Maureen Dowd has decided, for reasons unknown, to anoint herself the National Dominatrix In Charge Of Emasculating President Obama. Dowd’s smug condescension is normally humorous in the same way that you’d be mildly amused at a monkey trying to play the piano, but her column today was so annoying as to push me over the edge into actually writing a letter to the editor.

Some samples from her latest triumphant manifesto:

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America.

In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. “She’s made her point,” he said. “Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.”

I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere. “Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time,” Sandra McElwaine wrote last week on The Daily Beast.

….

David was not smitten by the V-neck, sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband’s address to Congress — the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another, “Babe.”

He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious. “Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part.” David brought up the Obamas’ obsession with their workouts. “Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps.”

And it just kinda goes on and on from there, uselessly taking up space like some kind of a cancerous hairy melanoma on the Opinion page of the NYT. I wrote this to the editor in response:

Given Dowd’s usually vapid writing (and today’s entry being a particularly fine example of it), I thought it was pretty funny that she started her editorial with the phrase “Journalists are never supposed to start a piece…” as though she was, in fact, a journalist instead of snarky NYT columnist with about as much accuracy and insight on our national zeitgeist as Kristol in his NYT heyday (that is to say, not much).

So, Dowd’s not much at all of a journalist. But would it be too much to ask for at least a little perspective if you’re writing for a paper as prestigious as the NYT?

For one thing, who gives a flying rat fart about what David Brooks and the rest of the DC eunuchs think about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe? Why take up half a column name-dropping Brooks and his kind of half-assed insider D.C.-celebrity gossip? Isn’t the newspaper business in enough trouble without taking up inches with stuff that gossip blogs can do better, and more humorously, than Dowd?

For another, what’s with Dowd’s ongoing emasculation crusade with President Obama? “Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh…”? That’s what passes for keen political insight these days? Never mind that the White House has been using the GOP for a football since they took office. Dowd’s been caustically catty about his manliness ever since he hit his stride in the campaign last year and I’m starting to worry about her a bit. It’s like she can’t stand to have a powerful, confident young (black?) guy running the White House and completely ignoring her (and everyone’s) irrelevant jabs, and it’s driving her a bit round the bend.

Look, Dowd – you and Brooks didn’t have to muscle your way for two long years through Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic contenders, the entire GOP, Jeremiah Wright, Fox News and the rest of the cable media lineup, the South and hundreds of years of racial prejudice, hundreds of intense and tiring nights away from your family, and Lord knows what else, to convince millions of Americans to vote for you and take the Presidency in a crisis of ridiculously bad proportions (thanks to _your_ media’s complete lack of oversight on Bush in the first place).

Maybe if you did all that successfully, you might have a legitimate chance to take up valuable column space in the NYT to spread your oh-so-valuable catty-meow meanderings. In the meantime, in the same spirit of Jon Stewart’s pleas on Crossfire, for the sake of your readers and the health of America in general… Please have some decency and STFU already.

Luvs n kisses,

Paul Moment
NYT Reader
Seattle, WA

I’m sure my letter won’t get any farther than some bored, sleepy intern, but I felt it was the least I could do to help uplift my nation today.

UPDATE: I always respect BooMan’s take on things political. It’s gratifying to know he and his commenters also equally stunned by Teh Stupid.

LATE UPDATE (for Maria): IMO, a few afterthought kudos at the end can’t cover the horrifying vacuousness of Dowd’s post, and writing in general. I agree with Erica Barnett at Slog – here and here.

Thanks for the comments, bretheren and sisteren. Lovely thoughts all. Bob, I have some thoughts about Lent, porn and Stephen Colbert that I’ll try and share share tomorrow. Those all go together, right? In the meantime, I have a grab bag of random goodies to throw at you.

Just how good of a political ninja is Obama? This good. First from Al Giordano, a little gem about the pseudo-State-Of-The-Union address last night (which I’m going to nickname SOTU-Furkey):

I didn’t hear a single TV pundit last night or today pick up on what Obama is really up to here. It’s in the bold type: “This budget builds on these reforms.” He was talking about the budget he is about to propose. The next steps in creating national universal health care will come not in separate legislation which requires 60 out of 99 US Senate votes, but, rather, as part of the budget bill that, according to Congressional rules, needs simply a majority – 50 votes – to be passed and which cannot be subject to opposition filibuster.

That was exactly the point in the speech when Senate Republicans got those long unhappy looks on their faces. He had just ripped from them their only obstructionist power. They shifted nervously in their seats and scrunched their “holy crap” scowls. Skilled politicians all, they knew their goose had just been cooked. It was at that point in the speech that, after a couple of minutes of coming to grips with the new rules, they began to make a show of applause and standing ovations for the cameras. If you can’t beat Obama, join him. It was a beautiful play to watch.

Nice. And how about the moment at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit where McCain foolishly tried to bumrush Obama about some embarassing expenditures from the Bush era for new Air Force One helicopters and got a suitcase full of the same pwnage he suffered during the primaries:

This is Obama at his most appealing. He makes a gracious introduction of his rival, who in turn tries to stick in the knife by painting him as wasting taxpayer dollars on needless luxuries. Obama, rather than sniping back, turns around and agrees with McCain while making the point that he’s hardly accustomed to extravagence. The man is just a very, very skilled politician.

After watching Obama tackle the enormous D.C. tangle of egos and divisiveness at the Responsibility Summit, Booman had this to say:

… honestly, we all have to learn from this just as much as the Republicans do. We’re all so jaded and scarred from the last thirty years of politics that we don’t know any other way to operate. We are suspicious of the very concept of a Fiscal Responsibility Summit that puts entitlement reform on the table. We don’t want to work with Republicans and we consider use of any of their ideas to be something between foolishness and cowardice. It’s a reflection of decades of ever-increasing political polarization. But, I’m telling you, Obama is going to keep putting us in the sandbox together until we start changing our behavior. Even if turns out that we can’t work together, the whole spectacle is unlike anything I’ve seen in my life, and it’s pure political gold.

It’s kinda disorienting to have this kind of Jedi mindpower on our side for once. “These are not the droids you’re looking for….”

Christian seclusionist fashion: Janece found this site while researching home schooling. As I understand it, home schooling has become much more diverse and interesting over the last few decades, but every area has its flavor and this semi-rural area we live in is apparently still heavy on the Christian fundies wanting to keep their kids away from The Nasty Ol’ World. All I can say is if that’s what they want, these clothes should do the trick.*

Sweet Fancy Moses. It’s hard to describe the visceral reaction I get from seeing these pics. This kind of Thomas-Kinkade-meets-Little-House-On-The-Prairie throwback retro sensibility was all the rage in the fundie cult-level church I grew up in. Flower prints that look like they came from someone’s drapes, nighmarish pleat-and-gather lines, and lace dolloped on like too much icing on a mushy birthday cake — all in the single-minded attempt to protect young swains from having naughty thoughts about the womanly form. And you know, it really doesn’t ever work. One of the first things I said to Janece was “I wonder how many of those girls will have early pregnancies”. I don’t know what the stats are nationally, but I heard tell that at my fundie church, there was plenty of hanky panky going on under those shapeless virginal sack dresses, at least three of which ended in shotgun weddings. Forbidden = hotter. I can’t understand why fundies never get that.

* At least, at first. See above.

Steel Mother, or The Jungian Myth Of The Female Robot That Will Destroy The World. Tonight Janece and I watched the Japanese anime version of the movie Metropolis.

Now, I swear I’ve never seen or heard the plot of this film. I’d seen stills from the 1930 classic, but that’s as far as it went. But in a serious Jungian twist/coincidence, I had a full dream about this very subject in, like, 1996 or something – one of the most vivid I’ve ever had.

It was all in gorgeous black and white, like a classic ’50s Hollywood epic. It opens with two scientists in white lab coats arguing next to a stunning Bettie Page type female robot, laid out naked on a table and surrounded by those electric ray gun type tubes all crackling and hissing. One was argues with the other that she poses too great a danger and shouldn’t be completed or activated. He is overruled. The “screen” fuzzes and switches to a social party where the robot is gorgeous, the toast of the town, decked out in furs and glamour, but treated as a curiosity piece – not a being with a soul or dignity. Again a “screen” fuzz and switch to a posh sitting room. A dark haired, classically handsome man in a lounging robe sits on a sleek modern couch staring straight ahead without moving. The robot sultrily slinks into the room dressed in a provocative ’50s-era S&M lingerie outfit and begins a sexually charged “seven veils” dance for the man, offering herself up to him. No response. She cannot break into his narcissistic, self-centered daydreams. Fuzz and switch. Now she sits, darkly slumped down and staring straight ahead on a suburban couch, in a scenario lifted right out of Better Housekeeping ad. Father reads a paper, Mother placidly rocks and works with a needle and thread, Son lays on the floor idly kicking his loafered feet and reading Boys Life. The final jagged fuzz and switch. She sits, still staring straight ahead, but the family is now dead – their agonized expressions and twisted bodies suspended in some kind of crystal-like shell. Suddenly, a swift and silent flush of jet-black liquid shoots out from under the couch where she sits as the camera pulls back to reveal an empty film set that is slowly being flooded. I wake up knowing that the world is doomed.

I wrote a song called “Steel Mother” about the dream (never recorded).

