Politics Daily

The Courting Ritual for Sonia Sotomayor

Bob Franken — 2009-07-14T07:31:00+00:00

Filed under: Breaking News, Featured Stories

It is always great fun to be pompous and drop in a literary or historic quote to reinforce an argument. So let's deal with the controversy over Sonia Sotomayor's "empathy" by quoting Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote, "The law must be tempered by reason." Is everyone impressed, or what?

Never mind that it's only a line from the movie musical "Gigi" or that Lerner was just the screenwriter. It works here.

It helps make the obvious point that the law is supposed to be far more than an inflexible code applied by robed robots. At least it would seem to be obvious.

Apparently, it's not to those who contend that Sotomayor is disqualified to be a Supreme Court justice because she's "empathetic." How pathetic is that argument?

Are we looking for nastiness? Do we want every one of the justices to be like Antonin Scalia? (Actually, he's fun to be around in person; it's only his opinions that are nasty.)

The point of view that judges should adhere to the precise wording of the law is fatally flawed when we look at how jumbled so much of that wording is. Isn't that what attorneys are for, to twist the semantic meanings? Or senators and pundits, for that matter?

Of course the law is subject to interpretation and "reason," as our man Lerner said. And what better basis for that than consideration of and sensitivity to the plight of those it's supposed to protect -- all of us. In other words, "empathy."

The related argument is the ad nauseam bickering over "judicial activism." Is that the opposite of "judicial complacency"? Maybe so.

That so-called activism is what brought us Brown v. Board of Education, which overrode the segregationist Plessy v. Ferguson decision and started us out of the vicious Jim Crow discrimination that still divided our country in the 1950s.

Surely no one prefers those days. Come to think of it, maybe that's not such sure thing. That suburban swimming club near Philadelphia is a bitter reminder that we have a way to go, but it was those "activists" who forced us to begin.

Sotomayor herself is the first to tell you she was a beneficiary of our country's halting steps out of the dark ages. Even her exuberance over the preferred mindset of a "wise Latina woman" can be understood when we consider the mess that we white guys have created.

So it's on with the show. We can watch as the conservative members of the Senate Judiciary Committee pander to their base's yearning for the "good old days" of denied opportunity for all but the privileged few.

Once the Senate fulfills it's "advise and consent" role and presumably confirms Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the members can turn to their other big job of the summer -- doing something to overcome the huge problems that are crushing our country.

Do not hold your breath, and as we watch Congress and the administration twist into their absurdist contortions, perhaps they could benefit from a paraphrased reminder that "lawmaking must be tempered by reason."

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Atomic Iran: A Diplomatic Riddle More Than a Military Challenge

Carl M. Cannon — 2009-06-23T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, National Security

A friend of mine in the field of national security receives periodic visits from an acquaintance of his who happens to work for the government of Israel. This foreign gentleman quietly and periodically makes the rounds in Washington, trying to gauge the level of interest for U.S. military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. As Iran frays internally, these visits are significant for a couple of reasons.

Reason first is that those alarmed at the prospect of an Iranian theocracy armed with nuclear weapons - and this includes any American who has contemplated the prospect of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with his finger on the button - tend to assume that the Israelis are poised to carry out this thankless task themselves. Perhaps they will, but Israel is clearly and deeply hopeful that someone else will do it first.

That someone, of course, is the United States. There's a feeling in Washington, however, and it began even before the nation elected a president who ran on the proposition that invading Iraq was a mistake, that insofar as preemptive military actions are concerned, Americans had, for better or worse, already used up their chits before Iran entered the conversation. Moreover, there is a new national realization than when it comes to acts of war, preventive medicine is not always an effective cure.

Israel has been down this road before. On June 7, 1981, Menachem Begin dispatched a squadron of eight F-16s, with cover support from six F-15s, across the Arabian desert to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by the French for Saddam Hussein in the heart of Iraq at a facility called Osiraq. The Israelis' daring raid was a stunning success, even to the point that it was carried it out on a Sunday afternoon to limit civilian casualties. But then came the criticism.

The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Israeli strike as an act of unprovoked aggression; the Reagan administration made a point of suspending the sale of warplanes to Israel; and a burning desire to achieve arms parity with Israel was stoked within the Arab world. And, as Israel is presumed to have a nuclear capability of its own, one effect of the Osiraq raid was to redouble the desire for such weapons among Israel's hostile neighbors. This was true even for moderate Arab leaders, such as Jordan's King Hussein. After the raid, Hussein began to characterize a nuclear capability for his side as a necessary component in Middle East stability, for reasons of Arab pride, if nothing else.

"[In] armaments, a certain equilibrium is necessary," said Jordan's leader. "If there is no equilibrium, there is no limit, and if there is no limit, the door is open for aggression. We all know that Israel has several atomic bombs. Arabs should not be held for less intelligent than they are." The king also predicted that Israel's atomic superiority would not exist very much longer.

Iran is primarily Persian, not Arab, but in the ensuing 28 years, pan-Arab nationalism has been partially replaced by pan-Islamic fervor. In the 1980s, as Pakistan acquired its nuclear capability, some Muslim commentators welcomed the arrival of "an Islamic bomb." Under the logic that previously ruled this region, Iran's admittance into the nuclear club would herald the arrival of a "Shiite bomb." Yet with Iraq on its knees, Iran has filled the power vacuum that exists across the Middle East and Persian Gulf region - even in Sunni areas, an inadvertent consequence of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Shiite Iran has forced an unlikely alliance with Sunni Syria. Iran has also underwritten Hezbollah in Lebanon, actions that put Iran at the forefront of Israel's enemies.

To the question of whether Iran's mullahs are apocalyptic enough to contemplate annihilating Israel, there is no easy answer. If you listen to what they say, it's very difficult to be reassured of either their rationality or humanity. In 2005, shortly after assuming power, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that Israel should "be wiped off the map." It's a sentiment that Ahmadinejad attributed to Iran's ranking cleric, the nation's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who never denied it, and it's a threat Ahmadinejad has subsequently repeated, in one form or another, many times.

Barack Obama, in one of the most off-key notes of his presidency, seemed to excuse his tepid response to the recent crisis in Tehran, where marchers protesting a stolen election were shot and beaten, with this remark: "It's important to understand that although there is some ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and (Mir-Houssein) Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised." That's a mouthful. It's also wrong in two important respects. For starters, it's a straw man: Who has "advertised" Mousavi as the second incarnation of Thomas Jefferson? More importantly, that he's not Ahmadinejad is precisely the point.

