“The Beautiful Complexity of President Barack Obama”

Many thousands of words have already been committed to paper or cyber paper on the glorious fact of Barack Obama’s, no the country’s transformative victory. Millions of people of all ages, races and creeds danced in the streets, wept, hug, screamed joyfully, both in the USA and around the world.

I am not sure I have much to add to the proceedings. Those who have followed this set of writings know that I threw my lot in with Barack early, after hearing and seeing him at a rally in Oakland in March 2007. I have worked on and off for his campaign since then, and was happiest watching my son come over to be a supporter (an Edwards man) after watching Barack’s Iowa speech in January 2008.

For me, the fact of Barack’s race(S) is emblematic of what Billy Collins so memorably referred to in “On Turning Ten” as “the beautiful complexity” of life. It is true that Barack is the first African-American president, and that is the point. With a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, and Indonesian step-father and Indonesian-American 1/2 sister, Barack learned from the very start that life is way, way more complicated than the amount of melanin you have in your skin. (It reminds me that when my son was 2 or 3, he used to be under the impression that I was black, because my skin was darker than most “Whites”, esp. in the summer.)

I have always subscribed to the wonderful sayings of Shakespeare, Scott Fitzgerald and H.L. Mencken, credos I have strived mightily to live my life by. The bard reminds us how much there is in heaven and earth beyond what we can dream of in our philosophies, Fitzgerald notes that a first-class mind can hold two equal and opposite ideas in it without going mad, and Mencken observes that for every complex problem there is a simple solution…and it is wrong.

As Nicholas Kristof writes in today’s NY Times, “American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.” One who embraces nuance and complexity, and is impatient with simple, reductive black and white answers. How fitting symbolically that he is a “mixture” of black and white, a mutt as he playfully called himself. The world is not a place of saints and sinners, of “you’re either with us or against us” bellicosity. Obama says it beautifully. “We can disagree without being disagreeable.”

Those with a sense of certitude, with what Mark Twain called “the calm, cool confidence of a Christian with four aces” that they are right, who once they make a decision, never go back on it, regardless of changing information or circumstances, who surround themselves with an amen corner, well, all I can say is, we just had an administration filled with folks like that, and the results were disastrous. That kind of what Kristof calls being intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity leads to disaster on every level of our lives. Far better to, again paraphrasing Kristof, strive for an understanding that the world, and each one of us, abounds in uncertainties and contradictions. That is a wonderful thing. The world of psychology views comfort with ambiguity and complexity as a sign of a more evolved intelligence, and by that standard, Obama is likely the most evolved and intelligent president we have had.

Embrace complexity, embrace nuance, seek out dissenting views, understand that, with the exception of a few sociopaths, we are ALL saints and sinners. Barack Obama’s victory is the celebration of beautiful complexity and nuance, of hope for understanding, for reconciliation, for healing, for recognizing that that there is far more that unites us than divides us. I have never read it better than George Santayana’s timeless paean to the world, with all its flaws.

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”

Barack’s triumph is ours, and with it, we all inch a little closer, in all our glorious contradictions and complexity, to the light.

Palintology

It is not going to be a pretty few days for poll junkies who favor Obama.

I am going on a self-imposed poll fast until Monday, 9/15, at which point the true contour of the race will be clear...

It is kind of the Schawrzenneger model...he announced so late that by the time the truth of his seamy gropenator info came out, it was too late.

This election will NOT be determined by Palin, but there are dueling narratives.

Narrative A) She is a spunky, gutsy maverick, a very attractive and fiery young woman, who takes the sheen off the Obama as change message, and helps McCain reclaim his "maverick" label, aided and abetted by a complicit corporate media, cowed by the fusillade of "sexism" thrown at any inquiry into Palin's fitness for office.

Narrative B) Palin is a far right, corrupt, thuggish and woefully unqualified creationist flat-earther, aptly self-described a pitbull with lipstick, and once independents, esp. independent women figure this out, and esp. when troopergate explodes, she will bea real drag on the ticket, esp. if the corporate media do their job, be investigative reporters instead of court reporters, and insist she answer some questions off script. I mean, is it even that hard, when she reportedly said, upon hearing that Obama had defeated Hillary "so Sambo beat the bitch?"

If narrative A succeeds, it is a nailbiter to the finish. Narrative B takes hold and McCain is finished...

Wes Clark as VP?

So Wes Clark's site and slogan are "securing America's future", which just happens to be the theme of the VP night at the Dem Convention. I ran across this mind-boggling quote on Congressional Quarterly.

"After all, Clark appeared to dash his hopes of running with Obama in late June when he said getting shot down in Vietnam did not qualify John McCain to be president."

This statement is so astonishing it beggars the imagination. What a fraud, or as Clark called it, a freak machine, the media were.

