The Warrantless Blogtapping Program

BLOG UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Right Wing News ...
Issue: The Obama Candidacy and Race

Rightwing Blogger John Hawkins, in response to a question about why Hillary leads Obama in most head-to-head state polls, had this to say:

As to why Hillary is beating Obama, well, aside from the fact that he has slightly less experience than Hillary, black Americans make up roughly a quarter of Democratic voters, but there are only a handful of black Democrats in Congress who've been elected in Democratic districts that aren't majority black. In other words, liberals support programs like Affirmative Action because they think blacks are inferior to whites and they don't want people they regard as their inferiors representing them in Congress -- or as their nominee in 2008. Obama has been a rock star during the primary season, but the racists in the Democratic Party will probably prevent him from getting elected.

Notice two things here. First, Hawkins presumes that the only likely way a black Democrat can get elected is if he or she runs in a majority black district. In other words, black people vote for black people because they are black. He doesn't talk about black candidates being elected on the substance of their positions or on the issues relevant to the local community. He's not interested in this. Heck, he doesn't even consider this as a possibility. Second, Hawkins also thinks liberal preference for Hillary over Obama is because liberals think blacks are inferior. What? Are blacks such the "objects" in Hawkins' mind that they can't be thought of as holding an independent ideology, that they can't be included among the category of "liberals"? Think about it, by Hawkins' logic, black voters who prefer Hillary over Obama must think that they themselves are inferior to whites. In fact, Hawkins doesn't even consider that there are black folk who support Hillary. He just assumes that black Democrats, if they don't consider themselves inferior to whites, must have to vote for the black guy.

In short, I look at the way Hawkins phrases his arguments and I wonder: who is it that is making surface-level racist assumptions about voting behavior and candidate preference here? Hint: it ain't white liberal Democrats.

Rush the Disingenuous Dissembler

Rush Limbaugh is now saying that he never called Brian McGough a "suicide bomber" as if his use of the specific words "suicide bomber" is what makes it so. Well, it is true that Rush never called him a "suicide bomber," he just described him exactly in the terms as one would describe a "suicide bomber." Here's exactly what Rush said. You make up your mind if Rush is being disingenuous:

You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media and a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.

How can anyone defend Rush here? If I were an honest conservative, I'd be embarrassed by Rush, not only with this pathetic dissembling, but also by his presuming that this soldier is just a mindless dupe of the left who is incapable of thinking for himself.

Rush Limbaugh on Soldier Intelligence

I wonder if the Dittoheads and other rightwing pundits and bloggers will jump all over Rush for his patronizing disrespect of US soldiers. I mean, really, not only did Rush Limbaugh basically accuse a soldier of being unable to think for himself and of being the dupe of the left, he also likens the soldier to a suicide bomber. Really.

Rush, with his "talent on loan from God" majestic and omniscient "wisdom," spins this soldier's opinions and thoughts according to his own convoluted logic. Of course, in Rush's myopic worldview it is just impossible to be a decorated Purple Heart veteran of the Iraq War AND a critic of the war. Hence, this soldier must be a feeble dupe of the anti-war left. What's Rush likely to say next about this soldier? That his anti-war stance is a product of brain damage caused by the shrapnel he took to his head while serving in Iraq? Puh-leeze!

That's bad enough as it is, but then look at how Rush tries to then turn around this soldier's sacrifice and equate the man to a suicide bomber! It's just stunningly and brazenly disrespectful of this soldier when you think about it. I mean, this guy comes out with some strong and powerful criticism of Rush, and what does Rush do? He basically calls the guy a suicide bomber who can't think for himself. To listen to Rush speak, this U.S. soldier is, in effect, the worst kind of enemy to Rush Limbaugh and all that is good and strong about America that Rush thinks he himself epitomizes. It's pathetic and vile, really. Rush removes any kind of agency from this soldier, which disrespects this man's intelligence, and then he likens him to some of the vilest of America's enemies -- an enemy, in fact, that actually gave the soldier the very injury that earned him his Purple Heart. Ain't Rush sweet?

And Rush has the gall to pretend that it's the left who thinks soldiers are fools and who "use" the military for their own political purposes.

I wonder what the Dittoheads and the rightwing blogosphere will say about Rush now? I'm not holding my breath.

Phony Soldiers versus Stuck in Iraq

Rush Limbaugh is on the hot seat for appearing to believe that U.S. Iraq War veterans who criticize the war are "phony soldiers."

Oh, but wait ... Apparently, when Rush referred to phony soldiers, he didn't really mean it in the plural, although that's precisely what he said. He didn't really mean to refer to "these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," although that's precisely what he said. No, instead, he really just meant one soldier in particular: Jesse MacBeth. But you can't blame people for thinking otherwise. Let's review: when Rush made the "phony soldiers" comment, it was in direct response to a caller on his show who was complaining in sweeping, general terms that "they [leftist critics of the war] never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue —"

Really?!? Leftist critics "never" talk to real soldiers? Am I to understand that the only "soldiers" leftists talk to are the phony soldiers? That's what Rush says! And, you know what the converse of this claim is, don't you? Well, let me tell you: those soldiers who do talk to leftists must be the "phony" ones, or else leftists wouldn't be talking to them, would they?

Well, my goodness! Excuse me for getting confused. Now, could it be that Rush Limbaugh really did mean just Jesse MacBeth, but simply "botched" the delivery of this meaning?

Maybe. Maybe. In fact, probably.

I'm willing to give Rush Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt, under one condition. That Rush Limbaugh and his defenders give John Kerry the benefit of the doubt that his "Stuck in Iraq" comment was, indeed, a botched joke referencing George W. Bush, which it most clearly was.

For all those Dittoheads who are now asking that the "context" of Rush's comment be taken into consideration and that the full transcript of his show be parsed and that we try to be sensitive to Rush's "intended" meaning of his "phony soliders" comment, even though the literal meaning of this comment is ambiguous, I ask for the same consideration of "context" as it refers to Kerry's "stuck in Iraq" comment, for the same attention to the full transcript of Kerry's speech and not just the unflattering soundbite, for the same sensitivity to Kerry's intended meaning of his "stuck in Iraq" comment.

If Kerry deserved being raked over the coals for his "botched joke," then Rush deserves it for this careless, ill-phrased, and ill-timed comment, too. And I hope the soldiers at VoteVets.org are as relentless in their "Swiftboating" attacks on El Rushbo (see below) as he and his Dittoheads were on Kerry.



What goes around, comes around.

Jindal High Jinks

You know, I have been pretty blasé about the Governor's race and not even all that exorcised about a Bobby Jindal victory. I can't say that I have been even remotely persuaded that Jindal would be a governor representative of what I think are in the best interests of the State of Louisiana; but I at least wasn't animated to go out there and raise a ruckus about him. I haven't even thought to be a critical voice on my blog ... until now.

The reason for this lies in the behavior of some of his apparent campaign staffers to squelch even the basic right of Louisiana citizens to hear and see and document Jindal's comments and public events where Jindal speaks on matters of importance to all citizens, not just to conservative Republican citizens.

You want to read a bit what I'm talking about here, try this story on for size. It is incredible that non-confrontational individuals, citizens of the State of Louisiana, peacefully attending a public event featuring someone who wants to be this citizen's governor, and without any inappropriate clothing or signs that would distract or disrupt the event in any way, would be thrown out of the event. And it is simply intolerable that Jindal would support this behavior.

Here's another story, with video footage, of a similar kind of behavior.

It just shouldn't be this way in a free society. Period.

And Jindal's now enlisted another person actively in the column against him now.

The Jena Six

Well, I've been pretty quiet on the blog, not because of a lack of interest in keeping it up, but simply because of a lack of time to dedicate to it. I'll keep posting as time and energy permits.

I thought that the whole situation in my State's town of Jena deserved some commentary from me. What do I think?

Well, from my perspective, it is hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that there is an inequity in the administration of justice that tracks along racial lines. Critics of the movement in support of the Jena Six try to make this an issue of a simple and clear-cut case of assault and that justice should be meted out to the six black students accused of assault in accordance with the law. They argue as if the racial tension and the context of racial discord surrounding this event should have no bearing on the prosecution of this case. They even go so far as to divorce the whole noose-hanging episode from the assault that is the basis for the prosecution of the Jena Six, saying that one is not even connected to the other.

However, even if you do divorce the two episodes and keep them as separate cases, it is hard not to notice that the noose-hanging behavior resulted in a kind of leniency within the criminal justice system that is at odds with the significance of the act. We all know that hanging nooses on trees in the rural south amounts to a clear death threat targeting a particular group of people only and exclusively because of skin color. The fact that it is a death threat should be enough to warrant detention and prosecution. If a person calls in a bomb threat to school or writes an anonymous note threatening to kill a teacher or a fellow student, the consequences for being caught in such an act are severe. What is a noose hanging if nothing more than a death threat? The fact that it is racially tinged is also significant because it stokes the flames of historical black/white antagonisms that can lead to the violent encounters like the ones that the Jena 6 are entangled in. I hear critics of the Jena 6 arguing that the noose-hanging incident is irrelevant to their behavior, but we all know that it is not. I also never hear critics take up the noose hanging episode as a matter of justice and independently critique how that incident was handled by authorities. If the six black boys hadn't assaulted the one white boy, not one critic of the Jena Six would be addressing the noose hanging episode and calling for the harsh administration of justice for white kids who did this. I am convinced it would be a death threat of the most vile kind gone ignored. As I see it, this simple disassociation by critics of events that are clearly interrelated in the whole dynamic of life in Jena these days is, in my view, more evidence of the inequity in how justice is both discussed and administered in this country with regard to racially-charged issues.