Ahmadinejad may, or may not, actually be the unhinged maniac he plays on the world stage. At the very least, however, his thinking is imbued with a troubling mix of hatred and ignorance. Ahmadinejad routinely spins dark conspiracies about everything from 9/11 to the supposed "Zionist" influence over the international financial system, and his most consistent passion is casting aspersions on the Holocaust, which he has termed "a myth." This is not someone you'd want to see with his finger on the button.

Which brings me back to point number two. Neither Israel nor the United States is in a political position to launch a preventive first strike on Iran - both nations already used up that arrow in their quiver by preemptively invading Iraq. Moreover, the Israeli friend of my friend concedes privately that it wouldn't solve the problem anyway.

"How long will this set back the Iranian nuclear program?" my friend asked his visitor.

"A year or two," is the answer.

If this is correct, it suggests that the United States would have to undertake such attacks every year or two - or until there is regime change in Iran. That's a highly unlikely scenario. Moreover, the inevitable result of each such bombing (unless one of them was a tactical nuclear attack) would be that the regime would hide its nuclear program ever deeper underground even as the bombings solidified the government in Tehran.

"Military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities can at best slow down enrichment until it is completely reconstituted at hidden locations," says another friend of mine, esteemed arms control expert Michael Krepon. "Airstrikes are therefore unlikely to make a meaningful, long-term difference in Iran's nuclear potential. They (would) however ... have seriously negative repercussions on U.S. interests in the Gulf, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan."

Krepon also believes that it's not necessarily a certainty that Iranian authorities desire an actual atomic weapons arsenal, as opposed to a capability to enrich uranium should they conclude that they need one. "In other words, the choice facing Iran's leadership is whether to acquire actual bombs, or to possess a virtual nuclear deterrent," he says. "The choice facing Israel then, is whether it can live with a nuclear deterrence relationship, or a virtual nuclear deterrence relationship in their neighborhood."

That's a helluva risk to ask Israel to take. But neither they, nor us, have too many other options. Although the United States should formally state its preference for a change in regime, it should also state publicly "that Iranian affairs are a matter for Iran, and call for relations based on full recognition of Iran's right to security," Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies said this week. "The United States should offer to ease or lift economic sanctions, particularly those that put more pressure on Iran's people than its regime. It should not ease sanctions that affect Iran's arms and nuclear imports, and should resist any such efforts by other countries."

The implication of that approach is that Iran's ruling mullahs are rational creatures. Perhaps they are, but it seems strange to calmly negotiate with men who sic religious militias into the streets to shoot women and who install a Holocaust denier as their president. What a world.

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Young, Tough and Eager to Fight

David Wood — 2009-06-16T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Featured Stories, Iraq, Foreign Policy

FT. BENNING, Ga. -- More than 23,000 American men are volunteering for combat as U.S. Army infantrymen this year and are likely to be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan within months. It's a military youth bulge that defies critics who say Americans dislike the military and won't enlist in wartime.

Young, tough and enthusiastic, they are enormously likeable, impressive in their determination to serve, fun to be around and often touchingly innocent.

This year's infantry privates, who charge through 14 weeks of hard basic- and advanced-combat training here at Fort Benning, are only part of the 142,200 men and women joining the Army this year. But along with those who ask for training as artillerymen, tank drivers, helicopter gunship crewmen and other combat jobs, they expect to see the most action.

So strong is the drive to enlist that the Army, given three years to hire and train 65,000 additional troops, did it in two years. And that was before the economy went sour.

"These kids know they're gonna come here, get Full Metal Jacket, get on a plane and land in combat,'' says Command Sergeant Major John Calpena, who oversees drill sergeants and enlisted soldiers at the huge infantry training center here.

By "Full Metal Jacket," Calpena means the skills that new soldiers acquire in firing carbines, grenade launchers and machine guns; planning and carrying out raids and ambushes; attacking and clearing buildings of enemy fighters; and treating serious battle casualties - including inserting intravenous drips and breathing tubes.

They enlist, knowing that risks lie ahead, that they are committing themselves and their families to hardship, that if they kill, they will forever carry that burden.

"We're all gonna go to Afghanistan or Iraq," said Jared Slusser, a 27-year-old private from Bedford, Va. , who will graduate from training Aug. 7.

"Some of us won't come back.''

Against that dark reality these new soldiers carry a hard shell of bravado, in addition to the inability of any young man to imagine that anything bad actually will happen to him.

Many come also with a long family history of military service and seem conscious of their place in a long line of honor. They say they yearn to do their part - and to have stories to tell their grandchildren.

Yet beneath it all, some of these new soldiers harbor the same misgivings as their many friends who have decided that the military's just not for them.

"I don't want to kill anyone," said Tim Deyo, a diminutive 18-year-old private from Albany, N.Y.

He stood in the broiling Georgia sun waiting for the word to launch a mock attack. He cradled a light machine gun, seemingly unaware of the irony.

"I'm young and I don't want to (screw) up the rest of my life'' with the memory of those he killed, he said.

"They have a reason to fight," Deyo mused about his potential enemies. Sliding further into heresy as his buddies listened, he added: "We may not agree with it ... they were somebody's kid and could be a father. How would your family react to your being killed?''

He sighed heavily. Finding himself in combat training, he allowed, "was a reality shock.''

"But if you have to do it, you have to do it,'' he reasoned.

"Nobody in my family, none of my friends, have ever done anything like this before. When I graduate, I'm gonna be so proud. I made it!''

For Jeff Lewis, enlisting was partly a matter of not being left out of his family's heritage. He ticked off the grandfathers, uncles and aunts with military service, along with his father.

"Basically, I was the only one on my dad's side who hadn't been in the military," said this 29-year-old from Indianapolis.

Here's a simpler motive: "I joined for the money,'' said Kurtis Erickson, a 29-year-old from Aurora, Ind. He figures on earning $380 a month extra in combat, and the Army is helping pay off his $53,000 in student loans.

Another new soldier, 23-year-old Michael Edmondson from Charleston, S.C., got a $20,000 cash bonus from the Army for enlisting as an infantryman, and the Army is paying $20,000 of his student loans.