Act 1.
Antiseptic and relentless
Men with plastic, tainted eyes
Drained of color and tasting winter
They twisted wire, their dirty lasers, dry hunger
Drowned in oil
The conveyor crawls
Like a snake, the Steel
Mother comes, the wheel
Set in motion – Building flesh and bone in blind devotion

Act 2.
Blood like a junkie, skin like a heat wave
Eyes like a sea cave, pearly smile
She is silky raw, like an empty room
And they take her, the vampires
Fill her up with ashes
Teeth and paparazzi smiles

Chorus.
The great city’s fallen – The temple of the rational
The great city’s fallen – The temple of the rational
Dances like a whore, in leather on the floor
Desperate for his grace, his empty hollow gaze,
His cold, Apollo face; his cold, Apollo face
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace

Act 3.
Dad reads the paper – Mom sews an apron
Bobby reads Boys World – She sits with her hands curled
Stuffed in a sundress – Blind to her distress
Wrapped in their lifestyles – Placid and all smiles
Suburbs in twilight – Slumped in the lamplight
Staring at nothing – Her time is coming
The static whispers
Of the TV to baptize her

Chorus.
The great city’s fallen – The temple of the rational
The great city’s fallen – The temple of the rational
Dances like a whore, in leather on the floor
Desperate for his grace, his empty hollow gaze,
His cold, Apollo face; his cold, Apollo face
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace
Frozen in a self embrace

Finale.
The world ends in winter – The den in disorder
The family in plastic — Trapped in their panic
All their hollow gazes and her empty face is
Frozen in a self-embrace
Frozen in a self-embrace
Frozen in a self-embrace
Frozen in a self-embrace

I know, I know. That’s not enough evidence for a Jungian collective subconcious kinda twist ending to this vignette. OR IS IT??? My jaw literally dropped when I saw the Jamiroquai video for “Virtual Insanity”, filmed about two years after my dream. Watch this video and check out the visuals around 3:10 in the video. What’s that I see? A dark oily liquid shooting out from under a couch? Where did that come from….???

This has happened with me one other notable time. I did a band flyer for Springchamber once that had all five of our heads melded together at the neck in kind of a fleshy ball, like Planet Springchamber or something. And what did I see months later on the brand new cover of Rolling Stone at the studio when we went to record? Eerie.

Bonus extra – Trident Passionberry Twist: In a word… DON’T. It tastes like handsoap. Disgusting.

Apologies to you all for dropping off the face of the planet for almost a month. I get in these moods sometimes, whether from burnout or an overdose of unmerited ennui or just lack of feeling particularly inspirational, and I just drop out. Natalie, as usual, says it well while beating me to the punch:

But. Well, lately all of my posts have been sitting in a draft file. My thoughts, feelings and other musings have been too morose, sad, frustrated, cranky, angry, bitter, funky and junky for daylight. I know, it hasn’t stopped me from sharing before, but I find that even my brilliant insights and reflections on the economy, our government, housing woes and the trials of being a rental rat in a high brow neighborhood are just too depressing to print… Every thing I think of seems to come from someone else who is doing it, or saying it or sharing it better.

So, I’ve been in that same no emails, no returning calls or writing posts kinda space. I’m having to strain a bit to re-crank this engine, but it’s nice to know you took the time to drop by and check in.

My post title has a dual meaning, dontcha know. Obama dragged me back out to the blog by providing a great occasion in tonight’s speech for a post, but more than that, of course, he is a tonic that this nation has needed for a sorely long time. He spoke with authoritative bluntness and without sugar coating our challenges, but also not dwelling on them to the point of overwhelm and pointing the nation to exit out of the burning building. I particularly loved his very pointed challenge for these publicly elected officials to rise to the expectations the public has for them, and I thought it was particularly masterful of him to point out that everyone in the chamber was patriotic as long as their efforts were honest – further depriving the wingnuts of legitimacy in their shrill demonization of the other side.

He said tonight what I’ve told people I appreciate about government before – that, implemented properly, it is a “catalyst” that can spur/inspire private enterprise and citizenry on to great things that would not have otherwise been done. What struck me is how he is also a catalyst. His type of synthesizing approach and genuinely cooperative nature has been greatly needed to spark the engine of government that will, hopefully, in turn spark the engine of our nation’s purposefulness and renewal.

Shared communal responsibility is an important aspect to government and one that Obama wonderfully embodies. We taxpayers and citizens have agreed to be governed at the federal level in part to give ourselves the very options we now need – massive government intervention to stabilize our nation and the world at a time when greed and opportunism have overtaken all the already-weakened safeguards and left us vulnerable in a very personal and scary way. We as a national community have built this safety net for times like these, to help ourselves and our neighbors (no matter where they are in the nation) when nothing else can. The actions Obama is taking are an expression of our nation’s commitment to itself, to the propping up or rescue of our most vulnerable citizens, to the reorienting of ourselves towards important shared priorities and responsibilities in the middle of our search for personal freedom.

I shouldn’t, but I feel sorry for the GOP. Watching Jindal try and follow up Obama’s muscular Chicago Sandburg-ian calls for bold and really transformative action, delivered by a diverse and energetic President on an historic occasion and enthusiastically applauded by both political friends and, at times, enemies, was cringe-worthy. It wasn’t because he was overshadowed by the moment or that he now has to live with an incredibly bad political decision to launch his presidential bid with such poor timing and delivery. It’s because he and his party have nothing to stand on or stand for. They simply have no philosophy that can encompass the urgency of the moment we’re in, the quiet tectonic shift in public thinking that burst to the surface in November, the nimble co-opting of a President that is political lightyears ahead of them. All they can say is No. And No, while not big enough even in everyday life, is even less adequate in these times when we need every Yes, And… we can get.

In our last phone call, my dear brother was talking about times of personal winter when we disengage and withdraw and hunker down and our spiritual/mental/relational ground is fallow and still. He used the word “contraction” to describe it. It suddenly occured to me that it’s not accident that it’s the exact word economists use a winter word to describe our current economy – a massive “contraction”, a shedding of surplus and growth and a season of withering and cooling. And of course, “contraction” is also the word for the violent and painful heaves during childbirth.

Winter’s contractions are costly and painful. The majority of a plant’s “body” dies during the process, leaving mostly only root. The leaves on the trees are choked at their roots until they are squeezed off and fall to decay into the forest floor. The season is severe enough to leave a concentric scar in the flesh of the tree. Animals who are unprepared or not strong enough can die, boughs are torn away by snow, ponds and lakes freeze hard, the ground lies fallow.

But winter is not only hard, it’s also beautiful and produces the conditions necessary for the tumultuous and lovely green of spring. Winter’s onset produces the riotous colors of fall and the minimalist beauty of the landscape stripped bare. Right now in the Northwest, daffodil buds are being shivered awake by the cold ground and will soon start to explode in sunny yellow clumps. The accumulation of new nutrients in the soil from the winter damage have begun to feed root systems now preparing to kick back into life as the sun’s rays get warmer.

In biological systems, the cycle of winter/chaos/breakdown is essential for a stronger, more appropriate system to emerge. The same is true for our national system. We are facing big threats, all of our own making, but implicit in those threats is the opportunity, the seed, for something newer, more robust, more expressive of who we are. Just as winter surprises itself with daffodils, so America has surprised itself with Obama and the renewed national image and spirit he represents. With care and luck and time, we’ll see growth again – not the same thing we had before, but something new, unpredictable, more healthy and appropriate for our world and times.

More from the “Truth Will Set Us All Free” dept: What a sad, sad saga this Ted Haggard thing is. Right on the heels of the Prop 8 debacle, the nation gets an object lesson in the destructive poison of being gay, closeted, and Christian. It’s a familiar story to anyone who’s read anything about the experience of gay Christians, but it never gets any easier to watch:

The convolutions, the intrigue, the lies, the lost money, the ruined reputations and careers and hopes, the breathless media exposes — all of that would have never happened if Ted had been free enough to admit at some point, early on, three simple words: “I am gay.” A tragedy.

Charles hates penguins: “Yes, there is no love in me for penguins. The creatures have a life cycle that is utterly stupid and tedious.” Charles also hates dogs and thinks his daughter, age 7, should know whether or not her childhood is successful so far. Poor sad Charles.

Our new President does more for US-Muslim relations in 20 minutes than his predecessor did in 8 years:

Competence. It’s a bit hard to adjust to so suddenly. Obama chose to give his first, highly sought-after, high visibility televised interview as President to Al Arabiya. The interviewer, Hisham Melehm, who I’ve followed and been impressed by on the Diane Rehm Show as a frequent guest, was impressed, and so was Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: He can be a pretty charming guy. Is that what you think?

MELHEM: He — absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, you realize, you’re sitting from a man who has a deep, keen intellect, a sharp analytical mind, supple intelligence. And the way he weaves things, the way he frames issues, whether he’s talking about terrorism, talking about different cultures, he has a very sophisticated understanding of the world…

BLITZER: You know these issues and the region as well as anyone. You’ve been covering this story for a long time. Will he succeed?

MELHEM: Look, already he is sending the right vibes, the right tone, there is a different approach, there is a different wind coming from Washington, different discourse. In terms of a radical shift, it’s too early to say.

He is waiting for the Israeli elections, as you well know. He is waiting for the Iranian election, as you well know. He is sending the right signals at this stage. And I think he will — is going to force people in the Middle East to listen to him and take him very seriously and to listen to him carefully.

BLITZER: I think you’re absolutely right. And as someone who also has covered this region for a long time, he spoke with authority and knowledge. He clearly knew what he was talking about…

MELHEM: Absolutely.

As Steve Clemons puts it:

Barack Obama’s first moves have been uttlerly brilliant…

His style matters — just like Bush’s swagger did — and it is this act of humility towards the Muslim world which may animate hope in the nations around the world and in the Middle East specifically.

Everyone will have to adjust now. The Saudis will leave the peace deal on the table. The Israelis have to remake themselves — even if Netanyahu succeeds Olmert. Hamas will have to find a way to become differently postured — if not on Israel, then at least on some level of international acceptability with American partners. Arab stakeholders are going to have to snap out of positions shaped more by status quo thinking and inertia that things will never change and get with the Obama program.

What Obama did has provided a new punctuation point in American foreign policy, and it is not “continuous” foreign policy at all. This is a new game and a very impressive new leader.