I don't defend the violence of the Jena 6. In fact, I abhor it as I do all kinds of violence. There should be punishment meted out to these kids, just like there should be punishment meted out to any person who assault another, whether it be the result of a barroom brawl or a playground fistfight. But the fact is that we do not treat all assaults the same in this country, and the Jena Six case just highlights that often times the different ways assaults are treated are conditioned by race, with the harsher consequences being reserved more often for the darker-skinned.

As an example, it is a damn travesty that the local prosecutor did not bring charges against the white kids who issued death threats in their noose hanging antics against black people by citing that there was no law upon which to base such a prosecution. First off, if he saw the noose hangings as a clear death threat, he'd most certainly have a case. And it tells us something that he didn't see the noose-hangings as the equivalent of a concrete death threat. And second, if his argument is technically correct in that the law has to specify exactly what constitutes a death threat punishable by arrest and prosecution and that noose hanging is not mentioned a specific death threat warranting such a response, then the travesty is that this isn't codified in law. Either way, it shows an inequity in the system of criminal justice that tilts against people strictly and exclusively on the basis of race.

That is what I, and I think most people, see in the Jena Six situation. It is not a question of letting kids who do something wrong skirt and escape responsiblity; but rather it is making sure that skin color doesn't matter at all in how we hold kids accountable and responsible for their bad behaviors.

Is Greenspan a Liberal Now?

Alan Greenspan has confirmed what is obvious to everyone except Bill Clinton-hating conservatives: Bill Clinton exercised a fiscal and economic policy that was responsible, prudent, and effective.

I wonder if conservatives suffering from Clinton Derangement Syndrome will start calling Greenspan a liberal now.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano

Well, now that the Fall Semester has started, I have once again foisted blogging onto my students. They are required to put up postings on the blogsite Cuaderno Latinoamericano. Check it out and leave some comments there for them. It always amazes me that these students, who can text message on their phones like it's second nature and who have very elaborate MySpace and/or Facebook pages, have very little experience with or exposure to blogging. This is my little effort to get them to build up some interest in the medium and to learn a little about the region we are studying in our class. I hope you visit the Cuaderno Latinoamericano and encourage these students in their foray into the blogging world. Hasta pronto!

An impolitic left

The leftist political action committee, MoveOn.org has a controversial new advertisement attacking Gen. David H. Petraeus by calling him General "Betray Us."

First things first: I am an anti-war advocate, and I'm not a Petraeus fan. Let's be clear about that.

Second, if you criticize Petraeus for not providing a balanced and unbiased accounting of the war, fine. If you call him a misguided dupe of the GOP political establishment, OK. If you claim that he is a GOP mouthpiece driven by partisanship and not by objective analysis of the war's progress, I'm with you.

But ...

If you call Petraeus a traitor, you're on your own.

It's ad-hominem character assassination at its worst, and liberals shouldn't accept or tolerate it. Period.

Where's Huck?

I'm currently here through the weekend for this reason. Always a fun time! I'll report back to the blog when I return.

Update: I gave the wrong link above for where I am. I am actually in Montreal, not Quebec City. I've updated the link accordingly.

Reflections on the Larry Craig Incident

I have to say that I find myself feeling sorry for Sen. Larry Craig. I must admit that I even feel badly about how he has been railroaded at one level.

For instance, I think it is absurd that what he did was cause enough not only for his being arrested, but also for his feeling the need to cop a guilty plea for a crime. What he did might have been seedy and unseemly, but I think it should never have been a cause for being arrested.

Where I do think Larry Craig bears some blame is not in what appears to be his Clinton-esque denial of being gay and engaging in a seedy gay pick-up routine in a public bathroom, but rather in that his public anti-gay rhetoric has reinforced a social stigmatization of gay lifestyles and encounters that has made it possible to criminalize behavior that should have never been criminalized to begin with.

A man or woman would never be arrested for non-verbal public flirtations intended to test the waters of a possible sexual encounter with a member of the opposite sex. Furthermore, I don't think it likely that even if a man or woman were arrested under similar circumstances for such a non-verbal heterosexual flirtation or proposition, this man or woman would be so publicly ashamed that he or she would plead guilty to a crime just to try to make the whole embarrassing situation go away.

This is what I think: Larry Craig has very profound internal conflicts about his sexual identity such that he believes he has to live a schizophrenic lifestyle and to do so in a state of denial about it. But Larry Craig did not commit a crime in that airport bathroom. He should never have been arrested in the first place. He should never have felt the need to plead guilty to any charge of criminal wrongdoing for what transpired. And he should certainly not have been run out of office for this.

It's a shame and a travesty that what he did actually might have been an arrestable offense in America. It shouldn't be. It's a shame that he felt so badly about having been exposed as engaging in gay flirtations that he pled guilty to a crime. He shouldn't feel so guilty and badly about his sexual preferences and how he conveyed his desire for sexual intimacy to another grown adult in such an inoccuous way. It's a shame that instead of a polite "not interested" from the object of his flirtations, which would have probably ended the encounter, he got a trip to the police precinct and a criminal booking.

Yet, it is also part of the tragic story of Larry Craig that his publicly condemnatory attitude towards gay sexual orientation and his support of an anti-gay social policy agenda made such things possible. It is tragic that Larry Craig played a part in making up the bed that he ended up having to sleep in himself, a bed that shouldn't have ever been made up to begin with.

It is hard for me to go to bat completely for Larry Craig precisely because of his vocal opposition to and vilification of the gay lifestyle in terms of his legislative and social policy agenda; but had he been more understanding of the marginalization of gays or even just simply silent about the topic out of respect for the human dignity of gays, I can say unhesitatingly that I would be defending him without reservation.

Even still, I don't think he deserves the treatment he is receiving. It's excessive and unwarranted. His career and his reputation are ruined simply because he engaged in gay flirtation, something that should have never been deemed criminal in the first place.

My Early (Very Early!) Lenten Sacrifice

Apparently, I am just not a decent person and go too far when it comes to leaving comments on conservative blogs. So, I'm giving them up, starting now. It's not really worth the unintended grief and hurt feelings I apparently cause and the resulting anxiety I feel because of that.

The Warrantless Blogtapping Program

BLOG UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Right Wing News and Cassy Fiano ...
Issue: Their Trashtalking New Orleans

Conservative blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News has a column over at Townhall.com, which he cross-references on his own blog, and his blogger sidekick, Cassy Fiano, has her own piling-on posting relative to the topic.

Well, I tried to leave an extended comment on the Townhall comment boards, but they limit comments to 2000 characters, and mine went way over. So here's what I wrote in full. It applies to Hawkins primarily, but it also certainly can be said to his acolyte, Cassy Fiano, too. Here's what I had to say:

That fraud Hawkins is so easy with the condemnations. He loves to throw them around left and right when he knows nothing about it. I'd bet Hawkins hasn't even been to New Orleans ever in his life. If he had, he might at least respect the historical value of the city to shaping this great country.

As a native New Orleanian, let me tell Hawkins a few truths about my hometown and the people who live here.

First, the people here love their homes. Generations of families are rooted here. Matriarchs and patriarchs, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and even children are buried here. Everything my family has ever had and earned and been has come from living in this great City. To tell me that I'm stupid for living here, and to get over the tremendous loss we have faced here, is callous in the extreme. And I'd even say typically conservative. How would he react if I said that his home in North Carolina is a pissant little nothing, devoid of anything meaningful in life, so why would anybody live there? I bet he'd be a little ticked. Rightly so. One does not just throw away tradition so cavalierly and easily. One would also think that a conservative would understand this.

Second thing: Hawkins smears every person in New Orleans, heroes every one, who has come back here and rebuilt a life on the ruins of destruction without getting so much as a passing glance from the Government. There are thousands upon thousands of people who are the epitome of the "picking yourself up by the bootstrap" mantra conservatives are so fond of. In fact, knowing how much of a coward Hawkins is and how quickly he folds under the mildest of intellectual and psychological challenges, I don't think Hawkins has a half-an-ounce of what it takes to weather such a calamitous experience. He'd probably wither like a prune if he and every single member of his extended family left their hometown and everything they owned one day and found out the next day that it was all gone, everything, and faced the prospect of having to start over completely with nothing except the clothes on his back and whatever he managed to save in his bank account.

Sure there are some people who are all too willing to play the eternal victim and who are living on the dole in New Orleans. But I dare say that there are plenty of such people in Hawkins' town, too. The fact is that there are exceedingly more people in New Orleans who aren't playing the eternal victim and who are managing to thrive on their individual courage, their ingenuity, and their strong sense of neighborliness and community.