Edmondson enlisted in the National Guard. After initial training here, he'll continue studying civil engineering at Clemson University. In addition to his cash incentives, the Army guaranteed him he won't deploy into combat for two years. "And you can get $400,000 in life insurance!''

"But hopefully, I'll never see combat,'' he said.

Not so for other soldiers in his training platoon. The war, and their part in it, stretches out endlessly before them.

"This war is never-ending. You kill one, another takes his place. You're fighting an idea.'' This is Pvt. Tim Carpenter, a 19-year-old from the small town of Worthington, Ohio, where his mother is a teacher. He enlisted because he saw no future at home.

As an infantryman, he expects to deploy continuously.

"Definitely, no doubt about it,'' he said. "Whether it's Afghanistan, Iraq, or whatever next country we'll be fighting ... most of us are making a career of this.''

Just think, he mused: "The adventure ... the stories!''

"We all know we're going to war -- we're infantry,'' said Pvt. Stephen Lane, 22, from Richmond, Va. " We're the men who do the dirty work, the ones who make things happen.

"It's definitely a hard life,'' Lane said as he loaded bullets into M-16 magazines. "It's gonna be hard because you'll lose friends, see your best friend shot. You'll have to shoot little kids running around with AKs.

"This war is bad because of IEDs - that's the scariest part about it, not being able to see your enemy.''

Lane continued to add up the infantryman's woes.

"It's hard on your family, they're gonna have to be on the move all the time, your family never knowing if they'll get that one phone call ...''

On the other hand, he brightened, "At least your kids can be proud of their dad, fighting for their country.

"And if I die, how do I want to be remembered? As a civilian with a GED who never really did that much? Or someone who became a soldier, lived life on the edge, and died for his country?''

A sharp word from their drill sergeant breaks the discussion. "Hey! First Squad, move yer butts!''

The new privates have been in the field a week, in a rolling series of realistic combat exercises. This afternoon, they're planning to assault a house where insurgents are hiding.

What do we do with EPWs (enemy prisoners of war)? one soldier asks.

"We pop 'em? It takes three of us to take care of an EPW who should be dead anyway,'' snorts Pvt. Joseph Clark, 26, from Lincoln, Calif.

"Nah - remember we are trying to get information from these guys, so you don't pop 'em unless they have a weapon,'' says Kurtis Erickson.

Later, as the setting sun blinks through tall pines and the heat begins to abate, the talk turns again to war and death.

"I want to go but I'm scared,'' said Jared Slusser, quickly adding: "If you're not scared you're not being honest.''

"I'm married and I worry about not coming back in one piece or not coming back alive,'' he said as the platoon members sat in their sweat-soaked fatigues with dirt-streaked faces.

"But it'll be good to have the kind of stories like a grandpa would tell,'' he added.

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Black Pastors and Gay Rights: D.C. Becomes a Battleground

Carl M. Cannon — 2009-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Featured Stories, Religion, Gay Rights

The nation's capital is suddenly center court in America's loud argument over gay marriage. Nothing new about that, except that this time the battle is being hashed out in the streets, churches and living rooms in working-class wards of the city. While there is something poignant about both sides literally singing the same hymn ("We Shall Overcome") at its rallies, there is also something refreshing about the debate taking place in the unofficial part of Washington, D.C: For once, it's not partisan.

That is not to say it's not a touchy issue. Gay marriage pits race and faith together in the same combustible conversation, and does so in a community in which both are sacrosanct subjects. The black Christian church predates emancipation by more than two centuries, and served as a bulwark against the pernicious effects of slavery, Jim Crow, alcohol and drugs, AIDS, poverty, crime, police brutality and bad schools.

In the face of all that, African-American pastors and their churches have offered up faith and love of family as twin defenses. Thus they have been an institution with a message that at its core is fundamentally conservative. And at the same time, it was from the pulpits of these very same black churches that emanated the commanding voices that demanded fundamental change to the old order. Make no mistake, the moral authority and raw political power of the civil rights movement was rooted in these self-same churches. And in that sense they were a liberating, as well as a stabilizing, force.

These contradictory forces of liberalism and conservatism have coexisted, not always easily, for centuries within the church. But gay marriage has opened a chasm in the black community, in which, to paraphrase (and modernize) Lincoln who, while speaking about the North and South during the Civil War, observed that each side reads the same Bible, prays to the same God, invokes His wisdom against the other - and belongs to the same political party.

In the local politics of Washington, the true power brokers are predominately black, monolithically Democratic and tuned into the religious sensibilities of their constituents. Thus, the discussion taking place here over gay marriage is really a series of conversations -- some within the black community and some within the Christian churches, and almost all of it within the Democratic Party. This is not altogether a bad thing. For starters, there's no Republican bogeyman, and for another, the race card is played to establish one's bona fides, not to stoke prejudice. Finally, the church-bashing rhetoric one finds in other places where this debate is taking place is muted here: Attacking the church would simply be a good way to lose the argument. And judging by the language being invoked by both sides, the stakes of this argument are high: Leaders of competing camps clearly believe that what unfolds here in unofficial Washington will be a harbinger for where this nation is heading on gay rights.

"The march towards equality is coming to this country, and you can either be a part of it or stand in the way," David Catania, one of two openly gay D.C. Council members, declared on May 5, as the council approved his pro-gay marriage measure.

"This is the Armageddon of the marriage debate," was the rejoinder offered by Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., and author of a petition seeking to have the question put on the ballot for every voter in Washington. "It's a declaration of war."

On June 3, New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage. The sheer momentum of the issue seems inexorable, and not only to Catania. His bill simply states that marriages performed in other states shall be recognized in the District of Columbia. As a practical matter, this makes sense: The District is comprised of people who come from all 50 states. Shouldn't the marital status of those from other states be recognized? Yet Catania and his allies on the council weren't attempting to be practical; they were attempting to change the culture of the capital. If their bill becomes law, they stated, the obvious next step would be to offer measures making gay marriage legal in Washington.

And that's where Harry Jackson and his alliance of other black preachers came in.

"At one time, preachers were very powerful in this town as far as getting respect from elected officials like the (D.C.) Council," notes Henry A. Gaston, pastor of Johnson Memorial Baptist Church in Southeast Washington. "Today, however, it is as though they think we're asleep, but we will let them know we are fully alert."