President Obama – GOP punching bag or black-belt rope-a-dope master? The President has been getting a lot of flack from his left flank for not using his sky-high popularity (60% approval rating in Alabama… Alabama!) and a decisive Dem majority to muscle through his agenda instead of taking the time to make a charm offensive to the party that landed us in this horrible mess. It’s a valid complaint. After all, it’s clear after 6 years of Republican hegemony that they have little to offer but bad faith and bad ideas, and the public wants a 180-degree switch from the last eight years. So, why all the effort by Obama and his staff on a fool’s errand?

Al Giordano, making more sense than most of the hysterical liberals I’ve been reading, thinks Obama is basically continuing the political tactics that had him sail past the mighty Clintons and McCain in the elections – define the playing field by taking an early crucial lead in rhetoric, planning and actions, reach out with very politically visible (and genuine) offers to work together, lay back when the inevitable attacks begin, and then yank the political rug out from underneath at the most visible moment to come back for the win.

For a new president with such enormous public popularity to set up Congressional Republicans to be perceived as slapping his “outstretched hand” was a chess move that suckered them into the tar pit of being seen as the obstructionists in Washington, and at that, they’re now branded as additionally inactive on “the urgency of the economic situation”…

In other words, Obama’s strategy is to set them up for another rout in the 2010 Congressional elections and to hasten, in the meantime, the process by which they wake up and realize their seats are vulnerable. The President doesn’t need their votes on the Stimulus (therefore, this maneuver is not about the Stimulus, but more akin to a football team calling a running play to set up a later passing play). The truth is that so many Congressional Democrats are so undependable that Obama will need some Republican votes later on other legislative priorities, particularly in the Senate in order to get 60 votes for “cloture” to allow bills to be voted up or down: On the Employee’s Free Choice Act, on Immigration Reform (and now he needs one more to offset the anti-immigrant junior Democratic Senator from New York), on children’s health care and much, much more. To get to that point, he has to make individual Republicans feel vulnerable at the ballot box to Democratic challenge. Today’s events are speeding that process up.

In the end, Obama’s “bipartisanship” is one of the most Machiavellian partisan maneuvers we’ve seen in Washington in a long while, and I use that description in its most admirable context. The Republicans fell right into the trap today. Progressives that urge Obama to be more “partisan” should pay close attention to how the GOP is getting pwned before falling into the same trap themselves.

Here’s Obama in his own words on his political style:

Reason #1072 why I like Esquire – Tom Junod:

And so give this to global warming: It’s another test case. Because over the last eight years — since our president rejected the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001 — what we’ve done with global warming is what we’ve done with the war on terror and the war in Iraq and the authorization and outsourcing of torture and the creation of a security state and the creation of an insecurity state, in terms of the marketplace: We’ve lived with it. We’ve gotten really good at living with things during the Bush Years, at tolerating the intolerable. And while this may sound like another tip of the hat to the incredible resilience of the American people, it’s not: Resilience, after all, is not what’s required in crisis when the crisis is partly of your own making. Responsibility is. We have heard of the Tech Bubble of the Clinton Years, the Housing Bubble of George W. Bush. Well, the bubble that we’re living in now — still — is the bubble that’s all our own. It’s the Moral Bubble, and it will not be pricked until we take responsibility not just for the forty-third president’s actions but for our inaction — for all the agreements we’ve made without awareness, for all the awareness we’ve come to without vigilance, for all the times we’ve touched the easy, insulating button of our assent.

~ from his article “What The Hell Just Happened?” in the Feb 2009 issue of Esquire, italics mine

So, I was going to write a short response to Bob’s comment about my take on Rick Warren’s invocation at the Inauguration, but as usual it spiraled out of control into an almost 700 word behemoth that began to demand it’s own post. So here it is…

Like the other pastors, Warren was given the daunting task of delivering a religious invocation to a huge, vastly diverse audience on such an auspicious occasion, and he did a respectable job. After getting a little distance from the Inauguration Warren’s prayer wore a little better than it did in the moment of delivery. In fact, the transcript reads even better (read it here). But it still didn’t sit well.

For one thing, the delivery bugged me. Obama, who admittedly is a phenomenal public speaker, delivers his lines without excess drama and verbal frippery. His tone is commanding without needing to verbally wheedle or bully. And both Robinson and Lowery also played it straight, with an authenticity and conviction to their verbal phrasing. This isn’t just a style issue – I believe that style has a direct link to the internal cultural attenuation of the speaker.

With that in mind, the practiced, overly nice, melifluous bedside manner of mainstream Evangelical preachers makes me itch because it reflects the church culture they work in – one where they have to verbally work overtime to hide the rough words and rough edges, never ruffle feathers with parishoners or jeopardize their building projects, never cross the denominational leadership on which their careers depend, hide the culturally unacceptable parts of their belief structure and sell the “God is my BFF (best friend forever) type of faith” (as the commenter put it) that makes it easier to attract new attendees. Evangelical preachers feel caught between God’s watchful eye (no compromise on beliefs), their parishoners (who don’t want the boat to be rocked), the world (with whom they have a combined persecution/inferiority complex), and their career in the public spotlight (which demands they always be relevant and interesting). So, they largely adopt this non-strident, uninvasive, undemanding listenable style that has the simultaneous effect of both inducing a warm fuzzy feeling while insuring that their time on stage is instantly forgettable.

Second, for all of Warren’s talk of “failing to treat our fellow human beings…with the respect they deserve”, he, along with many Evangelicals, continue to equate gays and gay marriage with incest and pedophilia and was a vocal supporter of Prop 8 which threatens to dissolve the marriages of tens of thousands of deliriously happy gay folk using the disingenous and untrue reasoning that it threatened the right of churches and pastors to free speech. I believe him when he says that he has gay friends, and people like Melissa Etheridge have spoken of him warmly. But treating people with respect means sticking to the facts, to the truth, and these kinds of overstatements continue to inflame the discourse with their obvious untruths. And it’s made somehow more infuriating by the can’t-we-all-just-get-along style it’s delivered in (see point 1).

Look, I like Evangelicals. I have friends who are Evangelicals. Their charitable giving, hard work and general hand of friendship (especially in the individual vs. church setting) resists the demonization they get from the culture. But I can say from an experienced perspective that their culture and worldview has serious problems that are driving a wedge deeper and deeper between them and the world at large. They’re not dumb – they can feel this happening and I can sense the general pessimism that they feel about it – but they are locked into a theological worldview that makes the deepening separation and resulting irrelevance inevitable.

So, I stand by my comments on Warren being the weakest of the three, and I think the comment I reference in the post captured (in much less bloviation than mine) the essence of why. As for being civil, I’m not personally attacking Warren or casting aspersions on his character. I’m pointing out from my own experience and as authentically as I can what I feel the flaws are in his culture, the culture that I grew up in. I get passionate about it, I mention it, because I still care. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t spend any time on it because I wouldn’t care, y’know?

U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta replaces an official picture of outgoing President George W. Bush with that of newly-sworn-in U.S. President Barack Obama, in the lobby of the headquarters of the U.S. Naval Base January 20, 2009 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Brennan Linsley-Pool/Getty Images)

On Trial: The kind of cheap, popular political cynicism often indulged in by the politically unaware and Ralph Nader that’s usually along the lines of “It doesn’t matter if you vote Democrat or Republican – they’re all corrupt bastards controlled by [insert nameless scary shadowy entity here]“.

The Charges: That Ralph Nader is a wiener for throwing the 2000 election. That those who continue to propagate this idea should be taken every bit as seriously as the “Elvis was abducted by aliens” fan club.

The Evidence: President Obama’s first 48 hours in office.

Exhibit A – Obama Administration, Day 1

Barack Obama will have spent his first several days in office issuing a series of executive orders which, some quibbling and important caveats and reservations aside, meet or actually exceed even the most optimistic expectations of civil libertarians for what he could or would do quickly — everything from ordering the closing of Guantanamo to suspending military commissions to compelling CIA interrogators to adhere to the Army Field Manual to banning CIA “black sites” and, perhaps most encouragingly (in my view): severely restricting his own power and the power of former Presidents to withhold documents and other information on the basis of secrecy, which was the prime corrosive agent, the main enabler, of the Bush era.
~ Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

1) President Obama freezes salary of senior staff, saying that “families are tightening their belts, and so should Washingon”.

2) President Obama says “this government stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known”. Reversed Bush policy of making it hard to get govt information under the Freedom Of Information Act, reversed Bush order that allowed former presidents and their heirs to claim executive privilege to keep information secret. Requires that the Attorney General and White House Counsel review any claim of executive privilege to make sure it’s warranted.

3) President Obama imposed strict rules on lobbying. Former lobbyists cannot work for their former firms for two years following their service, and have to recuse themselves from working on issues on which they lobbied.

Summary: Extremely improved transparency in being able to track the activities of our government.

Exhibit B – Obama Administration, Day 2

The Bush Administration prisoner, torture and rendition apparatus was effectively dismantled today with four pen strokes.
~ Marc Ambinder, TheAtlantic.com

1) President Obama convenes panel to close Guantanamo Bay detainee prison within one year, halts the current trial process begun under Bush rules, and reaffirms their right to habeas corpus.

2) President Obama orders intelligence gatherers to limit their techniques to those published in the Army Field Manual which prohibits torture techniques such as waterboarding and stress positions.

3) President Obama orders that Red Cross be given immediate access to detainees with the effect that secret detainments are now effectively ended. The broad language covers not just govt facilities, but also contractor facilities.

4) President Obama orders that renditions to countries that are known to torture be stopped, and orders all CIA “black” facilities be closed.

Summary: The return of the rules of handling prisoners with basic decency, attention to their legal rights, and the firm re-establishment of the rule of law.