Finally, I find it incredibly rich that Hawkins drools over Iraqis with purple fingers, and never has a beef about throwing US taxpayer money at them over there, and that he laments the incessant negative media coverage of the Iraq war, but that he can't even find a single thing of worth ever to write about New Orleans and its people. As I said before, there is heroism abounding in New Orleans these days. I wish Hawkins would find a little bit of that here to highlight. But it would take him a herculean effort to be human, instead of a conservative ideologue, and I'm not sure that Hawkins can do it.

2nd Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Here's what I wrote on my blog two years ago in the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina.

There's a lot more Katrina reflection on the blogosphere today, too. And, of course, the Times-Picayune has a wide spread of Katrina anniversary stories.

Frankly, though, I must say that I'm wearied by the Katrina coverage and don't have all that much interest in rehashing and revisiting the moment. I'd much rather go about my day as routine and normal. Perhaps it's Katrina coverage fatigue, perhaps it's some deep psychological pain-avoidance thing. Who knows? But, it is what it is. For me, at least. I hope all who need to remember and revisit and rehash find value in it. But, I think, this year, I'm planning to leave myself out of it.

Quote of the Day

"As you go through life, my friend, whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole!"
(Anonymous, via "Pops" Huck)

Light posting over the next week or so because the semester is gearing up and I'm consumed by it. Fear not, though! I shall return!

Conservatives, Islamic Fundamentalists, and a Hillary Presidency

I have been pondering something quite intriguing about a potential Hillary Clinton Presidency. Let's say Hillary Clinton wins the next presidential election. What do U.S. conservatives do when Islamic Fundamentalist regimes throughout the world begin to hurl the inevitable aspersions at the United States for having a female President? An even more intriguing question is what do U.S. conservatives do when the male leaders of such Islamic Fundamentalist regimes and other fundamentalist movements like the Taliban and Al Qaeda inevitably attack President Hillary Clinton as a weak and worthless leader for no other reason than that she's a woman, and a socially degenerate woman at that because she wears pantsuits and makeup? Do conservatives defend their President from such attacks, do they stay silent because they are loathe to defend Hillary no matter what kinds of indignities she suffers, or do they basically voice their agreement with such assessments of their President?

You know how conservatives like to declare that liberal opposition to Bush and his policies emboldens the enemy? You know how conservatives like to sometimes even go so far as to declare that opposition to Bush on his war policy and his anti-terrorist programs equals support for terrorists? Ever heard conservatives casually throw out the term "Defeatocrats"? Well, I wonder whether conservatives have set themselves up for an unpleasant dichotomy if Hillary Clinton is the next President. Do they swallow their pride and declare their patriotic support for a President Hillary Clinton's war policies and anti-terrorist programs because not to do so will "embolden and serve the interests of the enemy" as it divides and weakens a unified American resolve? Or do they swallow their pride and take a cue from Democrats, and publicly oppose President Clinton, seemingly reinforcing our enemies' perceptions of our weak, ineffective, female leader in so doing, and defend their opposition on the grounds of a patriotic duty to oppose what they think is a wrong-headed leader with a wrong-headed policy?

I think the support-the-wartime-President-at-all-costs-lest-you-be-a-terrorist-fifth-columnist attitude of conservatives will become an embarrassing conundrum for conservative rightwingers if faced with a Hillary Clinton Presidency.

This scenario is a thought that, I must admit, amuses me and even gives me a bit of smug satisfaction, especially when I think of what this will inevitably do to blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Imagine Ann Coulter having to say something in support of Hillary Clinton (or to remain damnably silent) when Osama bin Laden says that Hillary Clinton is an affront to civilization and to God, and that the American people are a Godless people who can elect a woman to be their leader.

I hope to see that day when conservatives have to declare their unconditional loyalty to President Hillary Clinton in the face of insults by misogynistic Islamic fundamentalists, or else be labeled traitors to America if they don't.

Confidential to President_Friedman

I noticed the effort. Thanks for trying again, even though I'm all but forgotten over there. And by the way, your question about Ron Paul was great. I, too, am baffled by the amount of hostility establishment conservatives direct at Ron Paul. The only reason I can think of for the viciousness Paul gets from such folks is that what Paul says cuts a little too closely to the bone regarding conservative principles and the fact that many modern establishment conservatives really don't hold to such principles. That, and the fact that he could very well be an electoral spoiler for the GOP this election cycle. But, who knows? The Greeks fed Socrates the hemlock because they thought he was radicalizing the youth. Maybe this very same impulse is at work with regard to establishment conservatives and Ron Paul.

With Friends Like These ...

who needs enemies?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, orchestrated into power by the Bush Administration, responded this way about his erstwhile patron and Bush's mild rebuke:

Al-Maliki, on a trip to Syria, reacted harshly when asked about the earlier comments from U.S. officials.

"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of the three-day visit to Syria.

"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere," al-Maliki said.

Now, Bush is planning to backtrack on his comments because he is afraid to hurt al-Maliki's feelings. The sad thing is that Bush has painted himself into this corner and has given al-Maliki the upper hand in the relationship. Bush needs the Iraqi government to succeed, even if it is an ineffective and counterproductive one, because he has so much invested in having Iraq seem less like the basket case that it is.

In the past, such testy and whiny comments by proxy surrogates would be met with an even sterner rebuke and a harsher dose of truth-talk, rather than a meely-mouth cave-in.

Bush is reaping what he has sown.

Can You Catch the Irony?

Barack Obama has called for an easing of restrictions on some elements of the Bush Administration's Cuba policy. A critic of Obama's position had this to say about it:

Mauricio Claver-Carone, a spokesman for the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Pact, which supports full sanctions, said Obama's statement could hurt U.S.-Cuban relations at a crucial time.

"I'm sure he's well intentioned," Claver-Carone said, but he added that with the death of Castro possibly approaching and the potential for change on the island, such a statement could send the wrong message.

"It entrenches the regime at this historic time," Claver-Carone said.

Notice anything ironic about this last comment by Claver-Carone? Let me give you a hint: The Castro regime is coming up on 50 years in power. In fact, the Castro Regime is older than Barack Obama by almost two years! I doubt that anything Obama says is "entrenching" the Castro regime. Any honest person would have to admit that the regime is pretty much entrenched already, and has been long before Obama even knew who Castro was. It's statements like these that defy the imagination and point out ever so much more the anachronism that is the pro-embargo lobby in the United States.

NOTE: Cross-posted at Cuaderno Latinoamericano.

Advice to Young Conservatives Getting Ready for College

As a college professor, I would like to say to young conservatives (and, really, to all young people) about to embark on the "liberal brainwashing" that is college. Take heart! Just think that if colleges and universities really were the big brother boogeyman liberal indoctrination machines that Rush Limbaugh would have you believe, there would be much fewer conservatives, independents, and libertarians with college degrees out there.

The fact that many young conservatives not only survive college, but also come through it perhaps with a more informed conservative conviction, is proof positive that college is good for both liberals and conservatives (and even independent and/or apolitical folk, too!)

What is scary to folks like Rush Limbaugh is that college encourages critical thinking. College bombards you with information and data and then challenges you to digest it, make sense of it, and to argue in defense of the conclusions you reach from the critical thinking process with those who come to different conclusions when digesting and thinking on the same information and data. And please know that having what you believe challenged by others is not an assault on your being. It is an invitation to study, think, and argue back.

Folk like Limbaugh are afraid that if you think critically you might become liberal. And they call it brainwashing if, in fact, this happens. Well, let me just tell you that critical thinking is not something to be afraid of. Sure, it may (and probably will) change your view the world; but how it does so is wide open and is ultimately up to you.

The Warrantless Blogtapping Program

BLOG UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Right Wing News ...
Issue: Rightwing Hypocrisy - Hawkins scoffs at a Liberal blog for "STIFLING DISSENT" by closing off comments.

John Hawkins, owner of the conservative blog Right Wing News, writes about a liberal blog doing some "banning" of critical commentary:

When a few righties stopped by to challenge the almighty, allknowing Mahablogger on her rhetoric, she shut the comments down. Effectively STIFLING DISSENT, as it were.

Seems to me that shutting down the comments "stifles" both dissent and support. It's an equal opportunity restriction. Given that, I can't see how Hawkins can make this a question of ideological censorship as he seems to be doing. But, that's not really the point I want to make. My beef with this is the bald-faced hypocrisy of Hawkins, who has the nerve to throw stones and brazenly criticize a liberal blog in this way when he did precisely the same to me. In fact, I can argue that what Hawkins did to me is even worse, since he didn't muffle the rumblings of his own stormtroopers when he shut me down. Sadly, what I find even more discouraging, though, is that the regular commenters at RWN seem to have collective amnesia about this, too, never calling Hawkins on this hypocrisy. When Hawkins complains about the Mahablog effectively "STIFLING DISSENT," hardly any of his regular commenters think to say to him: "Uh, but Hawkins, what about Huckupchuck? Did you not 'stifle' him for no apparent reason other than that he expressed dissenting and critical viewpoints? Be careful throwing stones when you live in a glass house yourself." Or something along those lines.