Asserting that a majority of district residents are opposed to gay marriage, Jackson and Gaston have vowed to buck the City Council and stop Catania's proposal from becoming law. It would seem an uphill fight: First of all, there are many pastors on the other side of the issue. Secondly, Catania's bill passed the Council 12-1. But the key to understanding the politics of this controversy may be in the identity of the one, not the 12.

The dissenting vote was cast by Marion Barry, the former mayor who may want to be the future mayor. At 73 years of age, Barry has seen it all, and done most of it himself. He's known outside the city mainly for going to prison after being nabbed in a cocaine sting, but he was a civil rights worker as a young man and an early advocate of gay rights. He is also a cagey politician with an uncanny knack for divining the grievances of black Washingtonians. Barry knows that the pastors believe they are fighting for their relevance as well as their flocks; he knows of the social conservative inside many a Democratic-voting Baptist church lady; he knows that many blacks often bristle at the comparison between civil rights for racial minorities and gay demands that their unions be fully recognized as marriages. And he knows that a politician who gets too far out in front of the voters risks involuntary retirement.

"The African-American community is very conservative on this issue," Barry said recently in a radio interview. He estimated that 70 to 80 percent are opposed to gay marriage, adding that the number is higher in the religious community. "These Baptist pastors believe it's a sin," he said. "We're a democracy, as imperfect as it is...if you believe in representative democracy you listen to your constituents."

Barry recalled how, in 1971, he battled on the side of a gay teacher at McKinley Tech who wanted to keep his job. But Barry is convinced that in the minds of many, perhaps a large majority of the voters in his ward, there is a subtle, but important, distinction between sticking up for someone's right to a job and supporting church weddings for gays and lesbians.

Or, as Harry Jackson put it during a small rally he organized recently in Washington's Freedom Plaza, "There's a difference between civil rights and sacred rights. Marriage has been defined by God...so someone declaring it's a civil right is inanity."

Jackson and Barry have been denounced in some quarters as panderers to prejudice, but as Barry points out, correctly, his position is exactly the same as President Obama's. He's right about that, and he could have added to the list Hillary Clinton, Al Gore,and John Kerry, all of whom support civil unions but not marriage -- apparently believing that this is as far as politicians with national aspirations can prudently position themselves.

This lesson in realpolitik was learned the hard way by President Clinton in his first days in the White House. Back then, the gay rights issue that divided the country wasn't same-sex marriage -- Lordy, did that seem an exotic concept back then -- it was whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve in America's armed forces.

Clinton believed, naïvely, as it turned out, that he had the perfect man in place as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This officer, whom Clinton had inherited from George H.W. Bush, was a combat veteran of Vietnam, a four-star general, and a Republican. Best of all, he was African-American, meaning that he knew prejudice when he saw it. At least, that's how Clinton saw it. But Gen. Colin Powell surprised his commander in chief, and not pleasantly, when they met privately in the first days of the new administration.

"Mr. President," Powell said, "we're not with you on gays in the military."

Nonplussed by the use of that pronoun "we," and unfamiliar with military culture, Clinton backpedaled a bit. Powell had spoken as an Army officer, not as a leader of the black community -- at least that's what the president believed. Actually, Powell may have been speaking as both, as the nation learned last Nov. 4, when he cast his presidential vote for Obama.

The state of California has long been a trailblazer in expanding the definition of human rights and the bounds of social tolerance. Yet on Nov. 4, 2008, the same day that California and the nation voted into office an African-American president, voters in the Golden State approved Proposition 8, an amendment to the state Constitution stating that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Seven million Californians voted in favor of this proposition, with 6.4 million casting votes in opposition. For activists, the result was a bitter pill, and in their frustration over their defeat, gay rights advocates turned their rage on targets ranging from the Mormon Church to an unfortunate musical theater director who had contributed $1,000 to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. But the hardest lesson for liberals to absorb was the unmistakable evidence from exit polls and precinct results showing that the same African-American voters who had flocked to the polls to support Obama had, while inside those voting booths, turned an overwhelming thumbs-down to gay marriage.

In some ways, the battle royal over gay marriage is a fight over who has title to that one dynamic word, "marriage." California has offered same-sex couples codified protection under domestic partnerships since 2000. Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., began taking those steps in 1992, and have increased the protection of domestic partners routinely since then. Yet, on Nov. 4, 2008 the future suddenly didn't seem written in stone. What appeared to be true, even to proponents of gay marriage, was that court fiats, Democratic Party platforms and big city council rulings in themselves won't be enough to win the day. Proponents of gay marriage must change minds if they are to prevail.

In Washington, that lesson has been taken to heart not so much by the 12 City Council members who cast predictable, politically correct votes, but by progressive pastors such as the Rev. Dennis Wiley of the Covenant Baptist Church in Washington. He's out to alter hearts and minds as well as laws, knowing that without a change of heart, the laws will sow discord and mistrust of government. And he's using faith and reason in an attempt to challenge venerable assumptions within his community.

"A lot of people will say God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Have you ever heard that?" Wiley said in a recent sermon. "If God didn't make Steve, who made Steve? Somebody had to make Steve. Why would God create someone of that orientation and then not allow them to have the same kind of opportunity for love, for relationships, for a healthy life as heterosexuals enjoy?"

And so the battle of ideas is joined. Rev. Wiley believes that ultimately his community will come around. He doesn't contest that the 70 percent opposition figure in the black community cited by Marion Barry - and confirmed in California - is wrong, exactly, but he believes it is soft opposition, and is therefore susceptible to reasoned argument as well as to appeals to faith from the liberal side of the divide.

Perhaps he's right. Or maybe, as Rev. Jackson and Bishop Gaston believe, the black church will prevail by doing what it has always done, championing the cherished and long-held values of African-American families. Gaston has raised the specter of Washington's children witnessing a parade of marriages between men or between women, and he expresses concern about the effects this would have on impressionable young people still forming their sexual identities. "Children go to such ceremonies," he said recently. "Children will be influenced into homosexual lifestyle."

To that argument, Dennis Wiley has a reply. "It is a much more healthy environment for children to be taught the truth: That everybody's not alike - that people are different."

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Al Sharpton Fined by FEC, Feels Better

David Knowles — 2009-05-01T08:59:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Featured Stories, Investigations, Crime

Al Sharpton, a former Democratic candidate for president in 2004, is breathing a little lighter today, even though he has agreed to pay a large fine to the Federal Election Commission for violating several election laws.