Is there ANYONE who thinks that being shot down qualifies one to be president of the united states? I would venture to state that there are about 10,000 Americans right now who have been shot down in combat, and would further venture that there are about 5,000 former POWs. Studies have unanimously shown that soldiers who have seen combat are 3 times as likely to suffer mental illness such as PTSD on return, and the stats for a shot down POW who was tortured must be through the roof.

Take a walk down any rundown area of an American city and see how many homeless are mentally ill vets. If anything, it is glaringly obvious we should require candidates to pass a battery of psychological fitness tests before anyone with access to the nuclear button is allowed to be president. For Clark to say that being shot down does not qualify you for president is about as obvious as saying that flying in an airplane does not mean you are capable of self-propelled flight.

I would love to see Clark, since it destroys three aspects of McCain advantage: Military, Older White Male, and prominent Clinton supporter. Plus the Southerner aspect puts McCain in a difficult box. If he appoints a Sarah Palin or a Mitt Romney, he has lost much of the Southern evangelical vote, if he chooses a Huckabee, he loses the independents.

Clark is also a fearless attack dog, who can rip into McCain in a way that no other VP choice can. I see the odds of it happening as only about 20-80, since the Obamas seem pretty risk-averse, so the spin that it is Biden or Bayh is probably right, but it would be a GREAT pick.

On "News" and the low intelligence voter

fascinating. I just finished reading a survey by Pew research on the party affiliations of those watching, reading and surfing various news sources. Not surprisingly, the survey shows twice as many self-proclaimed Republicans watch Fox "news" (must put propaganda in quotes always) as watch the other corporate cable news organs, CNN and MSNBC. Rasmussen also did a poll showing 87% of Fix noise watchers were going to vote for the grumpy old man this time around. The same survey shows a 65-26 pro-Obama split at CNN and 63-30 pro-Obama at MSNBC. That is interesting to me, because, speaking as someone who WORKS for Obama, I see more pro-Obama folks at MSNBC than at CNN, but somehow, the partisan split is more pronounced at CNN. In either case, the partisan split is very consistent with the Pew poll at CNN and MSNBC. However, it is clear that either a WHOLE bunch of people who watch Fox are lying about their political affiliation or Pew got it very wrong on partisan ID at FOX. You can't have a 39-33 GOP Dem split of Fox viewers, as Pew alleges, and have 87% of Fox viewers planning to vote for Grumpelstiltsen. Not logical. If you use the same kind of ratios for Fox as you do for MSNBC and CNN when comparing rasmussen and Pew, the Fox partisan ratio should be about 65% GOP, 20% Indy and MAYBE 15% Dem. Not the first time Pew has gotten it wrong.

I do watch Fox once in a blue moon during commercials, just to see if it continues to be as caricatured and mockable a "news" channel as I had thought, and...yup...it is still unintentionally funny as hell. Perhaps they are counting those of us who check in once in a while for laughs as among the 33% of Democrats who "watch" Fox. Maybe I shouldn't find it so funny. Remember the study showing a direct correlation between your news source and how informed you were about the Iraq war? 80% of listeners who got most of their news from NPR answered questions correctly about the war, whereas only 20% of regular Fox viewers did. That is the single biggest uncovered story in this election. Like with Bush in 2004, the gap no one will talk about is the intelligence gap. Older, uneducated white voters break for McCain 60-30, whereas voters under 45 with a college degree break for Obama 2 to 1. Those with doctorates support Obama by over 80%, whereas those without high school diplomas support Mccain 70-20. The media are scared of this story, since they will be called "elitist", so I guess we have come to a place in this country where in some corners, being informed is a badge of dishonor.

The GOP target voter this time around? Uninformed, uneducated, afraid, racist and just not very bright, sorry to say. Anyone who would consider voting for McCain after the past 8 years is very rich, very racist, very uninformed or very dumb...sorry to be so blunt, but that is just the way it is.

The resistable rise and fall of Dana Milbank

as John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and George W all have demonstrated, the public has enormous sympathy and forgiveness for someone who has the courage to say "I was wrong" or "I was mistaken". Edwards did, and Clinton didn't. Bush...well it goes without saying.

A simple "I was given an inaccurate/incomplete quote" is all The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had to do. But I think it goes deeper than that. His entire piece was a hit job on Obama that could have been written by the McCain talking points crew, all of whom were pushing the uppity, arrogant and presumptuous attack, aided and abetted by such as Dowd and Milbank. Even retracting the false quote, the only direct "evidence" he provided of Obama's alleged hubris, would not have changed the fact that he wrote a cynical and dishonest piece. (Interesting how the two have responded to the blowback. Milbank has been stonewalling and dismissive, whereas Dowd has written one of the rarest of items, a Dowd sissifying slam on a GOPPER. We will see if this is an omen or an aberration, once she figures out Obama still won't sleep with her.)