I know that there are some good people on the RWN comment boards who have asked Hawkins for some clarification on why he banned me. And I appreciate that. But such efforts have only been limited to asking for clarification. And, with the exception of a regular commenter there who goes by the name President_Friedman, I haven't seen anyone criticize Hawkins publicly for banning me and yet failing to offer any reason why he did so. And I certainly haven't seen anyone at RWN publicly call Hawkins on the hypocrisy of his criticizing the Mahablog and other liberal blogs for "stifling dissent" when he's guilty of the same behavior.

NOTE (Friday, August 17, 2007, 7:44PM CST): I updated this posting from its original, which I posted hastily a few hours ago before heading out the door for dinner with the family, in order to add some more thoughts on the subject.

Wrap Your Head Around This!

I almost had a cow this morning when I saw this picture (click to the third one in the series) in the Times-Picayune this morning and read the following caption that went along with it:

Wanda Nazaretian, right, tells her woes to Lori Pichon about her 1400 percent increase in property assessments. Her home increased from $79000 to $1.19 million.

I'm still dumbfounded and rendered mute when I read this. Where do I start with it? First, am I supposed to be sympathetic to Wanda Nazaretian because her assessment went up so much? Am I supposed to feel for her that she had to wait in line with the rest of the "hoi polloi" at City Hall to protest her re-assessment?

Either we have some very incompetent assessors, or a very gargantuan mistake was made, or Wanda Nazaretian has some nerve complaining about having to finally pay taxes for her $1.19 million home.

I noticed that the caption didn't provide a specific address. And when I did a search of the Orleans Parish Board of Assessors Records, there was nothing listed under the name of Nazaretian. Makes you wonder doesn't it?

Well, I think it could be true that Wanda Nazaretian's home is overassessed. Maybe it is worth $1 million instead of $1.19 million. Who knows? But I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that it is worth much, much more than the $79,000 at which it was previously assessed. I stand astounded at the gall of someone who, with the homestead exemption, has been paying literally almost nothing in property taxes for who knows how long, and then "tells her woes" about her "situation" as she pines away in line at City Hall. Let me tell you, Wanda Nazaretian does not elicit any sympathy from me.

It makes me sick.

Cafe Reconcile's White Beans & Shrimp Recipe

Today's Times-Picayune had a story and a recipe for Cafe Reconcile's White Beans and Shrimp dish. (Cafe Reconcile -- click here for their website -- is a great story in itself. Click on their link and read up on this very unusual and wonderful place.)

Now, I'm not normally a big fan of white beans, but I've sampled this dish on more than one occasion and it is fantastic.

My wife took a look at the recipe and said: "It calls for lots of garlic and 4 cups of heavy cream. 4 CUPS!!! No wonder you like it! Anything with that much heavy cream is going to taste great to you!"

Well, she may be right. But one can splurge every so often, don't you think? Give it a try. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Global Warming a Farce? Take 2 ...

A few days ago, the head-in-the-sand, anti-global warming Rightwingosphere jumped on some changes in a NASA report re-calculating the hottest years on record in the U.S. after rectifying a slight error in the statistical tool used to determine annual temperatures as wholesale evidence that the global warming phenomenon is pure fantasy. [NOTE: As much as conservatives would like to think that the U.S. constitutes the entire world, the phenomenon of global warming is precisely that: a measure of the world's temperatures, with the world constituting more than the U.S.]

[ASIDE: Well, we New Orleanians, basing our thoughts purely on our personal, lived experiences with the heat over the past 2-3 weeks, might disagree with the notion that global warming is a fraud. Honestly, I don't think I've ever felt this hot in New Orleans before. But, anyway, since my "feelings" don't count in a scientific debate, that's neither here nor there ... ]

Nevertheless, I'd advise conservatives to be a bit circumspect in their dismissive reactions and take a look at this little cautionary rejoinder from Bradford Plummer over at The New Republic's blog, "The Plank." And here's another piece of sanity on the subject, just for good measure.

Take it for what you will.

Quote of the Day

"It's not unique to Louisiana. It's just brazen down here. Machine politics in the north will skim the cream. Here in Louisiana, they skim the cream, they steal the milk, hijack the bottles and look for the cow."
-- James Bernazanni, the special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office, commenting after New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas's public admission of illegal and corrupt behavior.

The Appeal of Obama Across Ideological Lines

Over at Right Wing News, a conservative New Orleanian who regularly visits that site, and who goes by the internet name "RWNReader2," posed a question to John Hawkins, the owner of the blog, asking for data that would convince a conservative-leaning acquaintance of his not to consider voting for Barack Obama, as this acquaintance indicated she might do. Hawkins thought this question worthy of a response. Click on the link above that references RWNReader2's question in order to read RWNReader2's question as well as Hawkins' reply.

I think Hawkins completely missed the boat on this one. His answer was based on the premise that Obama is fashioning himself a moderate; and therefore all RWNReader2 had to do was to expose Obama's liberalism in order to sway his acquaintance to give up on Obama. The problem is that Obama has NEVER fashioned himself as anything but a liberal. So, trying to tag Obama with the "dirty" word of "liberal" just isn't going to cut it. I imagine that RWNReader2's acquiantance assumes that Obama, as a Democrat from Illinois, must be a "liberal." Because of this, I would argue that RWNReader2's acquaintance finds Obama appealing not IN SPITE OF his liberalism, but actually because of it. The thing is, Obama's liberalism is authentic, principled, and well-communicated. The problem for conservatives is not that Obama is hiding his liberalism, but that Obama knows how to convey the core principles of liberalism in a way that resonates with people's values. Hawkins, like many conservatives, simply cannot bring himself to recognize that there is value in liberal ideals which can resonate with all discerning human beings.

It is a mistake for conservatives to try to "reveal" the liberalism of Obama as a means of convincing people to vote against him, as if simply mentioning the "dirty" word "liberal" is enough to do the trick. Why is it a mistake? Because such conservatives would be revealing that which is already exposed. Furthermore, they would be conspicuously avoiding addressing what it is about the substance of Obama's unabashed liberalism that many find appealing.

Obama's strength is that he knows how to move away from liberal soundbites and can articulate a compelling vision and idea of liberalism that touches people's humanity and reaffirms their dignity as individuals who also share the dreams and struggles both in the world at large and within their local communities. He inspires people both to be the best individuals they can be as well as to be the best selfless, other-oriented citizens they can be.

Hawkins thinks Obama is fashioning himself as a moderate because Hawkins himself recognizes the appeal of Obama's liberalism, but he can't fathom accepting this appeal as a product of liberal ideology, so he has to call it something other than liberalism. He calls it "being moderate." Others call it "charisma." And still others call it "being smooth and slick," as if there has to be something sinister and deceptive behind the undeniable appeal of the man and what he has to say.

Proof of the emptiness of this line of thinking about Obama is that all the "evidence" Hawkins can give to RWNReader2 in answer to RWNReader2's question is a couple of links to some rankings by some organizations of how "liberal" Obama is on a liberal/conservative scale. As if that's going to be convincing to someone who says: "Yeah, and so? Tell me why that's so bad when I find myself hearing Obama articulate an ideology behind his rankings that I like and respect." Apparently, Hawkins has no answer to that.

It is not a fluke that when Obama speaks, time and again even conservatives find themselves often finding something admirable in what he has to say and how he says it. The little secret is not that they find themselves impressed with Obama because he resonates with their conservative values, or because he adopts "moderate" positions that they can find palatable, but rather because he can pierce through that reactionary conservative armor and show them in a convincing way that liberalism has value. He can say: "Here's the liberal way, and doesn't it make sense?" And some truly open-minded conservatives might find themselves, if not agreeing, perhaps at least blinking and wondering.

I think I have a fairly decent read on RWNReader2 from having engaged him numerous times in discussions at RWN. And I'm confident in saying that RWNReader2 is a smart person who knows how to fashion a convincing argument in defense of conservative principles. Because of this, I think the fact that he is asking Hawkins for some ammunition is indicative of the fact that he, himself, is somewhat at a loss as to how to respond honestly, and not in some conservative knee-jerk fashion, to the thinking of his acquaintaince and her tendency to find Obama an appealing candidate.

This is something that conservatives will have to deal with when it comes to Barack Obama. And right now, I find that they are struggling to deal with this. And they better find more substantive ways to tackle Obama than simply throwing out the dirty word "liberal" and hoping that this will be enough. People respond to what they see, hear, and understand. And Barack Obama, in his unabashed liberalism, is connecting to people in visceral ways that labels like "conservative," "moderate," or "liberal" just won't suffice as convincing arguments on their own either for or against him.

Sad and Disappointing

Oliver Thomas, at-large New Orleans City Councilman and likely next mayor, a man who everyone thought was one of the good guys, will be pleading guilty to charges of a shakedown as part of a deal with Federal investigators.