"This is the first time in years that nothing is hanging over our heads," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday.

The FEC announced earlier in the day that his campaign and an advocacy group he founded would pay a civil penalty of $285,000 for breaking various campaign finance rules. The agency said Sharpton's nonprofit National Action Network, as well as two businesses he owns, had improperly paid $387,192 in campaign expenses, violating prohibitions on corporate or in-kind contributions.

So why is Sharpton so relieved to have been found guilty of, among other things, improperly billing $181,115 in expenses?

While acknowledging that the campaign did make mistakes, Sharpton said investigators found no evidence that anyone meant to break the law.

In other words, everybody makes an honest mistake (or two) now and again. Consider Sharpton's recent settlement with the IRS, in which he and his business entities have begun paying more than $1.5 million dollars in back taxes and penalties. But with this latest settlement, his legal troubles appear to be receding, a fact that is bound to put a smile back on his face.

David at Paradigms Lost
David on Twitter

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Sarah Palin Joins Twitter

David Knowles — 2009-04-30T09:21:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, John McCain, Featured Stories, Mike Huckabee, Media, Sarah Palin, 2012 President

Sarah Palin fans, start your tweeting! Your eagle has landed, and, as of this writing, she has left three Twitter updates. If you are scratching your head and wondering why Governor Palin has felt the need to join the micro-blogging craze, then you really haven't been paying close attention to the changing landscape of American politics. John McCain does it. Mike Huckabee does it. Man, anybody who wants to be the next somebody in politics is doing it.

Seriously, Twitter is a networking tool. Like Facebook, MySpace and all the rest, Twitter is an ideal way for a politician to build and foster a community of loyal supporters. So far, Palin has roughly three thousand "followers" and her web presence also includes a new legal defense fund. But what will the Alaska Governor actually be tweeting about? Check out her second message:

AP gravely misquoted my staff, saying I "changed my mind" on the stimulus package. For accurate info go to link.

Here's the AP's account of Palin's ongoing stimulus evolution, so that you can decide who is right on this one.

Maybe the former Vice Presidential candidate will use Twitter to attempt to debunk what she sees as biased media coverage by sending readers to her own biased press releases. Will this strategy work? Time will tell.

David at Paradigms Lost
David on Twitter

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The Gay Marriage Tipping Point

David Knowles — 2009-04-29T09:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Featured Stories, Religion, Gay Rights, Taxes

Maine is poised to become the latest state in the nation whose legislature will formally approve gay marriage. Following Vermont and Connecticut's lead, it will, as early as next week, become the 5th state in the union to legalize the practice. Truly, we are reaching a tipping point on the issue, and it isn't trending in the direction that most Christian conservatives would like.

Consider a new poll which shows that American support for gay marriage has gone up dramatically in just one month:

Forty-two percent of Americans now say same sex couples should be allowed to legally marry, a new CBS/New York Times poll finds. That's up nine points from last month, when 33 percent supported legalizing same sex marriage.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that since Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, California and Connecticut started allowing people of the same sex to wed, we have not seen society crumble at our feet. In fact, it seems that gay marriage may be very good for our societal fabric, and helps ail our tattered economy, to boot.

Of course, if you are disgusted by the idea of gay marriage, then economic arguments aren't likely to sway you. But it seems that this issue may be become a thing of the past faster than many could have predicted.

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Rush Limbaugh on Arlen Specter: Take John and Meghan McCain with You!

David Knowles — 2009-04-28T21:37:00+00:00

Filed under: Senate, Republicans, Featured Stories, 2008 Senate

Just how entertaining is the Arlen Specter defection for Democrats to watch? Pretty damned entertaining (is one allowed to curse that way after what the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday?). But if it seems that the overwhelming majority of the country who do not identify themselves as Republicans (79% to be exact) is experiencing a bit too much schadenfreude, one only need look to Rush Limbaugh for a reminder of how the GOP came to find itself in this particular pickle.

Reacting to the "Benedict Arlen" defection today, Limbaugh upped the ante for purging more traitors from the ranks of the hardest of the hardened remnants of the Republican die-hards:

So, the stick-to-your-rusty-guns philosophy persists among many in the incredible shrinking party. To these folks, the problem is not one of philosophy, it's bad PR or something. So they rant and rail against Specter. And while that frustration is understandable (yes, he most certainly did jump ship in order to get re-elected) it still doesn't address the underlying reasons as to why the GOP has shrunk so much over recent years.

What seems strange to me is that Limbaugh and Co. don't seem to realize that purging so-called RINOs (Republicans in name only), means the party will become even less popular than it is now. Talk about lowering a limbo (Limbaugh?) stick.

David at Paradigms Lost
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Politics of Flu: Kathleen Sebelius to be Confirmed Today

David Knowles — 2009-04-28T09:52:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Abortion, Health Care, Obama Administration

Nothing like a potential flu pandemic to light a fire underneath Congressional Republicans' collective posterior. Long held up over Republican objections to her views on abortion rights, Kathleen Sebelius will be confirmed today as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. With the sudden appearance of swine flu, Republicans faced increasing scrutiny over holding up Sebelius' nomination:

Sebelius would have an immediate challenge because of the swine flu outbreak. With no HHS secretary in place, the White House has turned to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to help lead its response, even while insisting that vacancies at the top of HHS were not a problem.

As I wrote yesterday, Napolitano has benefited by being the government's point person on the swine flu, as it deflected attention away from DHS's leaked report on right wing extremists. Now, Sebelius stands to gain from the flu crisis, seeing her contested nomination put into perspective. Though the Obama administration emphasizes that it has been on top of the epidemic from the start, there's no doubt that it would have been preferable to have had a Secretary of HHS already in place.

The politics of obstructionism did not serve the GOP well in this instance. This might be one more reason why party affiliation stats are sinking like a stone.

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New Ethics Complaint Against Sarah Palin

David Knowles — 2009-04-28T09:13:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Featured Stories, Scandal, Sarah Palin

Sometimes, you get the feeling that it's not always so fun being Sarah Palin. As governor of Alaska, numerous ethics complaints have been filed against her, some of them serious, others trivial. In response to these legal entanglements, last week Palin started a legal defense fund and swiftly raked in $500,000 to help pay her legal bills. But now, the fund itself is the target of a new ethics complaint:

The complaint filed with the attorney general's office seeks an investigation by the state personnel board for violations of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The complaintant, Kim Chartman of Eagle River, claims Palin is misusing the government's office for personal gain by securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow counters that the money raised is simply to help the former Vice Presidential nominee from going broke.