Verdict: Ralph Nader is hereby sentenced to campaign in a Hot Dog On A Stick uniform, and anyone caught trafficking in ridiculous political cliches is to be pummeled about the head and neck with Cheney’s used underwear.

(For more amazing Inauguration photos, visit this slideshow on the Boston Globe’s The Big Picture website.)

A few more wrap-up thoughts on our national maiden voyage into Obama territory in a moment, but first a few housekeeping things.

To all of you who commented on Spiritual Literacy, thanks so much for your thoughts. I was surprised at how many of you guys are in similar territory. I was assuming that more of you were settled in your spiritual commitments (or lack thereof), so it was kind of reassuring to know that we’re in good, similarly befuddled company, and not just being negligent. I’m thinking on your replies, and will post more on it soon. (Also, thanks in general for commenting! It’s so great to have other opinions to lean into and not just have to listen to my own voice echoing around in here.)

Second, Bob, I saw your comment about “which of the preachers asked for God’s forgiveness?” and I wanted to ask you to expand your question a bit more since it sounds like you have an observation in mind. Feel free to do that in the comments here, and I can start a thread there.

President Barack Obama makes a call from the Oval Office on his first full day on the job.
(Photo Credit: Callie Shell/Aurora for TIME)

Down to it. I found a couple of interesting pieces to highlight on this evening, 24 hours after installing President Obama safely in office.

First, on the speech. In general, I was reading a bit of deflation around the punditsphere. I think the political pros were looking for a bit more historicity to hang their analysis on, and came away disappointed. So I was interested in hearing more detail from those who I ran across who said, “yes, the speech wasn’t soaring oratory for the ages, but it was great because of being so appropriate for this moment” – which is essentially how I felt – to get a sense of why it might have landed well with them.

I found a couple of great responses on Slog. The first, Erica, a woman who was a Hillary supporter and always very skeptical of Obama, had this to say:

I’ve always been a little cold to Obama because I feel he’s never really acknowledged this—never owned his own fallibility, the fact that he will inevitably let his followers down. His speeches have always been too soaring, too capital-H historical, too full of crowd-pleasing flourishes and fillips, for my taste. Unlike the chanting, worshipful crowds, I wasn’t looking for a “climactic moment”; as far as I’m concerned, “plain language”—the type of rhetoric Eli referred to as “middle-brow”—is exactly what yesterday’s occasion called for. The notes Obama struck yesterday—we are a nation humbled, my predecessor has done harm to America but we will not be broken, change requires work and responsibility—were exactly the ones I wanted to hear at this moment in history.

The second, Eli, a reporter for the Stranger who has trailed Obama through his historic run and transition, had this very insightful dissection:

The speech, with its use of what his team warned in advance would be “plain language,” aimed directly for the middle—the political center, the middle-brow, a reception as neither awful nor one-of-a-kind. This is actually not a bad political move for Obama. The more he hugs the center, the more he distances himself from the “aloof and professorial” caricature, the more he talks to the mass audience using familiar language and easy ideas, the more politically powerful he becomes…

Finally: I’ve watched Obama deliver a number of speeches over the last year-and-a-half. He is clearly more than capable of giving an excited crowd the release it wants. Intellectually and oratorically, he is more than capable of besting FDR’s first and coming close to, or exceeding, Lincoln’s second. He didn’t want to, I think. To give the crowd their desired moment of tremendous release would be to create a void that they would then expect to be filled by immediate change, immediate progress, immediate solutions from the man who had, after all, just given them exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it. “More, please?” people would say.

Better, given the current state of the country, to lower expectations—or miss them entirely—and get the mass audience relating to him as a hard-working, clear-headed, plain-speaking, change-minded guy who is on their side, isn’t some sort of Messiah, and won’t be unleashing any instant-transformation lighting bolts.

That, to my ears, is what Obama achieved with his speech yesterday, and it is enough. More than enough.

The takeaway for me is, once again, Obama’s masterful ear for being able to sense and rhetorically address the national zeitgeist in a way that inspires people and draws them into the task at hand, sets their expectations exactly where they need to be for the next stage of action, and allows himself the maximum political framework to make his moves – not in a cynical way, but in the way of a man who sees his job as needing to produce actual results. And the best part is that none of it is manipulative or inauthentic. He’s always careful to invite the listener into a place of partnership, of mutual responsibility. In that sense, the speech was a real accomplishment.

Finally, the new Joe Klein piece in Time Magazine – blandly titled “Barack Obama Promises New Day, Work Begins Today” . For those of you not aware of it, Joe Klein wrote the memoir “Primary Colors” about the Clinton campaign that was made into the film with John Travolta (playing Bill) and Emma Thompson (playing Hillary) and has covered politics for a good long while. So, he’s got some heft when it comes to making pronouncements on the behavior of politicians.

His article is a wonderful peek into what has us Obama fans so excited about the potential of his presidency – his statesman-like dedication to governance without petty belligerence or bellicosity and his unique blend of policy wonk, a teambuilder with deep personnel and organizational intelligence, and, of course, an exceptionally keen sense of political inspiration and consensus. If you want a preview of the tone and legacy of the Obama years, this is a must-read. Seriously.

Here’s a shamelessly massive excerpt of the last part of the article:

Toward the end of the campaign, Michelle Obama asked me if I was going to write a novel about them like Primary Colors, my satiric account of the 1992 presidential race. I was at a loss for words, in part because the thought hadn’t even vaguely crossed my mind. “He can’t write a novel about us,” Barack Obama reassured his wife. “We’re too boring.”

Yes … and no. It’s hard to call the most exciting politician in decades boring. The millions who trekked to Washington for the Inauguration, who cried their eyes out and cheered their lungs raw, are testimony to the man’s sheer inspirational power. Reagan’s movement was called a revolution, but this may be more than that — the beginning of a whole new era of Obama-inspired and Obama-led citizen involvement. During the transition, the Obama website called for supporters to hold community meetings to discuss their health-care priorities. A staggering 10,000 meetings purportedly were held; 5,000 sent written reports — more paper! — to the transition office. This is a new kind of politics, with the potential to be the most powerful citizen army in U.S. history. If so, it will more likely be a force for civility — for “boring” things like good governance, for new ideas about how to control the cost of entitlements (which Obama pointedly mentioned in his speech) — rather than a rabble spamming the offices of recalcitrant Republicans. It will fit neatly into the Obama zeitgeist.

By the tone and style of his move to power, Obama has shown the world — and the people living in Sarah Palin’s small-town America, and even many liberals who had lost hope over time — a new, gloriously unexpected and vibrant face of our country. The sheer fun of the Inauguration, the world-record number of interracial hugs and kisses, augurs a new heterodox cultural energy, a nation — as the man said — of mutts. Already the Obama ethos is slipping into the nation’s cultural bloodstream — not just the interraciality but also the mind-blowing normality of the family: the fact that Michelle Obama brought Laura Bush a going-away present, the fact that Sasha and Malia will make their own beds in the White House, the fact that our President proudly wears a Chicago White Sox baseball cap when he goes to the gym.

Even more important, Obama promises a respite from the nonstop anger of the recent American political wars, the beginning of an era of civility, if not comity. “What the cynics fail to understand,” he said in his speech, “is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

It would be nice to think the magnitude of the problems facing the nation would lead to a minimum of puerile contentiousness, but vile still seems to be the default position for some of Obama’s noisier detractors — “Obama Flubs the Oath” was the inaccurate headline greeting the new President on the Drudge Report. Too many of us in the media remain reluctant “to set aside childish things.” Happily, though, our new President seems to have an honest predilection for treating his opponents with respect. He seems intent on hearing their points of view and arguing, decorously, with them — that’s why he accepted a dinner invitation at conservative columnist George Will’s house. This is radical behavior in the village on the Potomac. It could force everyone to argue more carefully, to think twice before casting aspersions, to remember that the goal has to be more than temporal electoral victories — but, in this moment of peril, a better and stronger nation, a less ugly and dangerous world.

Again, it’s hard to believe we got it so right. I’m excited all over again.

I just have to say that blogging is easy when you have this much momentous material to work with. If nothing else, thanks to President (!) Obama on this great day for the awesome source material…

Cheney in a wheel chair: I read an article a day or two ago about Obama’s incredible run of luck. Yes, he’s immensely talented and has put in all the hard work it’s taken to get here, but he’s had a lot of lucky breaks along this path to the Presidency, starting with being picked for the 2004 convention, where he was a complete unknown until after his speech. The primary battles with Hillary were just one good string of luck and carefully seized opportunity after another. And now the inauguration, kicked off by a dramatic and wonderful water rescue of a brave and level-headed pilot that saved hundreds of lives, framed by the Statue Of Liberty in the background, no less. The nation was cheered and reminded in advance of the festivities of the capability of good and decent citizens to do what’s right when the chips are down. The weather was cold, but sunny, clean and clear and the winter sunlight was lovely illumnation for everything. And, Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair. The architect of our shame for the last eight years was symbolically brought low, helpless, as he and his patsy sat listening to our new President’s stern rebuke on the last eight years. There just was no slowing the tsunami of symbolism around lucky Obama this week.

The disgruntled right: Our conservative contacts on Facebook were at it in full force today – critiquing all the “hopey-ness”, deriding Obama’s speech as a “mishmash” and “unintelligible”, and mocking Obama fans for believing in “fairies and unicorns”. On a normal inauguration, I’d have bristled at my team getting pounded. But, today I just felt sorry for them. It’s not just one of those occasions where my guy beat their guy, and we’re all looking forward to the rematch. This wasn’t an ordinary day. Witness the thousands of people singing “na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye” to Bush’s helicopter. The dwindling hardcore conservatives hitched their wagon to Bush, to his philosophy and legacy, to his monumental failures, but the nation just wanted him gone. As Obama said in his inaugural speech, the ground has shifted beneath their feet. It’s not just that their party got beaten. It’s that their party, in its current form – Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin – is completely irrelevant. The train of history has pulled out of the station, and left them standing there, grumbling out loud as though someone still cares. Not only is their version of America fading into the distance, they also couldn’t enjoy the pagentry and celebration of this week and this day. No joy, and no real political future. It can’t be fun.