I have to admit to being rather shocked at this. Thomas had always come across as a man of integrity. He surely often spoke of the need for politicians to behave with integrity. And this makes his fall all the worse.

I guess the silver lining in all this, if there is one, is that there does seem to be a wholesale cleaning of New Orleans and Louisiana politics going on. What fills the gaps remains to be seen; but at least it is a window of opportunity to try to change the culture here, to start fresh.

Most people in New Orleans and Louisiana are simply tired of and disgusted with the corruption of our politics-as-usual. Most of us want integrity and change.

What with Vitter being exposed, with Jefferson indicted and facing likely conviction, with Blanco on her way out and Nagin in his last term, with new faces on the City Council like Stacey Head, Shelly Midura, James Carter, and Arnie Fielkow, New Orleans and Louisiana can really be on the cusp of important and wholesale change. If only we can resist the temptation to give up and instead embrace this as a real opportunity for change and make it so.

Incompetence of Nancy Marshall, the IQ (I Quit) Assessor

First off, Nancy Marshall is a liar. She promised to quit if elected, and she's still on the job. Sure, she can say that quitting was only possible if all the other "I Quit" quitters won; but she ran on a quitting platform and hasn't quit yet. If she really was committed to the "I quit" platform, she would have refused to take office once it became clear that the other "I quit" quitters were defeated.

Now, it just so happens that I opposed the "I Quit" quitters from the beginning, on principle. I just think that anyone who elects someone who promises to quit and to appoint an unelected person in her stead is a foolish voter. It's like giving the "I quit" quitters your blank ballot with a signature and having them assign your vote to any person of their choosing. I actually actively campaigned against this completely cynical movement on the notion that I'd rather have someone at least nominally familiar with the real estate and property assessment market holding authority in assessing the value of my property for tax purposes. Nancy Marshall knew nothing about property assessment and real estate valuation. The only thing she knew, so she claimed, was how to be a good quitter, and she couldn't even follow through on that. So, what good is she and what good is her word? Anyway, we're now stuck with her because foolish voters elected an incompetent and unknowledgable person to office hoping that she would, indeed, quit. Which she couldn't even muster up the courage to do.

Well, that's neither here nor there. What's done is done. The sad thing is that she was the only "I Quit" quitter to win, and she just happened to be running for Assessor of the District that contains my home.

Now, Nancy Marshall is making assessments based on who knows what. And people are complaining. Rightfully so. And I'll give you a personal example of her incompetence.

A few weeks ago or so, all City Assessors mailed out property assessment letters to property owners. Property assessment values across the board, throughout all assessment districts, witnessed an overall aggregate increase of more than 50%. In Nancy Marshall's district, the overall increase in property assessments was in the 60-70% range.

Now, as someone whose property had been properly assessed from the moment my wife and I purchased our home, I did not experience significant sticker shock like many other New Orleans residents. In fact, if millages go down (as the law requires) and stay down (as many hope), I should see an overall lower tax bill when all is said and done. So, I'm not complaining about this major city-wide correction of property assessments. I actually support it as a measure of fairness in equitable taxation based on proper property assessment.

So, that's not where my beef with Nancy Marshall lies. My home is pretty much fairly assessed by her office. My beef with her is the incompetence in the way that she runs her office. Here's an example of what I mean. Just today, I received a "REVISED" property assessment letter from her. My overall property assessment increased slightly from the amount indicated in the assessment letter I received from her some weeks ago. This means a slight bump in revenue for the City, but still another little slice out of my pocketbook. So, there is that. Now maybe that "revised" assessment is the correct one; but how in the hell can it have changed even an iota in just a few weeks? If she made a mistake, o.k. But even still, that "mistake" is one measure of incompetence. I can only imagine how this "mistake" played out for other homeowners. But that's not the half of it. Even though the overall assessment increased only slightly, the revisions to each of the two parts of my property tax assessment were very different from the assessment I received just a few weeks ago in the original letter sent out by Nancy Marshall. In other words, the mistake was not a minor one, but a major one. Let me explain. Assessments are made on (1) the land and (2) the buildings on the land. In the letter Nancy Marshall sent out some weeks ago, my land was assessed at $3,200 (which is 10% of the appraised value) and the building was assessed at $19,530 (which is, again, 10% of the appraised value). [NOTE: I don't know why assessments are calculated at 10% of the appraised value, but that's how it's done here.] In the "REVISED" assessment, which I just received today, my land assessment was increased to $4,860 and my buldings assessment decreased to $18,180. So, while the overall total was a net increased assessment of only $310 (from $22,740 to $23,040), this difference masks a major "mistake" in property assessment of both the value of my land and my actual home. So, I'm a bit chafed that Nancy Marshall could make such a blatant mistake in assessments. It makes me wonder how she arrived at the first assessment, and then how she arrived at the second assessment. In either case, it is a sign that she doesn't know jack about what she is doing. But what chafes me even more is the fact that a "REVISED" assessment arrived today. Why? Because, according to the law, if I want to contest this "REVISED" assessment, I only have until August 15 to visit my assessor and review the details of this new assessment. That's next Wednesday. And there's no way that anyone can get an appointment to see her over this time period given that the first round of assessment letters produced a wave of complaints. And I only have until Aug. 20 to appeal her assessment. So, Nancy Marshall made a mistake, notified me late, and gives me very little time to appeal or contest. In a word: incompetent.

She's a pathetic excuse for an assessor. But, what should we have expected? After all, she didn't run on a platform of competence, only on a platform of "quitting." I just wish she at least had the damn integrity to live up to her campaign promises.

UPDATED Monday, August 13, 2007, at 2:45pm: I updated this posting to correct for some minor grammatical errors as well as to correct for how property assessments are calculated. In the original post, I incorrectly referred to the assessment values as "mills." The basic figures remain the same, just the terminology has been changed. I edited and added text to clarify this.

What Is It About Conservatism That Bothers Me

Over at Right Wing News, there is an interesing discussion taking place in the comments section to John Hawkins' Q&A Friday posting regarding liberal "mis" perceptions of conservatives. (And, no, I'm not going to pick on Hawkins this time!)

The debate is actually quite interesting. But I wanted to jump off of this debate and pose my own main perception of conservatism that ultimately turns me off from it. At least conservatism as practiced by the modern rightwing in America today.

For me, it seems that modern conservatism as defined by folks like John Hawkins has as a fundamental characteristic an aversion to fallibility. I guess Andrew Sullivan would call this a kind of "fundamentalism" that he would say is anathema to real conservatism, which is (or should be) essentially skeptical or doubtful. There is a rigidity of thought in modern conservatism that not only disagrees with other perspectives, but also fails to even accept the legitimacy of core differences of thought within any substantive dialogue. I have heard time and again conservatives equate liberalism to a mental illness, as if every liberal must be somehow mentally imbalanced. The mantra "we must agree to disagree," followed by a respect for the intelligence and principled positions of intellectual rivals, seems to be rather unacceptable to modern conservatism.

There is a strand of this rigidity in hard-left liberalism as well, but most liberals I know embrace a kind of liberalism grounded in a constant questioning. Conservatives seem to want to embrace absolutes and tend to brook no room for dissent or divergence from orthodoxy. It is the moral absolutism as well as its accompanying lack of intellectual curiosity that comes with the critical questioning process that turns me off to what passes for modern conservatism today.

It is no coincidence that the academy tends to lean leftward. Conservatives always like to point this out and to then unfairly make the jump to the conclusion that higher education is nothing but liberal brainwashing. But anyone who is honest about his or her college experience will have to recognize that colleges and universities are places where all kinds of ideas and different perspectives are in a vigorous exchange. If colleges and universities really were the hard core leftist propagandist machines conservatives make them out to be, there wouldn't be as many conservatives with college degrees out there.

Mitt Romney's Ignorance

The man hopes to be President and yet he doesn't even know how many counties there are in the state of Massachussetts. I mean, it's not like he's been governor of Massachussetts or anything, right? God fordid that someone ask him to spell "potato" or guess at the number of states there are in the United States. Lord knows what answer we'll get with Romney.

FEMA and Catholic Schools

This little tidbit of news caught my eye:

Our Lady of Lourdes School in Slidell has secured a windfall of federal financing to rebuild its battered campus, which was deluged by floodwaters during Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Monday.

The school will receive more than $10.6 million to construct a new facility along Westchester Place for pupils in prekindergarten through eighth grade, officials said.

$10.6 million! Wow! That's quite a lot of tax dollars going into a private, religious school. Now, I'm certainly not opposed to FEMA giving such assistance to any school, Catholic or otherwise; but I'm now curious to find out just how much FEMA has disbursed to all schools affected by Hurricane Katrina for rebuilding. My thinking is that public schools, supported by my tax dollars, should get first priority in any federal or state dollars distributed.

I am also a little bit curious as to how officials within the Archdiocese of New Orleans that oversee the Catholic education system of the diocese, were unaware of this grant. That strikes me as odd. The size of the award as well as the fact that it comes as a surprise smells a bit fishy, if you ask me.