"It's obvious the intent with this unprecedented action against the governor is to see her administration paralyzed and for her to declare personal bankruptcy."

While The Alaska Fund Trust likewise claims that all the ethics charges brought against Palin are "baseless" and "frivolous", the findings in the "Troopergate" matter would attest otherwise. Whether this latest complaint will do anything more than garner more headlines and generate more cash for Palin's growing defense fund, remains to be seen.

David at Paradigms Lost
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About Those Right Wing Extremists...

David Knowles — 2009-04-27T14:12:00+00:00

Filed under: Featured Stories, Guns, Terror, Obama Administration

Maybe somebody owes Janet Napolitano an apology. Since the leaking of a Department of Homeland Security report claiming that former military personnel might team up with right wing extremists to commit violent acts against the United States, Napolitano has gone out of her way to apologize to veterans groups. But consider this weekend's news item from down in Florida:

On Sunday, lawmen were investigating why Joshua Cartwright, a 28-year-old U.S. Army Reserve soldier with a history of violence, killed Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies Burt Lopez and Warren "Skip" York at a gun range in Crestview.

A few minutes after he killed the deputies, Cartwright was himself killed in a shootout with lawmen in DeFunaik Springs...

...An offense report filed against Cartwright the day he died outlines an angry husband who threatened his wife, kept guns and knives on hand, was "severely disturbed" that Barack Obama had been elected president, and believed the U.S. government was conspiring against him.

It's all very anecdotal, of course.

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The Politics of Swine Flu: Rick Perry and Janet Napolitano

David Knowles — 2009-04-27T09:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Featured Stories, Health Care, National Security

It's bad form to play politics with matters of public safety. That said, given the way that the government's lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina signaled a tipping point in the Bush presidency, no savvy politician will ever again underestimate the impact that a tepid response to a potential health catastrophe could have upon his or her career. In fact, the most skilled of our public servants have a way of turning tumult to their own advantage. As Rahm Emanuel recently told The Wall Street Journal, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

This brings us to swine flu, and the interesting ways in which two current politicians--Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano--stand to rise or fall in stature.

Rick Perry has been in the news quite a bit in recent weeks for his public flirtation with the idea that Texas might really secede from the union over what it sees as the tyranny inherent in the president's stimulus bill. To hear Perry tell it, Texans are a go-it-alone bunch, who don't want the Feds telling them how to spend their hard earned cash. So, it was a tad strange to hear Perry going hat in hand to that same Federal Government this week asking for a whole lot of anti-viral medicine (nearly 40,000 doses) to help combat a potential outbreak of swine flu. Texas is, after all, right across the border from Mexico. Does this mean that if it was it's own nation, Texas wouldn't be able to adequately protect its citizenry from pandemics or hurricanes of the future?

In a strange way, swine flu must come as a relief to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who spent the past week apologizing to one veterans group after the other over her department's report that warned of the possibility that right wing extremist groups might recruit soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in a plot against the Obama Administration. With the arrival of the pig flu, however, Napolitano was able to step to the podium without mentioning the controversy. This was a welcome page-turn at a very important time for Napolitano. Should DHS continue to play a central role in the coming days and weeks, the calls for her resignation may die out.

Let us hope the flu is contained quickly, whatever the political consequences.

David at Paradigms Lost
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'Female Force: Michelle Obama' in Stores April 29th

David Knowles — 2009-04-27T08:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Media, Sarah Palin

Not to be outdone by her husband, Michelle Obama, comic book heroine, is set to make her debut on April 29 in Bluewater Productions' "Female Force: Michelle Obama." What's it all about?

The latest installment in the "Female Force" series offers a visual biography of First Lady Michelle Obama as she secures her place in American history.

President Obama, of course, has already come to life in the comic universe, appearing alongside Spiderman. But the First Lady isn't playing second fiddle to a web-slinger, she's the star. And people seem pretty excited about the whole thing, too. Amazon pre-orders have helped put the unreleased graphic bio in the top 300. Lest you think she's the only Female Force crusader, however:

Three more "Female Force titles, featuring Caroline Kennedy, Princess Diana and Condoleezza Rice, are in production and scheduled for release in the coming months.

Other Female Forces set for publication are Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin (whose cover shows the governor in a rather tight-fitting outfit). Who's next Miss California? Amy Winehouse? Call me crazy, but maybe we should just go back to fictional superheroes, with their gadgets and their unearthly powers. This new brand, as heroic as they may be, seems somewhat banal by comparison.

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Could Surgeon General Save U.S. From Flu?

Ken Layne — 2009-04-25T22:52:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Health Care, Ken Layne's Outrage, Obama Administration

While news of the swine flu epidemic shocked Americans on Friday, my thoughts turned to the empty Surgeon General's office in Washington.

Who will help us, I wondered. Who will tell us "It's okay."

And then, as so many Americans do when they are frightened, I turned to the cable news. And I waited for the comforting words from Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

A dashing, handsome doctor, Gupta is the medical professional we all wish we could afford, if we had more money. And not so long ago, as our nation turned the page on a new era, it looked as if Dr. Sanjay might become America's next and greatest Surgeon General.

Regardless of personal politics, every citizen felt a surge of pride in January, as we saw barriers about to fall forever: An Indian-American, as this nation's top medical authority. I honestly thought I wouldn't live to see the day.

And I still haven't.

For reasons both obscure and petty, the powers that be were not ready to allow Sanjay Gupta the keys to the finest suite at the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

There are even some who say Dr. Gupta preferred his "family and career" to a presidential appointment.

What family could compare to the family of medical professionals who constitute our nation's best doctors? What career could compare to one in which the required costume includes golden rope braids upon a lordly jacket reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?

We may never know what intrigue occurred behind the scenes, but we do know this: As the biggest health crisis in America's recent history breathes its foul air upon our nation's lungs, there is nothing but an "acting" Surgeon General to protect us from the awful bird-pig sickness.

When the king or queen calls a subject to service, then that is simply what happens -- you did not hear Sir Paul McCartney complaining about being too busy recording his next hit album to accept Queen Elizabeth's knighthood.

