Politics with a side of Snark

Two Wrights do make a wrong

It is always interesting to observe someone out of their usual context. I can remember as a child being stunned to see one of my teachers in the grocery store. It seemed so odd that she would need to buy food for her family in the same place and manner that my mother bought food for us. It was disconcerting to see her as a person rather than as a teacher.

There are a few professions in the United States where the trappings of the work give the individual an experience of near universal respect an admiration. Imagine, for example, being a judge and having people rise as you enter a room, being called “your honor” and having near-tyrannical control over your environment with your wishes enforced by the full might of the law. It’s heady stuff.

And so, too, may the life of a pastor be heady stuff. Pastors, priests, ministers — whatever — all experience the same sort of near universal respect and admiration. People who disagree with a minister once s/he is settled in place, usually depart without much fuss and those that remain have self-selected for their high opinion of the pastor. The pastor preaches on Sunday and his words are given careful consideration. He is praised for his insightfulness and wisdom. He is told that his words were inspiring, life-changing, and moving. In every circumstance in his usual work, he is surrounded by people who respect him as a wiser, more spiritual voice.

Now, imagine a Judge taken off the bench and expected to fend for him/herself in… oh, let’s say, MTV’s Real World. You’d probably find yourself with a very irate, irrational, and nasty person in short order.

Now, go watch the video of Wright not during the Moyers interview (where the trappings of respect and careful attention were present) nor, actually, during the presentation at the National Press Club where he was still delivering a sermon. But watch him during the question and answer period. It is clear that Wright didn’t enjoy facing critical, even hostile questions. He was dismissive, irritable, and increasingly irrational.

I have no idea why Wright thought going on a Media offensive would be a good idea. I can tell you that it wasn’t. No one who isn’t professionally counseled should try to jump into the shark tank that is our national media. Wright, however, has been listening to parishioners tell him for 20 years how moving his words were and how his preaching changed their hearts. I suspect he thought that if he just could have a chance to work his magic on the press, they’d see that he wasn’t just not a bad guy, but come around to his way of thinking like everyone else.

Except, the national media weren’t members of his church and they didn’t come to see things Wright’s way at all.

Clintonball: closing the deal in the right place at the right time

Do you remember the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? I think Hillary is getting her political talking points from the ever-changing rules of Calvinball. As soon as she fails in a metric she has previously touted, the rules change and a new metric becomes the only one that matters.

It was difficult last night to watch as Clinton’s surrogates explained that the only state in the nation that mattered in a Democratic primary was Pennsylvania. The twisted logic that suggests that we should ignore the fact that Obama leads in delegates, in pledged delegates, in the popular vote, and in contests won is just plain insulting to those of us who pay attention. It’s even beginning to insult the intelligence of the mainstream media — and these days, that’s hard to do.

Hillary just won in Pennsylvania. As she has been expected to do from the very start of the campaign. Her family has deep roots in the state (as she pointed out at every opportunity). The governor, who is very popular, endorsed her and used his considerable political machine to help her. Obama walked into the state nearly 30 points down. The fact that it was a 9.4-9.6% win by Clinton suggests that once the Obama organization is unleashed, they really can make a difference.

But what the Clinton camp is now asking (and presumably asking in an appeal to the super-delegates who are her only hope) is “Why can’t Obama close the deal?”

I’ll give Hillary this: she has balls.

The candidate who is behind in the popular vote, behind in the delegate count, behind in the “we elected ‘em they damn well vote as told” delegate count, behind in the total number of contests won by a factor of 30 to 14 and whose campaign’s financial state is precarious at best is asking why the other candidate can’t close?

If Hillary is such an all-fired, good candidate for the general election, why can’t she win using one of the various rule-sets she has previously promoted?

Hillary doesn’t need to just drop out of the race today, she needs to rethink the place she wants to occupy in American history.

Look, what’s next is North Carolina and Indiana. I’m betting Hillary has less than $7 million to spend which means she’ll have to pick a state. Obama has a lock on North Carolina, so she’ll go for Indiana. I’m betting that doesn’t pay for her so great and Obama takes North Carolina with “super-majority, extra delegate winning” wiggle room. What will Hillary say then?

Maybe she’ll finally get down to her real argument which is, at heart, “I’m entitled to this, damn it! You owe me!”

Public financing

The mainstream media are currently echoing John McCain’s talking point that Obama may be backing out of a promise to conduct a publicly financed campaign if he is the nominee.

However, Obama never made such a promise. He did say that he would strive to reach such an agreement with the Republican nominee if he were to win the nomination.

But right now, such an agreement seems impossible because John McCain has opted in to the public financing system, using the system to secure a loan to keep his campaign afloat in the days when people thought he was done. But once he became the nominee, McCain promptly attempted to un-opt, something which is generally not permitted once a candidate has benefited from the opt-in (in this case, by being able to use the system as collateral in obtaining a loan).

Ironically, the provisions of the law that McCain is currently violating were part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. You’d think he’d be able to obey a law he wrote at least, no?

Obama may not be eager to get into an agreement with law breaker McCain, whose record is somewhat tarnished. But surely, McCain deserves the majority of the blame. The straight talker just isn’t talking straight.

Your turn to snark!

The costs of war

The Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress has released some useful data regarding the cost of the Iraq war.

Here are some highlights. The war costs:

$434 million per day, which is

$3.05 billion per week, which is

$13.2 billion per month, which is

$160 billion per year.

And remember, most of this funding is happening as emergency supplementary funding, which means that we’re slowly selling our country to China in order to finance this war.

But since most of us have never spent $434 million in a day, the Committee has helped us out with some examples of how this money could have been spent. 

The cost of one day in Iraq would allow us to hire over 9,000 police officers. Or we could enroll over 155,000 children in Head Start programs. Or we could give over 330,000 uninsured children health insurance.

There are real costs to this war beyond the lives of the American men and women killed in Iraq and the lives of innocent Iraqis lost in the chaos we unleashed.