The Scott Thomas Beauchamp Controversy ...

continues to traverse the proverbial rabbit hole. At this point, who knows what the truth is. The Weekly Standard reports, according to some "source," that Beauchamp has recanted his stories in sworn affadavits. And apparently the military has concluded that there was falsehood in the Beauchamp stories. What that falsehood entails, specifically, the military investigators refuse to say, which does cause eyebrows to raise. For instance, one would expect that if there were definitive and conclusive evidence that specific things mentioned in Beauchamp's stories were untrue the military investigators would provide specific reference to such evidence. But all we have is some military investigator saying that its review of its own bad behavior has caused it to determine that reports of its bad behavior are ... gasp! ... false! That's like Ken Lay conducting a private investigation of Jeff Skilling and determining that, surprise!, Skilling did nothing wrong. Or, better yet, it's like Dick Cheney investigating Scooter Libby and reporting that, surprise!, Scooter Libby is as clean as a whistle. Why would the military want to air out its dirty laundry when it can try to bury it under the vague platitudes of some nebulous claim that Beauchamp fibbed without specifying what he exactly fibbed about. And then there is The New Republic's statement claiming that they have still not received any evidence to disprove the claims in Beauchamp's stories and that the military investigators refuse to clue them in on what evidence they managed to dredge up that would disprove the claims that the TNR says has been corroborated off-the-record by Beauchamp's fellow soldiers. In fact, the military's point person, Steven Lamb, has refused to corroborate to TNR the Weekly Standard's claims. And I find that such refusal to do so is inconscionable, now that the Weekly Standard is throwing such a claim out there based on its own anonymous sourcing.

Who knows what to believe? But one would think that the military should have specific and concrete evidence one way or the other. Why won't they reveal this evidence, or at least be specific in terms of outlining which of Beauchamp's stories are false and how they know that? I'm sorry, but if the military authorities expect me to believe them just on blind faith, they're mistaken. That's not to say that I believe either Beauchamp or The New Republic either. I don't know whom to believe at this point. But I do know that, as much as one might question the way Beauchamp and TNR have handled this matter, the way the military investigators have handled this matter also doesn't inspire confidence in trusting what they say is the truth.

On Vacation

Been on a brief vacation with the family. Out camping. Didn't bring the computer. Borrowing someone else's for a few minutes just to check in and say hello. I'll be back at it after the weekend. Peace.

Oyster on Jindal's Fiscal Insanity/Hypocrisy

Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief has an excellent, but long posting on Bobby Jindal's "proud" support of a pork-laden, budget-busting farm bill all the while claiming to be a fiscal hound-dog. You should read the whole posting by Oyster because it's such good analysis of the insanity of the man who appears to be headed to the Louisiana Governor's mansion. But to give you a representative sample of Oyster's analysis, here's what I think cuts to the chase:

Rep. Bobby Jindal was among the 19 Republicans who voted for this monstrous $286 billion Farm Bill that provides welfare for farmers. Jindal said he was "pleased" and "proud" to support the measure, which would raise taxes by billions to pay for food stamps, incentivize illegal immigration, subsidize ethanol, broaden the Gulf Coast "Dead Zone", and distribute checks to wealthy corporate "farmers" like ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper and Caterpillar.

You can imagine the outrage among Louisiana's conservative bloggers at Jindal's betrayal of party and principle. Here's a small sampling of quotes from the resulting firestorm:
.
.
.
*crickets chirping*
.
.

It's puzzling. I would have expected someone in the blogosphere or the media to comment on Jindal's vote for the farm bill. Doesn't it seem odd that just a few days after Bobby Jindal declared war "against out of control government spending", he "proudly" supported a $286 billion welfare bill to corporate farmers? Isn't there a natural tension there begging for commentary? It practically writes itself, I think.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

OK. So, I stayed up late last night (Monday, July 23) and finished the book. I thought it was great.

And I'm ready to discuss. BUT ... only in the comments, where anything and everything can be discussed.

For anyone who hasn't read the novel yet, but intends to do so, PLEASE do not go into the comments section unless you want to have the book spoiled for you.

PS: For the next couple of weeks or so, I'll keep this post always rolling to the top of the blog.

Obama and Latin America

Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald interviewed Barack Obama a day before the CNN-YouTube debate where Obama took some heat for his answer to a question as to whether or not he would meet with Hugo Chavez (among other world leaders who are hostile to the United States). In this interview, Oppenheimer asked Obama the same basic question that he answered during the CNN/YouTube debates. His answer then offers some clarification of Obama's position.

Oppenheimer explains:

I was not terribly surprised when Sen. Barack Obama said in the Democratic presidential debate Monday that he would sit down with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez if elected president. He had told me so a day earlier -- and much more -- although with a very important caveat.

In a wide-ranging interview on foreign affairs, and Latin America in particular, the Democratic presidential hopeful criticized President Bush's foreign policy as excessively "based on the dislike of Hugo Chávez." And he told me that he would not only sit down with the Venezuelan president "under certain conditions" but would travel to leftist-ruled Bolivia -- Venezuela's closest ally in South America -- at the start of his presidency.

"We've seen our influence diminished in the world," Obama said in the Sunday interview. "We've seen an inability to recognize constructive opportunities with countries that may be leaning left, but that are trying to do the right thing by their people. That is a fundamental difference that I think will be reflected in an Obama presidency."

What would he do? I asked.

"The starting point is to rebuild the alliances that have been frayed in the past several years, to travel early to key countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, but also Bolivia -- countries where the assumption is that we don't have common interests. I think that we do."

A day later, at the CNN-YouTube Democratic Debate, Obama raised eyebrows nationwide when he responded affirmatively to a question on whether he would be willing to meet -- without preconditions -- in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

Asked the same question at the debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton seized the moment to portray Obama as a rookie on foreign affairs, saying that she would not hold such meetings right away because "I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes."

In our interview, the senator from Illinois had been a bit more cautious. When I asked him whether he would meet with Chávez, he had said, "Under certain conditions, I always believe in talking. Sometimes it's more important to talk to your enemies than to your friends."

Personally, I think Obama's position is the correct one; and he shouldn't shy away from it. He should embrace it, clarify it, and run with it.

Here's Something for Sunday

Five members of a Christian prayer group sat around one evening after their weekly meeting having coffee and eating cookies. The subject turned to politics and the upcoming Presidential election. After a while, it became clear that each of the five friends had a different political party affiliation. There was a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Socialist, and a Constitutionalist. Each argued passionately and heatedly in defense of his party's platform and with firm conviction in his political ideology. Furthermore, each claimed that the core principles of Christianity, which they all espoused faithfully, supported his own position. Thus religion mixed with politics, and the discussion went round and round with not one of the friends conceding any ground to the others. After a while, when the debate seemed frustratingly hopeless, the friends decided to do what they always did when confronted with such difficulties: they would offer the debate up to God in prayer in the hopes of receiving His divine revelation and resolution. On this solution to wrapping up the debate, all could agree. So, the friends gathered in their prayer circle and raised up their hands and voices to God in prayer. After about ten minutes of earnest praying, a burning bush appeared in the middle of the prayer circle. Nestled in the center of the burning bush was a stone table, in which the following message was seared:

"My beloved and faithful children, your positions are all equally valid in My eyes."
(signed) God, (D-Paradise)

The Warrantless Blogtapping Program

BLOG UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Right Wing News ...
Issue: Focusing on the "Bad" about America

I can't tell you how many times John Hawkins, owner of the Right Wing News blog, has harped on about how "negative" liberals are about America and how we only see the "bad" in and about our country, and never the good.

Well, imagine my surprise to see John Hawkins asking his own readers, in all seriousness, to "Suggest The Worst People, Places, And Things In America". I guess it's o.k. for Rightwingers to complain when liberals point out those unsavory things that are present in our country; but when conservatives do it, it's fun! As John Hawkins exhorts his readers:

Well now, I'm thinking about doing some writing on the subject and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for what you think are the worst people, places, and things in America.

After all, I'd hate to miss any good ones.

Good ones, indeed!

Come to think of it, John Hawkins traffics in and profits by what he thinks is "negative" about America. That's pretty much all he writes about: if it's not the evils of liberals and Democrats, it's the corrupt squishes on his own side of the aisle. When will Hawkins say something nice about this great country of ours?

But, that's neither here nor there. The hypocritical irony is that Hawkins and his ilk, while complaining about liberals doing it, likewise profit by attacking (and even hating) parts of America and Americans, so his call for more "good ones" about what's "worst" in America shouldn't be all that surprising. In fact, it's quite par for the course.

Gonzalez versus Beauchamp

You know something is screwy with the state of politics in this country, and the divisiveness of our political dialogue, not to mention the myopia of the right wing punditocracy when this country's chief Law Enforcement Official, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, has clearly perjured himself, and the top story that causes rabid rightwing frothing at the mouth is a real, live, fighting US soldier's unflattering story about guys making crude jokes about a female soldier disfigured by an IED, about coming across a children's burial site and wondering if it's one of Saddam's mass graves, and about a foolish soldier sadistically hunting down and rolling over Iraq's street dogs with his Bradley fighting vehicle (the veracity of all of which still have yet to be disproven). I mean, we're talking about the Attorney General of the United States himself committing perjury! The guy who's supposed to be vigorously prosecuting folks for doing such things! Doesn't the irony of that strike anyone as stunning?!?! And yet we get reams and reams of insignificant minutiae about Beauchamp's love life, dating timelines, and wedding plans from the Rightwing blogosphere in their quest to tear down a U.S. soldier fighting on the front lines, all the while we get ... hear it? ... yes, that's right, NOTHING BUT SILENCE, on the Attorney General's CLEAR perjury.