The preachers: Between Bishop Gene Robinson, Rick Warren, and Joseph Lowery, it was no contest on who wins the prize for Least Inspiring. Granted, I’ve sat through countless invocations of the type that Rick Warren gave today – smooth, edgeless, politely nice in that suburban way, delivered with the warm baby food style of white preacher modulations – and so I may have been pre-prepared to not like it. But, evaluated as objectively as I could, it just couldn’t hold a candle to the hard-won, pointed thanks and calls for justice that marked Robinson and Lowery’s speeches. Robinson, the first gay bishop in the Episcopalian denomination, has endured fiery criticism, threats of splits in the church due to his installment, even death threats. Added to the devastation that the church deals daily to the gay community, I know that he’s walked through some darkness. And Lowery wears the years of discrimination and setbacks to civil rights jauntily, proudly, his voice seasoned with that lovely mix of age, hard times, and hope. And Warren? His prayer was a bland nothing, an intermission between events. I don’t know the man, I know that he’s loved by many. But he wasn’t even in the same league as the other two men. He brought no prophecy, no human connection to this event, and it makes me wonder why, what was lacking. Was it a mis-step, or his worldview on display? As one commenter put it:

Stunningly good? I think not. I was struck by how Rev. Warren’s “prayer” completely lacked intellectual, emotional, and spiritual passion. It did, however, accurately reflect the overly casual “God is my BFF” type of faith that is typical of so many, largely white, suburban, middle-class conservagelicals in America.

(In fairness, tho, it was great that he ended on the Lord’s Prayer.)

The quartet: What a beautiful arrangement and performance. I’m usually not into John Williams. His composing style usually reminds me of drowning a fine filet mignon in ketchup. He tends to over-compose, and he needs to lay off the brass. But his arrangement of Simple Gifts was masterful, and the multi-racial superstar quartet brought the spare, robust strains to life in a way that perfectly matched the crisp cold and Obama’s muscular speech.

And what a great speech it was. I’ve been reading critiques of the speech and the responses are all over the place. Some thought it was too muddled, some too militant, some not heady enough, some not specific enough. But my main measures were Janece and I’s reaction, and the reaction of her dad – a lifelong Republican who voted Democrat for the first time this year. Obama, with his keen political ear and masterful writing, picked a perfect path between an embrace of courageous liberalism (upholding the law in times of terrorism, justice for the underprivileged) with a realist’s acknowledgment that justice and duty also means saying to the nasties “this far and no farther”. Janece’s dad told her that the day and Obama’s speech made him proud to be an American. Janece and I were moved and encouraged. Obama wasn’t writing for the pundits and critics, and I believe he wasn’t even writing for history. I think in his practical, let’s get it done style, he was writing for the billions around the world watching the speech, reiterating his intentions, making the change that’s coming explicit and clear. The Republicans have been masterful at this – hammering on the message so repetitively that the public and media unquestionably adopt the framing of their argument. I’m pleased to see Obama and his team do this to move the political ground in a progressive direction, and do it with such skillful and poetic rhetoric. My highlights from the speech:

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness…

The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage…

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government…

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more…

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace…

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist…

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

Speaking of our Writer-In-Chief: Did you know he wrote poetry? Check out “Pop”, a poem he wrote when he was 19.

And speaking of our Commander-in-Chief: During the Inaugural Parade, it was mind-spinning to watch the military brass introduce themselves deferentially to President Obama in his viewing booth, to watch him salute the hundreds of military personnel stepping past – menacingly polished and bristling and rifles and bayonets – and realize for the first time that this army, this vast and powerful network of military muscle, was no longer subject to Bush’s careless posturing and is under Obama’s decent and principled hand. It gave me chills. This is for real now. We have a leader worth leading.

A new face for the White House: www.whitehouse.gov.

And finally, the eye candy. I can’t tell you what a treat it is to see the comfortable, vital sexuality, poise and grace of our President and First Lady together. They have brought a much-needed injection of warmth, humanity and beauty to the White House. It’s going to be a pleasure to see them in the public eye for the next eight years.

Click here to watch in HD. I’m not traditionally a Beyoncé fan, but she really brought it with her performances the last few days.

Martin Luther King gave America a new language, a third way through the racial minefield that has led us purposefully to where we find ourselves today – commemorating today in his honor as a national hero, a man we are proud to pin our history on, and tomorrow, installing a brilliant and capable black man – the best candidate we fielded in our general election who won his hard-fought contests solely on merit, message and skill – as our 44th President. King’s third way of inclusion and the refusal of division as a means to power have had, and will have, a profound influence on our new President’s governance, giving him precedent and legitimacy as he reaches out a hand of inclusion without malice to even his most bitter detractors.

King showed us that the correcting injustice doesn’t have to lead us to retaliation or separation, to a battle for supremacy or raising up impassable barriers. He and his leadership consciously broadened a very justified, historically necessary struggle for black equality into a call for universal civil rights – a world not just everyone “gets theirs”, but a truly integrated world where mutual dignity is exchanged.

And it cost him the most it can cost anyone. I saw this video on Andrew Sullivan’s blog today. I was mesmerized looking into King’s eyes. I don’t know what he’s looking at in the video, but his eyes seem to look through his audience as if he’s already seeing their faces recede, swallowed up by the final Night that awaited him just the next evening at the end of Ray’s gun barrel.

I was also struck with his demeanor. It isn’t that of a man who’s grandstanding for effect or whipping up an emotional response. There’s no hint of the awful vise he was caught in on a daily basis, the defections from his movement, the constant criticisms and opposition, the threat of government censure and arrest. There’s just a calmness there – a great stillness – as he speaks with the air of a man simply laying out an indisputable fact about an unimaginable future not too far ahead. I watched it several times today, and it gave me chills each time – being in the presence of a person who was fully and completely given over to the work that was given him to do.

Dr. King, thank you for surrendering to your mission, for your commitment to a future that includes all of us. Your presence will loom large tomorrow, not just for Americans, but for all the world watching as we attempt to add a new chapter to your vision and, as our new President reminded us yesterday, put all our hands on the arc of history to bend it toward justice for all.

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Ta-Nehisi said something funny today:

When I was kid, I always thought it was weird how much white racism, basically, revolved around keeping white women from having sex with black men. I’d be reading some book on black history, where people would be devoting, say, the right of black people to vote. And, inevitably, some white segregationists would say something like “If we let them vote, they’ll be marrying your daughters!!! And they’ll take over the country!!!” And I think, “Whaaa??” Talk about your non-sequitur.

But then I was talking about this with Kenyatta this morning, and it all suddenly made sense. She nodded to Barack Obama and laughingly noted, “They were right.”

And apparently, the Seal version of “Change Is Gonna Come” I embedded was weak-sauce. As Ta-Nehisi puts it – “Sam Cooke does it better than you“. OK, fine. Here’s the real version, then.

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So, to address the issues that Sky and Stephen raised in my last post about the “over-signification” of Obama:

I think you guys are over-analyzing what’s happening right now a bit. The country’s in the mood for a party. We’re celebrating our own front-row seat on history, the fact that we made history together, the fact that there is a smart and decent public servant at our helm once again – hell, the fact that last eight years are OVER! Of course everybody wants to get in on the action – showing up in DC, wearing the Obama t-shirts, tearing up at freedom songs and what have you. Of course it’s all going to be a little obnoxious and boozy and overly schmaltzy, what with all the cheesy shirts and commemorative plates. That’s just human beings being goofy like we get when something big happens. If anyone had advance notice, I’m sure they would have been selling mugs that said “He’s Back!” at the Resurrection.

I think Ezra Klein put it really well today:

The night Obama became president-elect, he was almost pure idea: The celebrations that took hold on America’s streets were not a joyous affirmation of his statements on entitlement reform. They were an explosion of pride at what America had just done, the barriers it had just broken, the boundaries it had just obliterated. For a few weeks, Obama was hardly even a partisan figure, much less a tawdry politician. He was living history.

The past two months have marked his slow transition from idea into president. What Obama meant is increasingly submerged beneath what Obama does. The fact that we elected a black man says little about how we spend the TARP dollars, or mediate the conflict in Gaza, or stimulate the economy. Tomorrow, our politics will be at its highest point in memory. We will have elected an African-American. We will be inaugurating a president with higher approval ratings than any other incoming executive since the advent of polling. But then politics will quiet, for a little while at least, and governance will take over. Obama will stop representing things and start doing things.

Obama’s next task, then, is harder. To recast governance much as he recast politics. Success would look different, to be sure. Good governance is often more technical than inspiring. It need not feel like history. But nor should governance deject Americans, or disgust them, or appear impervious to their input. The power of Obama’s election is that it felt like the country’s accomplishment. That is easier in an election: The country votes. Such a direct connection may not be possible in governance. But if governance can feel again like it works on behalf of the public, like it takes seriously their concerns and works daily to meet their expectations, then that would be something better than hope. That would be change.

This is reflected in the latest NYT/CBS poll, by the way. The public expects great things from Obama, and they don’t expect it for a couple of years. He’s asked us to give him time to do his best, he’s asked us to stay involved, and that’s exactly what the country is doing. Ezra puts it succinctly once again:

It turns out that when you treat Americans like adults, when you explain the limits of the possible and temper the timeframe of your promises, they respond like adults. Obama’s public approval ratings are among the highest for an American president in modern times. But they are not the simple product of the crisis. They are not high because the public childishly expects that Obama can enter office and vanquish our ills. Rather, they’re high because he seems to be trying. Because he’s appears to be honest about what he can do, and will do, and what it will mean. After the last eight years of aggressive incompetence and cynical obfuscation, that’s enough. That’s change.