We should expect no different of a cable-news celebrity of the caliber of Dr. Sanjay Gupta. As the mysterious influenza threatens the calm seas of the United States, the nation's Surgeon General in Waiting must take command of this ship of state.

Ken Layne is the managing editor of Wonkette.com, the Washington political website.

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What's the Matter with Texas?

David Knowles — 2009-04-24T09:03:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Featured Stories, Economy

Who needs the United States of America? Apparently, not Texas Republicans, a majority of whom, in a new poll, give their governor's remarks on secession a thumbs-up:

51 percent of Texas Republicans approve of Perrry's [Rick] "suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States." Also, a majority of Republicans and independents approve of how Texas government is run; most Democrats don't.

So, fare the well, Texas! It's been nice having you (for the most part) at our little gathering of states. Though Perry has walked back his initial cut-and-run brainstorming, saying:

"Clearly, I stated that we have a great union. And Texas is part of a great union. I see no reason for that to change. I think that may not be the exact quote, but that is, in essence what I said."

Right. Clearly. How could any Texan have thought otherwise? Here's the original quote, delivered to chants of "Secede! Secede!":

"There's a lot of different scenarios. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

So, yes, Governor Perry, have your cake.

Eat it, too. All that stimulus money for unemployment benefits, school construction, infrastructure and the rest is just too much nose thumbing to take. Of course, Perry is no doubt referring to the increased debt level we'll be handing to our children and grandkids, and while that's a valid point, it's hard not to feel like the go-it-alone mentality isn't exactly so very compassionate to the people who are trying to get through this recession now.

So what's all this secession talk really all about? CNN explains:

David at Paradigms Lost
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Energy Battle Heats Up as Dems, Administration Begin Global Warming Push

Mark Impomeni — 2009-04-23T10:35:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, Featured Stories, Obama Administration

President Barack Obama went to Iowa yesterday for Earth day to tout his plan to remake the nation's energy policy by funding so-called "green energy" alternatives. The president visited the town of Newton, Iowa, home to a factory in a former Maytag plant that produces structural components for windmills. Key to Obama's energy and economic policy is an increase in jobs manufactuing and producing alternative sources of energy.

The trip comes as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill get set to do battle over the Administration's proposed "cap and trade" system for factory emissions. The proposal would place a nationwide limit on the amount of pollution that could be put out of smokestacks. Industry would have to buy pollution permits from the federal government to emit pollutants. Individual businesses that are successful at reducing their pollution levels to below government standards could sell their unused pollution credits on a newly created market. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has promised that a bill will be passed this year.

Critics of the plan, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), say that cap and trade amounts to a huge new energy tax that will ultimately be borne by businesses and families across the country.

"This week, House Democrats are beginning their push for a cap-and-trade scheme that makes big promises, but amounts to little more than a national energy tax that will destroy countless jobs and raise energy prices on families and small businesses. Republicans and Democrats both support the efforts of employers and employees devoted to new, cleaner sources of energy, but cap-and-trade is not the answer. In fact, it will only make our problems worse, as proven in Europe, where cap-and-trade hurt the economy, drove up energy costs, and failed to cut carbon emissions at all."

Republicans are joined by some more moderate Democrats, who are sensitive to the argument that the Administration's and Congressional Democrats' cap-and-trade plan imposes a direct tax on consumers. Ultimately, it could be these moderate Democrats who prevent the the bill from passing the House. Even if the bill does pass, however, its prospects in the Senate are even murkier.

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Applause: Shep Smith Drops F-Bomb On FOX

David Knowles — 2009-04-23T09:09:00+00:00

Filed under: Bush Administration, Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Media, Viral Video

FOX News anchor Shep Smith let loose with what many in America are thinking about the current debate roiling over whether torture is ever justified. His passion on the matter is palpable, and led him to use language that some viewers may find offensive:

The "f-bomb" aside, the real story here is Smith's underlying point: This is America, we don't torture. We should not be using interrogation techniques designed by Communist China and Nazi Germany. They are morally wrong. Period. For those who counter with the argument that the torture was justified because it brought us valuable information that potentially saved lives (a dubious and unverifiable claim), one might ask, if raping the sons and daughters of admitted terrorists were shown to be an effective tool for procuring information, should we also do that? Or, should we peel away the skin from the bones of conscious suspects until they talked? If you think these acts too barbarous to contemplate, you need only look as far back as the genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda to find their earthly precedent.

While advocates of torture--I'm looking at you, National Review--believe our government needs to be able to reserve the right to administer the harshest methods available if it will save American lives, despite whether those methods are shown to be, on balance, far less productive than even the most enthusiastic supporters would hope (just ask former FBI Director Robert Muller), the notion that we might be guilty of moral transgression seems beside the point.

It's a dog eat dog world, after all. The terrorists (including the people we've held at Guantanamo Bay who have been shown not to be terrorists at all) must be made to talk. If some of them die as a result of their interrogations, so be it. To question the manner in which we achieve results is, to the Cheney crowd, un-patriotic. Never mind the voices that spoke up and told the Administration that they considered the techniques proposed to be illegal, or where the torture methods themselves had been concocted, you get them before they get you.

But if we really have abandoned our moral reservations about torturing those we believe may do us harm in the future, they why have we persisted in this silly game of not calling torture by its proper name?

David at Paradigms Lost
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Obama Administration Twitchy on Torture?

Denise Williams — 2009-04-21T17:42:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Dick Cheney, National Security

In what I see as the latest attempt to be all things to all political stripes and pressures, the President today signaled that he might just, maybe, in a pinch, be OK with perhaps leaving a small crack in the door open for a commission to study the Bush administration's use of "harsh interrogation techniques" and possibly the prosecution of the Bush attorneys that ginned-up the legal rationale for their use in the first place.

As The New York Times reports today,

Mr. Obama, who has been saying that the nation should look ahead rather than focusing on the past, said he is "not suggesting" that a commission be established.

But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, "if and when there needs to be a further accounting," he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one "in a bipartisan fashion," from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public.

This further confuses Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's take this past Sunday's appearance on ABC's "This Week" stating, "those who devised policy" also "should not be prosecuted." By Monday, aides were already backpeddling, stating that Emmanuel meant those who carried out the torture, not the architects.