Confidential to President_Friedman

President_Friedman, if you're still visiting my site on occasion, I want you to know that I noticed your gesture in Q&A Friday at Right Wing News, solitary though it was. Thanks.

Wingers Turn on a US Troop

I read this article written by a US Soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, currently on active duty in Iraq, for the current edition of The New Republic when it came out in print. (I'm a TNR subscriber.)

At the time, I found it disturbing, but not unbelievable.

However, the Rightwing blogosphere has gone berserk over this story, challenging both its factual accuracy as well as whether such seedy stories can even be possible within the U.S. military. For a sample of the apoplectic head-popping, see here, here, and here.

I'll wait until the investigation by the military into the incidents described by Scott Thomas Beauchamp before I make any judgments on his claims, but I want to pose a couple of questions to my readers out there who have any kind of military or combat experience:

1) How unusual is it for fellow soldiers or commanding officers to turn a blind eye towards stupid behavior from soldiers like chasing dogs with a Bradley instead of reporting such incidents to the proper investigative authorities?
2) How cruel can soldiers be to one another regarding gross bodily disfigurements caused by IEDs?
3) How unbelievable is it to imagine anything what Thomas describes as completely outside of the realm of the possible within the military?

As I said, I found what Thomas wrote to be disturbing, but I certainly didn't put such behavior beyond the realm of the possible.

Then again, I've never served in the Military nor have I been in Iraq during the war, so my understanding of what is possible or even believable is conditioned by what I read in the news, hear from friends who have served there, or see on the news.

I would appreciate any honest thoughts from folks with such experience, but NOT on the specific veracity of Beauchamp's particular claims. Rather, I just want to know if it is foolish of me to think that such things are even within the realm of the possible.

Buddy Bolden Blues

Now this is what I love! I'll be playing a version of this on my radio show this Sunday. Too bad we're no longer live-streaming because the version of this I'm planning to spin off the vinyl is awesome.

Ya Basta!

I found this commentary by Miami Herald Journalist Andres Oppenheimer to be not only illustrative, but also a bit worrisome. Why? Because Andres Oppenheimer is not usually a "fight-back" kind of guy when it comes to ethnicity-based social movement. The fact that he feels alienated to such a degree really drives the point home that the damage done by the recent immigration legislation debate and the animosities towards Latinos that it has unleashed are very real and very problematic for our civil society. Here's how he concludes his piece:

My opinion: The National Council of La Raza and its sister institutions are doing the right thing with their "Ya es hora!" citizenship drive. But they should also launch a nationwide "Ya basta!" campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics.

If anti-Hispanic sentiment is allowed to keep growing, we will soon have an underclass of 12 million immigrants that will feel not only frustrated by not having a legal path to citizenship but increasingly insulted by the mainstream media.

And social exclusion mixed with frustration can be a dangerous cocktail, as we've seen in the violent 2005 riots by Muslim youths in the suburbs of Paris.

The time for Hispanics to say "Ya basta!" is now, before it's too late.

Now there are some who would take issue with Oppenheimer and say the real motivation behind opposition to the immigration legislation debate is about illegality and not about ethnicity. But it's hard to swallow this when you have anti-comprehensive immigration reform folks who let their shields down and describe any vote for such reforms as a vote for "Mexico" as opposed to a vote for comprehensive immigration reform. Such descriptions belie the fact that what motivates the anti crowd is not only an anti-illegal immigrant position, but an anti-illegal Mexican (or Latino) immigrant position. If the point were really and truly border security and control from ALL illegal migrants, why single out Mexico in such a way?

Personally, I think Oppenheimer's reaction gets more at the underlying anti-Latino sentiment behind the entire anti-illegal immigration movement. And, from what I've been able to observe, I think he's probably right.

Wendy Vitter Revisited

Temporarily surfacing from Harry Potter-dom, I wanted to point you all to this article that appeared in today's New Orleans Times-Picayune as its front page cover story. It's a positive piece on Wendy Vitter. For all I know, she is exactly the way the article presents her. Here's a section of it:

In their choreographed pas de deux, David Vitter was sober and contrite as he expressed regret for violating the public's trust. Wendy Vitter was defiant as she assumed the role of her husband's chief apologist and defender -- a performance that was all the more striking for the stunned and sad look that inhabited her face as her husband spoke of confession and marriage counseling.

"Last week," she said, "some people very sympathetically said to me, 'I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now.' I stand before you to tell you very proudly, I am proud to be Wendy Vitter."

This newly famous political spouse oscillated Monday between the two roles that have defined her adult life: the stern prosecutor who fearlessly faced down the cameras and the traditional wife who swallowed her pride, stood by a tomcatting husband and spoke "as a mother" in asking the news media to move off her lawn and leave her children alone.

That dual persona -- intrepid woman, steadfast wife -- was on display down to the way she dressed. Wendy Vitter appeared not in a modest suit, but in a flattering wrap dress that some saw as having a leopard print. She stood taller than her husband in a pair of low heels. She also wore a "journey of life" pendant, with a column of diamonds each larger than the next, symbolizing how the bonds of love grow and deepen over time.

Although Wendy Vitter predicted years ago that she would act more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary Clinton if her husband strayed -- "If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me," she said in 2000 -- observers who watched her statement last week said she never ceded an inch of her dignity in standing by the senator, whom she called her "best friend."

I still can't help translating her behavior in defending and promoting the career of her husband as a bit of a betrayal of her family, especially her children. It strikes me that there's some Hillary Clinton-esque ambition in Wendy Vitter's persona that would account for her willingness to risk her children's emotional well-being knowing what she did about her husband's indiscretions, the hypocrisy of this when stacked up against his vocal "family-values" agenda, and the unforgiving relentlessness of the media in today's environment in uncovering and exposing such hypocrisy.

She seems to be a good person; and I do feel sorry for her and for her children. She let her ambitions perhaps get the better of her in this instance and made a mistake that, perhaps, she now regrets.

Co-Ed vs. Single-Sex Education

I understand the value of same-gender schooling; but it has to be at the right moments in human development and for the correct reasons. I think that same-gender elementary schooling makes sense as little boys are just trying to play catch up to little girls in terms of social maturity and development. It makes even more sense because little boys couldn't care less about little girls, and vice versa, during these early childhood years. And I'd say the same for same-gender colleges, where young women and young men who have presumably learned from and matured through the pains and joys of adolescence, can make a conscious choice to put themselves in a learning environment unencumbered by the raging hormones of adolescence and who can concentrate with confidence on Aristotle, Austen/Auden, and Atoms.

But, as someone who went to a same-gender, all-male high school, I can tell you that boys and girls who are in the process of self-discovery and acute sexual awareness need to be around each other in an academic enviornment where the life of the mind and the raging hormones of the body can find a respectful and balanced co-existence. In High School, my buddies and I read Homer in the original Greek, we learned chemical compounds together, and we discussed existential philosophy and the meaning of life, all the while not realizing nor caring that our female counterparts could do the same, whom we thought of only at lunch or after school, and not in the realm of the intellect, but in the social and physical realm that was driven almost exclusively by our raging hormones. We did not have a gender-balance during the most formative hours of our days to temper our intellectual, social, and physical awakenings, and the relationships between them.

I came out of High School very well educated, and even sensitive, by most standards, but also relationally stunted in some ways, which I realized with some shock during my first semester at co-ed University. Adolescence is an experience that happens only once in life, while Calculus and Kierkegaard can be learned and experienced at any time. High School should be -- no, it has to be -- the time when one's discovery of his or her physical and emotional identity as a man or women (i.e. adolescence) in relation to the other gender is part and parcel of the life of the mind and the body. One should not get to college thinking that men are mindless sex-crazed brutes, or that women are mindless sex-toy barbies, without really having had the chance to experience whether these stereotypes are true. And I believe that no matter how many books one reads in High School or how many opposite-gender teachers one has in High School, one will miss an irretrievable and crucially important moment in one's personal development if one goes through adolescence without having opposite-gender peers sitting next to each other in the classroom, flirting with each other, perhaps distracting each other from the books at times, and challenging each other's ideas.

Vitter, Vitter, and more Vitter

All my readers who aren't regulars of Your Right Hand Thief ought to be! Especially if you're interested in the Vitter Scandal. Oyster, the proprietor of Your Right Hand Thief, has a post up in which he features the ruminations of one of his commenters. I think all those sympathetic to the GOP and to family values ought to read this post, which makes a very persuasive case why the GOP ought to hold Vitter accountable instead of embracing him as the prodigal son. Kudos to Oyster for staying on top of all the different aspects of this Vitter scandal.