And about that train thing, it wasn’t just an ostentatious victory prance. The route took him through some seriously depressed areas – areas that got a bit more visibility because of his route – and along the way, many people (tens of thousands at his whistle stops and along the route) who didn’t have the financial means to pick up and attend the inauguration got to see him.

So, until the man sits down at the desk in the Oval Office and starts signing things, I recommend smoothing your furrowed brows, picking up a stiff drink, and cutting a rug. Let’s party!

PS. I almost forgot – they’re also partying in alternate reality of Bush World. Really, don’t let the door hit you on the way out, folks. Buh-bye!

Janece and I watched the HBO broadcast of the “We Are One” inaugural concert today. I don’t know if it was the massive space between the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where the performers were and the crowd, or the momentousness of the occasion, or maybe the butt-crunching cold, but most of the performers and stars seemed pretty subdued – not very bombastic. The exceptions were a tear-inducing “Change Is Gonna Come” with Betty LaVette and Bon Jovi (!), Jamie Foxx with a shout out to Chi-town and a great impression of Obama, an exuberant Garth Brooks and youth choir (easily the most joyous musical moment), a great folk-punk appearance with Bob Seeger and Bruce Springsteen putting the fightin’ words back in “This Land Is Your Land”, and a visibly moved Beyoncé singing “America The Beautiful”. I joked with Janece when the stars came out to sing with Beyoncé that the Memorial was going to sink under the combined weight of their monumental egos, but really it wasn’t that bad. They all seemed to really be happy to be sharing the moment with the crowd and with each other.

And what a crowd! Maybe close to 400K by some counts, all crowded in so tight that outsiders literally could not even wriggle their way in. And the faces were beautiful – black, white, brown, red, features of all types – cheerfully packed into layers of warm clothes, singing, dancing, waving their arms, celebrating our latest American miracle together. We’ve spent the last eight years hearing about how some of us aren’t sufficiently patriotic or natural-born or whatever else, and together we stood up and said “goodbye to all that – we have something else in mind”. It’s a new thing, and we’re still not good at it, but I really feel that America is beginning, for the first time in a long time, to embrace ourselves as the mixed-up, improbable and dynamic community of people that we are. I feel that because we’ve elected an improbable, mixed-up and dynamic man to lead us into our next chapter.

I like looking at Barack and his family. Of course they’re good looking, but it’s more than that. It’s the stories that their features and faces carry with them. As BagNewsNotes points out, not only is Obama’s face a visual relief after eight long years of staring at W’s adolescent smirk, but it also carries all the intriguing flavors of our American and global realities – the big ears from his white grandfather, the chocolate swirl in his skin of his Kenyan father and white mother, the eyes that have seen Indonesian schools and African huts and Hawaiian beaches and Chicago winters, the easy smile and friendly (yet reserved) demeanor that I recognize as a person who also spent a lot of formative years moving from place to place, culture to culture. His face, his family, his story are nourishing – a healthy, complex and exciting mirror of how we as a nation can be together.

My friend Sky grumbled on FaceBook that “the oversignification of Obama diminishes (or obscures) the moment”. I disagree. Obama is a self-made man – someone who used what was within himself to take his Arabic-African name and dark skin and humble means and megawatt smile and intellect to Harvard, Chicago, the Senate and now the Presidency. I think Obamamania is just another expression of Americans wanting to celebrate one of our best rising to the top against the odds. We see our possibility in his story, in the success of meritocracy over dynasty, and in his personal decency. The mood out there isn’t hero-worship – it’s mutual celebration of our potential, fulfilled in a real man with a good family, and elected with our aid to our highest office to make a positive impact on the world. He’s not the object of our worship – he’s a lens for our desire to project the best of who we are.

In the most literal Horatio Alger-esque sense, Obama has carved a new road directly from the bustle and hum of ordinary American life in one of our most muscular American cities past the ossified East Coast and Beltway establishments directly to the center of American global power. He wants to keep the communication flowing and keep the road open, which is why he’s fighting to keep his Blackberry and phone to keep in touch with his Chicago friends outside the loop, why he’s developing tools like Change.gov, USAService.org, and Organizing for America to keep citizens involved, why he and Michelle want to attend a neighborhood church, why they both want to hold lotteries for regular citizens to spend time in the White House. Here’s hoping that his time in office is as great as its promise, and his rise and his road permanently alter for the better the way that our future leaders take and wield their place in the halls of power.

After hearing the songs today, after seeing the beautiful faces and listening to Obama talk about the living monuments he saw today on the Mall – us, the American people – I got this stuck in my head:

It’s been a long time comin’, but I know – change gonna come…

PS. Yeah yeah, I’m a starry-eyed Koolaid drinker or whatever. I’ll just let Andrew Sullivan back me up on this one. On meeting with Obama:

Lots of emails from readers asking about the chat with the president-elect this morning. It was totally off the record and I’m a stickler for those rules. I can say, however, the following: it’s hard to express the relief I feel that this man will be the president soon. I realize that’s what I feel above all else: relief… As I’ve said repeatedly for the last two years, we’re lucky to have him.

And on trying to understand Obama:

Obama acts like a kind of antacid to the American stomach. He has walked through the churn of racial and cultural and religious polarisation and somehow calmed everyone down… There is something about Obama’s willingness to give others credit, to approach so many issues with such dispassionate pragmatism, and to shift by symbols and speeches the mood and tenor of an entire country that gives one a modest form of optimism. Even now, as the outlook seems so dark, and as the inheritance seems so insuperable, three words linger in the mind.

Yes, he can.

And two words echo back at me.

Can we?

Completely off-topic, here’s a bold assertion. Two Forbes economists think that the worst of the recession is already behind us and that any government stimulus is probably just window-dressing on the recovery to let politicians take credit for it. Really? That’s a prediction to keep an eye-ball on…

Junior and senior staffers have turned in their card keys, clearances, Blackberries. The long weekend attached the the MLK national holiday has started, which means that they – and senior administration staff – are gone. For all intents and purposes, the Bush administration has left the building. The White House is empty. The stench remains.

Via Coates, Vanity Fair has a 14 page article on online detailing the remarkable, criminal incompetence of the Bush administration – not from the second term, not from the Iraq war, but from day 1. The attempt by the willfully ignorant and a GOP in complete collapse to rehabilitate the Bush years as some kind of success and whitewash away the trainwreck that we’ve all watched for 8 agonizing years has begun. Just yestereday, Janece forwarded me Twitter from a conservative we knew from back in our college days:

“I really love President Bush. A great man with wisdom and vision. I respect him so much and think he dignified and repaired the office.”

The Vanity Fair article is made up of quotes from senior Bush advisors, senators and generals in the know about the horrifyingly bad decision-making processes in the White House from the very beginning of Bush’s term. I urge all of you guys to PLEASE READ the article and forward it around to your politically opinionated friends and contacts. It’s imperative that the American public be reminded of the absolute failure of Bush, his administration and their ideology in the face of the coming attempts to revise our history.

A couple of things stood out for me.

First, it’s extremely clear that for all intents and purposes, the fears were entirely founded about Cheney being the master puppeter. He emerges as our shadow President, the man who firmly established himself and his coterie as the gatekeepers to Bush – a man whose personal likeability, obvious lack of curiosity, and easily triggered hot buttons (being a cowboy, avoiding introspection, hubris, impulsiveness) made him the perfect patsy for Cheney’s political agenda. I wish I could say that’s just conspiracy theory talk, but as you’ll see below, the interviewees basically come right out and say as much.

Second, it’s clear that the Bush team were consummate power manipulators – both in terms of political savvy and bureaucratic ability. They knew exactly how to milk every last political advantage out of the events of the last eight years, how to play Congress and the opposition against itself, how to play on the fears of our leaders and citizens, how to burrow down into the labyrinthine depths of our government to co-opt the workings of the state to forward their political agenda. And for all that savvy, they could not realize one simple truth – Americans elect leaders to govern, not to play politics. They literally concentrated all their efforts on exerting complete political control over the United States government, and in doing so were completely unprepared to actually govern, to meet the challenges of history, our allies, our enemies, nature.

Third, I feel sad for those Evangelical and religious friends and family who voted for Bush’s administration based on his “Christianity”. It’s clear from the evidence that they were used – manipulated by their identification with Bush’s story to vote for administration that loathed them, that the religious wing of the GOP as useful idiots, cannon fodder for campaigns, a constituency to be pandered to on the trail and completely ridiculed and ignored when in office. It’s true that Evangelicals and their leaders should have never sold their souls to the cynical power plays of the political arena, but I’m still sad that after eight years, otherwise good people like that Twitter contact of ours are further marginalized in the public eye, a laughingstock; that their church’s image has been irreparably damaged, and that, incredibly, they are still making excuses for the man responsible for America’s mess (more than that, even voting for Palin – that even more ridiculous Bush knock-off!).

Here’s a rogues gallery from the article.

———————————————————–

The Puppet President

June 1, 2002: Preparations for war with Iraq are not yet publicly acknowledged, but earlier in the spring, as Condoleezza Rice discusses diplomatic initiatives involving Iraq with several senators, Bush pokes his head into the room and says, “Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.”

July 9th, 2008: The annual summit of the G-8 nations, held in Japan, concludes with a tepid pledge to cut greenhouse gases by 50 percent by the year 2050. It is the last G-8 summit that Bush attends. He bids farewell to the other heads of state with the words “Good-bye from the world’s greatest polluter.”

December 6, 2006: The independent Iraq Study Group, chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, issues a report setting out 79 recommendations for the future conduct of the Iraq war. The report is brushed aside by the president. Lawrence Eagleburger, one of the group’s members, says of Bush after the report is delivered, “I don’t recall, seriously, that he asked any questions.”