Since the release last week of the secret memos outlining the "harsh techniques", President Obama has been beaten about the head and neck from all sides after declaring that he would not press for prosecutions. The left, who has been impatiently waiting for any chance to get at the Bush administration for anything they can get their hands on was very vocal, very fast:

Congressional Democrats and international officials pressed for a fuller accounting of what happened. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote Mr. Obama asking him not to rule out prosecutions until her panel completed an investigation over the next six to eight months.

And being press-shy for the past 8 or so years has not stopped former VP Dick Cheney from vocalizing his outrage over all things Obama on any outlet that will give him time. I'm fully expecting him to take green room space away from Pat Buchanan and Al Sharpton at a cable news outlet near you:

Some Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, accused the administration on Monday of endangering the country by disclosing national secrets. Mr. Cheney went on the Fox News Channel to announce that he had asked the C.I.A. to declassify reports documenting the intelligence gained from the interrogations. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former C.I.A. director, has also condemned the release of the memorandums and said the harsh questioning had value.

(Cheney's latest visit to Fox News can be seen below.)

It's pretty obvious that the new administration needs some serious message control. Obama craves to be a moderate - and that's fine - but he'll need to take the bashing from both sides that moderates get to live with. Triangulating and waffling may have worked for people surnamed Clinton, but Obama's promise of openness, sincerity and sunlight is in direct contrast to his recent actions. Nobody likes a waffler. Note yesterday's almost embarrassing kissy face at CIA headquarters. That speech was probably written long before this latest dust-up, but rings hollow now.

My thought? Obama should have left it at looking forward and not back and stuck with that. Presidents don't investigate and prosecute - congresses and Attorneys General do. Let them do what they think they need to do and run with your plausible deniability.

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Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to Debate in Canada

David Knowles — 2009-04-21T08:22:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Democrats, Republicans, Featured Stories, Bill Clinton

Mark your calendars. On March 29, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, presidents 42 and 43, will share the bill at Toronto, Canada's Metro Convention Centre for what should prove to be a very entertaining evening:

The event will consist of the two men seated in chairs between a moderator who has not yet been chosen.

No matter how civil the discourse, the thought of Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton on stage is bemusing, given the animosity of the past 16 years, and the efforts under way to overcome it.

So, should we expect a rumble in the distinctly un-jungle setting that is Toronto? After all, Bill Clinton has forged an unlikely friendship with W's father, H.W. And save for a testy exchange with FOX News's Chris Wallace, Clinton has shown himself to be a master of diplomatic restraint. Mr. Bush, too, has preferred to steer clear of controversy since leaving office, leaving the bare-knuckle attacks to his number two, Dick Cheney. In fact, a more engaging sit-down might feature Cheney going head to head with Al Gore, the VP who preceded him.

One thing to keep an eye on is whether the two men will allow questions on torture. Given the legal consequences for former Bush administration figures, this could be one potato too hot for handling. Otherwise, I suspect we'll hear a cordial conversation with plenty of respectful disagreement.

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Should Anti-Obama People Be Allowed To 'Blow Off Steam'?

Ken Layne — 2009-04-21T00:54:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Religion, Scandal, Race Issues, Social Security, Ken Layne's Outrage, 2012 President

A recent article in my favorite magazine, a British newsweekly we all know as The Economist, noted something I myself had not yet noticed in America. Apparently, there are some voters who do not pay the proper respect to their newly elected ruler, President Barack Obama.

Is it simply racial predjudice? No, of course not. Nothing is quite so simple. Yet perhaps racial intolerance is but one of many "factors," as Bill O'Reilly might say, within the small yet noisy anti-Obama movement. It is certainly not for me to judge.

There are two parts to this fringe culture, according to The Economist: Some U.S. social conservatives of lesser means are simply frustrated by the rapidly widening gap between a very small group of extremely wealthy elitists and the vast unhappy 80% of the country which cannot afford our finer restaurants and country clubs, while another group hopes to bring the quaint and pleasant English tradition of "afternoon tea" back to a nation which has, in large part, become barbaric.

During the Reagan administration, our rulers at the White House decided we needed to renew the "special relationship" with the United Kingdom. As a result, both London and Washington embarked on a bold crusade to push back against modern social security and government largess -- and the "middle class" of the nostalgic old American Dream era of post-war prosperity was rather quickly put back in the pages of history.

Since then, over those long three decades, we have watched as the bottom classes found one devil or another to complain about, even as so many of our less well-off fellow citizens turned ever more to traditional pursuits of the unskilled labor pool, such as watching stock-car races or the collecting of Confederate Flags or Beanie Babies or the viewing the "reality telly" shows in which attractive people pretend to exist and struggle within the "reality" of the tragic masses. In important ways, this mirrors Mother England, where the lower classes are not much involved in the business of politics.

But, about these "Obama Haters." They are apparently led by the CNN star Glenn Beck. I have not heard of him, but my tastes run more toward the BBC. His gimmick, they say, is to imitate the character from the classic 1970s comedy Network. If so, good for him and kudos on his success. But does he base his "shtick" on unsavory recollections of our shameful national past?

One can say, "Oh let them blow off steam however they like, it's better than having them organize a union and demand a higher wage or beg for medical benefits!" And while I certainly see that point, something in the back of my mind makes me wonder: Is this the best we can do? Could we not find another, less ugly diversion for those who simply need a minor distraction as salve for the endless disappointment of the workaday life?

I have encountered other suggestions, perhaps not so forgiving as my own. At pleasant dinner parties in Georgetown, I've heard people speak of "turning off the Internet." Would that we could! But the barriers seem insurmountable, as the Internet is where so many people now get their television programs and the pornography to help them through lonely times and wilted prospects. Take away their windows to a fantasy life, and what is left? I am not enthused about hearing them gathered outside my townhouse.

Let's try another method: Let these people burn away their anger in the most impotent way. Let them mail gift boxes of fine teas to their rulers, as "hints" that perhaps even our worse off deserve a second glance. Let them type as best they can type, on the Internet, about their discomfort with the current administration and this handsome intellectual president with the exotic international pedigree. Jealousy is a cruel mistress.

And yet, when we look back at this moment, eight or twelve years from now, I believe we'll smile, and perhaps hum a bit of When I'm Sixty-Four.

Ken Layne is the syndicated columnist from Wonkette.com, the Washington website of ideas.

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