Off the Bookshelf and On the Reading Table

Here's what I'm reading these days:

Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Michael Chabon. The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Bill Kirchner, ed. The Oxford Companion to Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

What I will also be reading this coming Saturday:

J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007.

Yes, I know, I know. I am, indeed, a proud Harry Potter junkie.

Anyway, your thoughts on any or all of these works are welcome. And I'm also always open to some good recommendations.

Vitter Senate Speech on Marriage

I thought that this speech made by Sen. David Vitter, and apparently delivered on the floor of the Senate on June 6, 2006, deserves to be transcribed in full. A quick internet search didn't turn up the written transcript of this speech, and so I thought it would just be easier for me to transcribe it myself. It is rich with irony, particularly the pride that Vitter takes in being one of the folks approached to promote the Federal Marriage Amendment during his stint while a member of the House, possibly also during the time when he was actively engaged in behavior that made a mockery of his own marriage.

Here's the transcript:

Thank you, Mr. President. I stand in strong support of this proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to uphold and affirm traditional marriage. Several years ago, when folks focused on the health of marriage and the upbringing of children, from around the country, gathered to begin to attack this threat and this problem, they came to the Congress with the idea of proposing a Constitutional Amendment. And they went to certain members of both the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats (I was in the House at the time), and I was honored that I was one of the four House Republicans, (there were eight House members in all, four Republicans and four Democrats), who these leaders approached to be original co-authors of this sort of Constitutional Amendment. I immediately agreed, and I've been very, very involved in the debate and the fight ever since then. And I'm very happy to bring this work to the Senate with so many other leaders, like Senator Allard who's been leading the effort here for some time.

It's a very important effort, Mr. President, because marriage, it's often said, but it's very, very true, and it is worth repeating: marriage is truly the most fundamental social institution in human history. Now, think about that statement and the significance of it: the single-most fundamental social institution in human history. And certainly, we should not rush, as we are at the present time through activist courts, to radically redefine it after thousands and thousands of years living under the traditional definition.

Now, Mr. President, often here in the Senate we get very wrapped up in our debate and our laws and our proposals and our government programs, and we think so much is changed by that, so much hinges on that. And yet, what is so much more important and more fundamental are those enduring, hopefully enduring, social institutions like marriage, community, church, faith communities. We need to realize just how central those sorts of institutions are, and how important they are in terms of influencing behavior in our society, good behavior and bad behavior.

When we look at so many of the social ills we try to address here in Congress with government programs and proposals, serious social problems, like drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and the like, perhaps the single biggest predictor of good results versus bad results is whether kids come from a stable, loving, nurturing two-parent family - a mother and a father. That doesn't mean that you can't have success raising a child in other environments, in a struggling one-parent household, [it] just means that the odds are so much more stacked against you when you move to that other sort of environment. And so, I think it's very appropriate, and well-overdue, that we focus here in the Senate on nurturing, upholding, preserving, protecting such a fundamental social institution as traditional marriage.

A lot of folks here in Washington don't get that, don't fully understand it. But I can tell you real people in the real world, certainly including in Louisiana, do. They get it. And that's why two years ago, in 2004, we [passed?] a state constitutional marriage amendment in Louisiana to uphold traditional marriage; and we passed it with 78% of the vote. Folks in Louisiana want those values upheld, they don't want them redefined radically by activist courts, particularly people in courts in other states like Massachussetts. And make no mistake, that is what is happening; and that trend would have an impact not just in isolated states like Massachussetts, but throughout the country, as marriage is redefined by liberal activist judges and others. And so the people in Louisiana, and a solid, solid majority of people around the country, want us to address this issue nationally through a Constitutional Amendment once and for all. That's why I strongly support this effort.

I want to thank the Senator from Colorado, and others, again, for leading this fight in the Senate. I was proud to help lead it in the U.S. House when I was there. I am proud to join other allies here on the floor of the Senate.

And again, rather than focus on these new government programs, new little ideas that we run to the floor of the Senate with every day, let's take time to remember and focus on truly significant, enduring social institutions, which are the greatest predictors, the greatest factors, in terms of encouraging good behavior and success, discouraging bad behavior and failure. This is the way we can have the most impact on those problems we debate endlessly, like drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and the like.

I urge all of my colleagues, Mr. President, to join us in this effort. And I predict, that while we may not reach the two-thirds vote that we ultimately need, with this vote this week, that we will make important progress. We will pick up votes since the last time the Congress voted on this issue in 2004. And I'm one small example of that progress because my election in 2004 meant that this vote went from a "No" vote of my predecessor, John Breaux, to a proud "Yes" vote of the Junior Senator from Louisiana now. I look forward to casting that vote. I urge my colleagues to rally around enduring, positive social institutions that are so essential for the health of families, kids being brought up, and, indeed, our entire society. With that, Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Watch the clip. Look at Vitter's body language. Listen to the emphasis he places on certain words and phrases when he speaks. And then make of it what you will in light of recent events.

The Culpability of Wendy Vitter

New Orleans blogger, Kimberly Marshall, aka dangerblond, made a comment on one of oyster's recent postings on the Vitter scandal. dangerblond wrote:

Wendy Vitter could have put the kibosh on any or all of it a long time ago if she was that worried about the kiddiwinks. Sometimes when you hitch your wagon to a star, my girl, it becomes a super-nova and blows up right in your face.

I thought this was an excellent point. And it got me thinking that, in one sense, Wendy Vitter bears as much culpability and responsibility for what is happening to her family as does her husband, Sen. David Vitter.

Think about it: Wendy Vitter was apparently apprised of her husband's indiscretions some time ago. She admits it and has apparently "forgiven" her husband for his indiscretions. I think it's natural to assume that Wendy also knows that her husband's affairs were not the product of a moment of weakness with one of his former sweethearts or with a long-term friend, but with at least one, if not more than one, paid-for-hire prostitute.

Now maybe Wendy Vitter found it in her heart to be forgiving of her husband and even to work to recommit to their marriage. That's admirable. But surely she must have known that this "sin" would wreak havoc on her children if it ever found the light of day. As a parent myself, I can imagine that, if I were married to such a prominent politician, all sorts of scenarios would have passed in front of my eyes the moment I discovered that my spouse was engaged in such seedy sexual affairs. I would have imagined the embarrassment and shame on my kids faces the first time they would have to show their faces in school after their parent's sexcapades were aired in public.

These kids are no doubt going to be terribly scarred by this episode, even if everyone around them shows them nothing but kindness. And what did Wendy Vitter do when faced with these scenarios that surely must have crossed her mind? Instead of demanding that her husband remove the family from the public spotlight, she hopped on the David Vitter for Senate bandwagon. And as dangerblond has so vividly put it, the super nova blew up in her face. But what needs to be added to this is the fact that the super-nova also blew up in her children's faces, too.

Taking a rationalization out of the pro-torture Republican handbook, a handbook that Vitter voted to support time and again in Washington, David Vitter AND Wendy Vitter knew that they had a "ticking time bomb" scenario on their hands. And they must have known that this "ticking time bomb" would take out some innocents very close to them if it ever exploded. And what did they do? They didn't defuse the bomb. No, they took a risk and ran with it. And the "collateral" damage caused by its explosion was their children. That's almost unforgivable. And though David Vitter is ultimately responsible for building that "ticking time bomb," Wendy Vitter is also responsible for letting the clock on this "ticking time bomb" wind down to zero. It's shameful and reprehensible what both of these people did to their children. I don't know how they can look their kids in the face anymore.

UPDATE: Tuesday, July 17, 8:36PM CST: Schroeder points to another perspective on this theme.

My Lovelies

A man could not be luckier or happier.

More Vitter, Pt. 2

Schroeder at People Get Ready takes a fresh look at the Vitter scandal and brings up some important aspects to this whole affair that are being overshadowed by the sordid and salacious side of the scandal. Check it out. And while you're at it, Schroeder will update you on the latest with the New Orleans DA office.

UPDATE: Welcome to readers of The Group News Blog and thanks to blksista for referencing The Huck Upchuck. I hope you find what you're looking for and come back for more!

Done with RWN Banning Issue

OK, so it's been more than three weeks since I've been banned by RWN. I've not heard from Hawkins. Unless I hear from Hawkins about why I was banned (and I don't expect to), I won't be commenting on this subject anymore on my blog.

That doesn't mean I won't be commenting on the content of his blog through the "Warrantless Blogtapping Program" category I've set up; it simply means that I am putting to rest the whole banning episode.

It is what it is and that's all there is to it.

If anyone wants to discuss this matter with me, I will be happy to do it via a private email exchange or in the comments section to this post. My email address is: huckupchuck@hotmail.com.

Fin.

More Vitter

Well, he surfaces ... and with his wife. And Wendy Vitter pulls a Hillary instead of a Lorena Bobbit. Boy, who can be trusted to tell the truth in this family?

Anyway, Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief has the latest, as well as a thorough summary of the entire seedy affair from its origins long ago until the present. There is no better source than Oyster on this scandal. Keep his blog bookmarked and read it daily.