“He always gets asked, Have you changed?, and he instinctively recoils at that kind of question.”
~ Dan Bartlett, White House communications director

The Puppeteer

“As my boss [Colin Powell] once said, Bush had a lot of .45-caliber instincts, cowboy instincts. Cheney knew exactly how to polish him and rub him. He knew exactly when to give him a memo or when to do this or when to do that and exactly the word choice to use to get him really excited… He became vice president well before George Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum… The Cheney team had, for example, technological supremacy over the National Security Council staff. That is to say, they could read their e-mails… I think the clearest indication I got that Rich [Armitage] and he both had finally awakened to the dimensions of the problem was when Rich began—I mean, I’ll be very candid—began to use language to describe the vice president’s office with me as the Gestapo, as the Nazis, and would sometimes late in the evening, when we were having a drink—would sometimes go off rather aggressively on particular characters in the vice president’s office.”
~ Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Sec. Of State Colin Powell

February 7, 2002: Bush issues an executive order denying any protections of the Geneva Conventions to Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees. The order comes after an intense behind-the-scenes battle pitting the State Department against the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the Office of the Vice President.

“I really think it came as a surprise when the February memo was put out. And that memo, of course, was constructed by Addington, and I’m told it was blessed by one or two people in O.L.C. [Office of Legal Counsel]. And then it was given to Cheney, and Cheney gave it to the president. The president signed it.”
~ Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Sec. Of State Colin Powell

“The second difference, and what made their [Cheney and Addington] assertion of executive power extraordinary, is: it was almost as if they were interested in expanding executive power for its own sake.”
~ Jack Goldsmith, head of the Justice Dept’s Office Of Legal Counsel

The Architect Of Our Iraq Disaster

September 15, 2002: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the assistant to the president for economic policy, Lawrence Lindsey, estimates the cost of a war with Iraq to be in the neighborhood of $100 billion to $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, quickly revises the figure downward to $50 billion to $60 billion, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld calls Lindsey’s estimate “baloney.” Lindsey is fired in December. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill is dismissed the same day. Years later, an analysis by Nobel-laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes will estimate the cost of the Iraq war to be $3 trillion.

December 2, 2002: Donald Rumsfeld signs off on a memo from the Defense Department’s legal counsel, Jim Haynes, permitting the use of aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantánamo, including stress positions, isolation, and sleep deprivation. Rumsfeld writes on the memo, “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” The memo is eventually rescinded, after strenuous objections from the general counsel of the Navy, Alberto Mora, among others, but policies and practices continue to be influenced by the philosophy outlined in the earlier Bybee-Yoo “torture memo.”

“That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks. And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It really didn’t, because from the first weeks of the administration they were talking about Iraq. I just found it a little disgusting that they were talking about it while the bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center.”
~ Richard Clarke, special advisor to Bush in the US National Security Council

“When Shinseki said, Hey, it’s going to take 300,000 or 400,000 soldiers, they crucified him. They called me up the day after that, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. They called me the next day and they said, Did you see what Shinseki said? And I said yes. And they said, Well, that can’t be possible. And I said, Well, let me give you the only piece of empirical data I have. In 1991, I owned 5 percent of the real estate in Iraq, and I had 22,000 trigger pullers. And on any day I never had enough. So you can take 5 percent—you can take 22,000 and multiply that by 20. Hey, here’s probably the ballpark, and I didn’t have Baghdad. And they said, Thank you very much. So I got up and left.”
~ Jay Garner, retired general and first overseer of the reconstruction in Iraq

“So he says, It might be best if you got off the Defense Policy Board. You’re very negative. I said, I am negative, Don. You’re absolutely right. I’m not negative about our friendship. But I think your decisions have been abysmal when it really counted… I said, Do you realize what the looting did to us? It legitimized the idea that liberation comes with chaos rather than with freedom and a better life. And it demystified the potency of American forces… I said, There was no order to stop the looting. And he says, There was an order. I said, Well, did you give the order? He says, I didn’t give the order, but someone around here gave the order. I said, Who gave the order?”
~ Kenneth Adelman, member of Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board

“When Abu Ghraib happened, I was like, We’ve got to fire Rumsfeld. Like if we’re the “accountability president,” we haven’t really done this. We don’t veto any bills. We don’t fire anybody. I was like, Well, this is a disaster, and we’re going to hold some National Guard colonel responsible? This guy’s got to get fired.”
~ Matthew Dowd, Bush campaign strategist

Turdblossom
(Bush’s nickname for Karl Rove)

November 4, 2008: Barack Obama is elected president in an electoral-college landslide. The Republicans lose at least seven seats in the Senate and a score in the House, dashing Karl Rove’s hopes of a permanent Republican majority. As the administration prepares to leave office, it promulgates a raft of “midnight” orders to weaken environmental, health-care, and product-safety regulations.

“Karl came from a perspective of: you defeat people in politics by calling one side bad and one side good…”
~ Matthew Dowd, Bush campaign strategist

“After the 2004 election they cut the White House faith-based staff by 30 percent, 40 percent, because it became clear that it had served its purpose. There’s this idea that the Bush White House was dominated by religious conservatives and catered to the needs of religious conservatives. But what people miss is that religious conservatives and the Republican Party have always had a very uneasy relationship. The reality in the White House is—if you look at the most senior staff—you’re seeing people who aren’t personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders. Now, at the end of the day, that’s easy to understand, because most of the people who are religious-right leaders are not easy to like. It’s that old Gandhi thing, right? I might actually be a Christian myself, except for the action of Christians. And so in the political-affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at everyone from Rich Cizik, who is one of the heads of the National Association of Evangelicals, to James Dobson, to basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated.”
~ David Kuo, deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Bumbling Enabler

July 22, 2004: The bipartisan 9/11 commission—whose creation was fiercely opposed by the administration—issues its report. It provides a detailed reconstruction of events leading up to the attacks, and of the attacks themselves; an earlier staff report found “no credible evidence” of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The final report also determines that many warning signs of an impending attack were ignored.

“John [Bellinger] and I had to work on the 9/11-commission testimony of Condi. Condi was not gonna do it, not gonna do it, not gonna do it, and then all of a sudden she realized she better do it. That was an appalling enterprise. We would cherry-pick things to make it look like the president had been actually concerned about al-Qaeda. We cherry-picked things to make it look as if the vice president and others, Secretary Rumsfeld and all, had been. They didn’t give a shit about al-Qaeda. They had priorities. The priorities were lower taxes, ballistic missiles, and the defense thereof.”
~ Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Sec. Of State Colin Powell

“In reality, a great deal of what Secretary Rice did seems to have been based as much on a search for visibility as any expectation of real progress.”
~ Anthony Cordesman, national security strategist

———————————————————–

So long, Bush administration. It’s hard to describe my relief at watching you go. The only way we want to see you again is in front of a microphone of a truth and reconciliation commission or a special prosecutor’s investigation for war crimes.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

(Photos by Annie Liebovitz. Quoted content and photos courtesy of Vanity Fair Magazine. All rights reserved.)

Hey y’all. I didn’t forget you or my duty as a blogger. Just working to get the rest of the phlegm out of my throat and some jobs out the door. I have some thoughts on spiritual literacy I’ve been rolling around and some questions I’d like to get feedback on.

In the meantime, how about that Joe The Plumber – now Joe The War Correspondent?! I can’t say I’m sad to watch the GOP sprint full-tilt into political irrelevance, but I’m kind of embarrassed for them that they’re still tying their party’s banner to people like Palin and Joe and Ann Coulter without any opposition from the few grownups left in their leadership and rank-and-file. They’re like the obnoxious drunk girl at the party that doesn’t know she’s stopped being funny or interesting an hour ago and is going to see pictures of herself on Facebook in a few hours vomiting on the guy she was trying to impress. It’s not pretty.

I’m too shagged out to post, so here’s some stuff I found lying around my favorite sites.

First, the serious stuff. Israel, Palestine and Gaza form a snake-eating-its-tail scenario so difficult that even well-seasoned experts don’t know where to begin:

The more complicated answer was provided by Marc Ambinder, who analyzed my personal situation correctly: Gaza has overdetermined me into paralysis… My paralysis isn’t an analytical paralysis. It’s the paralysis that comes from thinking that maybe there’s no way out. Not out of Gaza, out of the whole thing.

I found this in a good analysis by Eyal Press on Ta-Nehisi’s blog:

As the Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab noted in the Washington Post, a survey conducted in November found that a mere 16.6 percent of Palestinians backed Hamas, due largely to the group’s intransigence and unwillingness to forge a national-unity government.

I’ve can understand the political pressure on national leaders to deal with terrorists or, like Hamas, fringe, hostile, barely-governments with no real desire or clue how to really govern. But at some point with steady restrained pressure, you’d think these entities would wither and die the slow death of public opinion. Why inflame and strengthen their meager claims to credibility with ham-fisted declarations like “the war on terror” or full-scale invasions? A little restraint and protective containment could starve these people out. Unless, as I’ve read recently, Israel wanted to get one more lick in under the ultra-permissive Bush administration before Obama took office…

Now, on to the stupid stuff.

I should be too old for this to make me laugh, but it does:

A new food blog from some of my favorite political bloggers.

Obama’s new tank limousine.