I will not miss him on Keith Olbermann, since his stumbling, unenlightening comments (every third word an uh) were soporific.

As to Olbermann, he redeemed himself by insisting he would not have someone on there who refused to admit a mistake that was widely proven. I do find it comical that his lengthy questions contain the two choices of answer he expects from his guests. I am guessing that is because he knows the answers in advance that his guests are going to give, but the should at least give the pretense of asking a question for which he doesn't know the answer. His approach is more like that of a lawyer, where one never asks a question one doesn't already know the answer for. Here is Olbermann's dignified yet firm dismissal of Milbank.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/4/174920/2691/934/562486

I find Rachel Maddow a far better questioner than is Keith, but he is certainly literate, entertaining, and a far more substantive partisan than his reactionary counterparts on Fox and CNN. (Yes, CNN. Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs certainly qualify as reactionary demagogues.)

On another note, in the midst of the summer of sleaze, some very funny amelioration can be found on the wesbite 23/6.

http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/06/if_they_imd_paris_hilton_and_j_8160.php

The latest spin

Any honest broker will admit that the relentlessly negative attacks by the McCain campaign, Obama's equivocation on FISA and drilling, and the slavish repetition of McCain talking points by the corporate media (how many reports have you seen telling you that offshore drilling won't even be available for 10 years - that from Bush's department of energy, and will do ZERO to bring down the price now, and, again according to Bush's own energy department, never have more than a "negligible" effect on prices???) have driven Obama down from 50 to 47-46 in the nationals. Depending which poll you choose to believe, McCain is anywhere from 40-47. Both of these are well within margins of error, but I am honest enough to admit that Obama is no more than back to his pre-trip ratings. By the same token, any McCain supporter who is honest needs to be concerned that McCain continues to have a national ceiling of 45-46%. And of course, none of the battleground states have shifted much either way, so the status quo on the Electoral College still strongly favors Obama, with McCain needing an inside straight of Michigan and Ohio to get the nod.

I do think that if Obama does not hit back more forcefully and regain the narrative, something the MSM is loathe to let him do (see the AP's Ron Baum's astonishingly biased "report" on Obama's critique of McCain, leading the report by dissecting Obama) he will be in trouble. But after 3 months of mainly negative press (as confirmed by the study group loved by O"reilly and Hannity of fixed noise), he is still ahead comfortably EV-wise and ahead or tied in the nationals.

That said, if the race looks the way it does now after the conventions, Obama wins...

I still see this as feeling very much like 2 models: Reagan-Carter and Bush-Dukakis, with many more similarities to Reagan-Carter. The three debates will be key. If McCain can come across as affable and at least partially informed (and/or if the media decide to ignore his inevitable gaffes) and, at the same time, Obama turns in a weak and stutter-filled performance like he did when turned on by Gibson and Stephanopolos in Philadelphia, then yikes, all bets are off.

If, on the other hand, Obama is the cool, charismatic and knowledgeable one, using humor to deflect, and is obviously not the monster so doggedly painted by the sour grapes express and McCain shows his increasingly evident mean streak and age-related gaps in memory and sentience, it will be game over, ala Reagan in 1980.

It will either be Obama by 6-7 nationally and a 300-400 EV victory or McCain by a point and a 280-258 squeaker.

The "uppity Barack" meme

The MSM have been utterly complicitous in pushing the Rove talking points on Obama's uppityness. Like David Gergen said today, they don't need to mention race, as arrogant, elitist, presumptuous do the trick. I think any decent reporter should be taking their cue from this article and calling the MSM and their slavish and knee jerk parrotting of the McCain meme of the day. I defy anyone to find one evenly mildly egotistical quote from Obama that wasn't said in self-mocking jest (other than Dana Milbank's fabricated one) and what could be more beneath contempt than the false "race card" charge by McCain that allowed them to remind everyone of Obama's race one more time. This sad charade has been played out since the rise of Bush 1 and is loathsome and transparently cynical. I am hopeful that the combination of Obama's gifts, enthusiastic supporters, and some semblance of a blowback from the liberal blogosphere, readers/viewers and honest brokers like Gergen and John Weaver will keep the press a little more honest this time, though don't hold your breath for Maureen Dowd and company to come around. The day she writes a scathing dissection of McCain is the day you know the MSM has decided to play it a little more straight up. She and ABC are the canaries in the coal mine of corporate media for how they are going to spin it.

Here's some required reading on the fake "race card" McCain smear being dutifully carried by the corporate media lapdogs:

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/65569-Leggo-my-ego/