan makes the slightest attempt to reduce the actual cost of providing health care and, in fact, both plans increase that cost by increasing the degree of regulation with a resulting increase in administrative overhead at the medical provider level.

Both plans provide enormous reward to the insurance industry: more insurance plans sold, more health care denied, more profit.

Both plans are, at best, incremental changes to a failing system.

When Hyman G. Rickover was proposing to power submarines with nuclear reactors he ran into serious opposition from conventional thinkers. He called them “oxcart planners” because he said that if they had prevailed throughout history we would still be fighting land battles with armor-plated oxcarts instead of tanks. He didn’t just change the way the submarine service was powered, though, he changed its fundamental nature.

Diesel-electric submarines were not true submarines at all, but merely ships that could submerge for limited periods. A program known as GUPPY in the 60's and 70's extended underwater periods for small percentages at a huge expense, but they were still merely ships that could submerge for limited periods. Not until Rickover rammed the nuclear power plant down the throats of the "armored oxcart" crowd did we have a true submarine - a ship that was in its element submerged.

Incremental change yields, at best, small improvement at large cost. For fundamental difference one needs to implement fundamental change.

The way health care is managed in this country needs a Hyman Rickover. We need to rid ourselves of “oxcart planners” and engage in fundamental change. We need to eliminate health insurance from health care planning in America, and start taking care of our citizens instead of rewarding our corporations.