Amelie as a child (this kid is really actually this cute – see more here):

File under “unclear on when to just leave well enough alone”:

Something beautiful:

Finally, some great stuff from TV On The Radio:

In politics: On Fox and over at Coates’ joint, “Barack the Magic Negro” and the Blago pick of Burris and the naked race appeal by Bobby Rush has the race talk bubbling. At HuffPost, Kathleen Reardon says Obama is so bright that he may be overestimating the American public’s ability to think at his level, with the kind of openness and complexity he’s capable of. Personally, I think his campaign proved he’s stunningly adept at realpolitik when the occasion requires, and he has an uncanny knack of reading and vocalizing the public mood. Remember how well it worked out when Clinton and McCain mocked him as a lightweight, Barbie Doll celebrity intellectual? Meanwhile, conservatives are obligatorily squawking about some of Obama’s advisors being too liberal (they always call it “radical” – nevermind Freedom Fries and torture) as though anyone gives a rat fart what they think since Obama is stunningly popular, as much as a wartime president (ie. Bush after 9/11), with a CNN poll revealing that 76% of Americans say he’s a “strong and decisive leader”. (That doesn’t even count the amount of popular media oxygen he sucked up when the shots of his pecs hit the stands.) A stunningly popular, intelligent, politically savvy, bi-racial, young President with rock-hard pecs and abs that looks badass in sunglasses has got to be giving the GOP some serious gas. They started that game by trying to turn George Bush into Tom Cruise, and they now they’re dealing with the PR nightmare of Obama as 007 .

On politics and culture: I keep coming back to this, but it’s my blog so I get to be obsessive. The era of the rule of the expert, the CEO as rock star, the talking heads, the free market, and the endless good times free ride is over. We are a nation looking for new icons, new leaders and figureheads, a new mythology of who we are, trying to find our mojo again. On Jan 20, the Obamas will step into this void in the most visible political office of the land – an office that has culturally symbolic power as well as political power – bringing with them the culture of Chicago and the Midwest, the city and the racial minority, the progressive and the intellectual, the 21st century and the world-conscious citizen. Think about how radically our culture has been affected since 2000 by Bush and Cheney’s world – the maudllin ballads of patriotic country music, the Crawford ranch and the wealthy playing cowboy, the East Coast dynastic succession of endless Bushes with their endless political connections and intrigues, the oil man, the “these colors don’t run” bumper stickers, Freedom Fries, Top Gun flight suits, frat boy style jokes and fumbles with foreign dignitaries, incorrect grammar, James Dobson and Pat Robertson. We’re about to watch a President that used a Jay-Z shout-out in a campaign speech take office. I say again – I don’t think Americans really get the 180-degree head snapping cultural earthquake that we’re all about to experience.

On Israel in Gaza: Hamas and the Israeli government are locked in yin-yang Escher’s loop of endless antipathy, seemingly unable to escape, carelessly passing on the hate and bloody consequences to their own people. Hamas needs Israel’s retaliation to divert attention from its lack of a true governing philosophy. Israel seems unable to control it’s own trouble-making settlers or do anything except respond in force, which any child can see can only strengthen Hamas and inflame Arab support. Hate has no generating force behind it. It survives on revenge and reprisals. Without them, hate can only wither and vanish. But the last Israeli leader with the courage to attempt to end the cycle was assassinated, and in the 13 years since no one else has arisen to make a new attempt. TPM says that there’s some hint of an international force in Gaza to bring some objectiveness into the situation. Maybe some outside influence could do some good.

On movies: As Shakespeare said, “O brave new world, that hath such animators in it!” (Note: Slightly modified to fit this blurb…)

On my personal fortunes: According to my cookie tonight – “Don’t be hasty; prosperity will knock on your door soon.” To which I harrumph, “Yeah, and then run away leaving a flaming bag of poop on the doorstep.”

On being a pun geek: Frayed Knot. Heh heh. Good one. Did I ever tell you the one about the Orthodox-Jew-eating dragon?

Somebody stop me! I can’t stop writing!

One quick word about this Warren/Obama flap:

I completely get the gay/liberal community’s outrage at Warren giving the invocation. It’s a very prestigious and visible spot on an historical occasion. I think they’re justified, and I would never presume to tell them they’re out of line by saying this is a mistake, especially on the heels of the Prop 8 debacle. I hope that this further motivates them to put pressure on Obama to carry through on his campaign promises to the GLBT community.

That said, having come from an Evangelical background, I can’t feel the outrage as much. Warren is much more stylistically progressive than many of the characters that have inhabited the pulpits at churches I’ve attended, and I fully get his sincerity when he says he “loves the gays”. I’m sure he does, even as he baffles and outrages that community with his overheated analogies. In my experience, Evangelicals as individuals tend to come through and shine when the chips are down and someone needs to be taken care of, even though as a group politically they act like spiritual bulls in a china shop and are on the losing side of the struggle for hearts and minds on this issue.

And that said, I also am amazed at the sense of liberals feeling betrayed by Obama. The guy has been nothing if not consistent in this transition in his pledge to bring the “civil” back into civil debate. He didn’t punish Lieberman, he’s reached out to McCain, he’s made pragmatic choices to ensure maximum good governance, stocking his cabinet with Dems and Reps, and now – surprise! – he’s reaching out to both sides again by bookending his inauguration ceremony with Warren, representing millions of progressive-leaning Evangelicals, and Lowery, a civil rights leader in full support of gay marriage. As a liberal, its seems to me that if you’re going to be outraged about Warren, then you should be stoked to the same degree about Lowery – a preacher unapologetically supporting gay equality as a civil rights leader with moral cred and who is taking the message to blacks, a community with notorious antipathy to being gay.

Obama’s making a simple statement: we’ve all got to stretch a little to push forward together in the places where we agree. As Frank Schaeffer, son of the famous Evangelical Francis Schaeffer, says in HuffPost:

I’m pro-Obama, pro-gay rights. I’m a former once burned, twice shy, ex-evangelical, son of a founder of the Religious Right, now a writer excoriated by the right as a traitor. And Let me tell you why Obama is — again — wiser than his critics in picking Warren to pray at the inauguration…

Unlike his lefty critics lamenting Obama’s ideological impurity, the President-elect is actually positioning himself to help gay rights. That is because he is going to actually govern, not stand on the sidelines complaining. As such he needs to do all he can to soothe the idiots, when it comes to the tough social/political issues that are the residue of 30 years of culture wars.

In inviting Warren, President-elect Obama is sending a signal that as President he is going to stick with resolve to doing the tough things when it comes to using some political capital on behalf of the gay community. He knows symbols are important and is softening the blow for the vast number of evangelicals to whom Warren is a hero.

The whole post is worth a read, and I completely agree. And, I hope this gives this the GLBT community more impetus to continue to engage and put pressure on PE Obama to deliver on his promises.

Bob, welcome back. To you and Stephen and Maria, I appreciate the questions and the mental pause they gave me to consider beyond just my raw heartbreak, sadness and frustration.

Bob, you asked:

…at what point after the 9/11 attacks was a line crossed by Pres. Bush that constitutes the ‘moral failure’ of which you speak? Is it at the point of lifting the Geneva Convention rules, or is it at some other place?

I’m going to be blunt in saying that I don’t think Bush had the personal moral foundation to even take office, much less make decisions of this gravity. My read on him before the election (including his mocking of Karla Faye Tucker’s execution among other things) and one that’s been vindicated a thousand times over since, is that he is a deeply unintrospective, unwise and unserious man. His moral landscape is a childish cartoon of black and white villans and heroes, and his willful refusal to deepen his own capacity for healthy adult ambiguity and wisdom predetermined, I think, both his vastly (almost criminally) incompetent leadership as well as the stain he inflicted on America in a new embrace of torture as official policy. He was, sitting in the most powerful office in the world with all of its pitfalls and pressures, a guaranteed moral time bomb.

That said, you asked about “the line”. Defining the line that has traditionally constrained America in protecting our security has been the heart of the issue all along – determining the right place to be in the murky clouds of interrogation methods, international agreements, urgency, what is legal, and above all, what is morally right. I’ve blogged about this dilemma for myself before:

The movie [Clear And Present Danger] is just OK, but it made me wonder about something that’s popped up for me a few times about Christianity and people who deal with violence on a regular basis as part of their work — CIA interrogators, special ops military personnel, spies, prison guards, undercover cops, etc. etc. This society we enjoy is preserved in a number of ways by people willing to engage in violence for the sake of protecting us. They provide a certain kind of safeguard for normal and nice people to enjoy their neighborly lives. I wonder how people in those professions manage to retain their connection with their Christianity. Is it possible to follow closely in the footsteps of Christ, be told in church that “if you’ve done it to one of the least of these, you’ve done it to me” and still work over a suspect until they talk or assasinate a target?

I don’t know the answer to that question, and it’s a huge issue to wrestle with on the scale of deciding the fate and security of a whole nation, especially in great uncertainty when the nation was wounded so visibly and deeply, as we were on 9/11. I found some great reading on this while thinking about my response:

First, a good example of what Ta-Nehisi calls “weak-sauce” – a jot and tittle argument by the National Review that the torture, humiliation and deaths were “legal” outside the Geneva Convention, and therefore somehow less abhorrent or justified, because the combatants were not state-sponsored. They completely sidestep any real evaluation of the human/spiritual/moral dimension involved, even though their editor makes a lot of loud-n-proud noise about being a conservative Catholic. (Note: The Review has been stubbornly and steadfastly almost 100% wrong over the last eight years as Bush cheerleaders — still! — so I feel completely comfortable writing them off just on that basis, much less the merits.)

Second, a much more thoughtful and compelling series of posts from the Atlantic’s (what a great magazine!) Ross Douthat, a conservative, trying to grapple with Bush’s legacy on this. The posts in order are here, here, here and here. He basically comes down to admitting that while presidents have had to give the order approving horrific acts, such as Truman ordering the atomic strikes on Japan, the Bush administration lacked similar justification, especially for how broad and aggressive the orders were to implement torture.

So, what do I think the line was, and where it was crossed? From a moral perspective, I think there were a few lines, crossed in several ways.

First, our national trust was breached when Bush made the decision to use 9/11 as a “fear lever” for any and every politicized overreach his administration could dream up – cloaking the GOP in an untouchable cloak of patriotism that silenced/dismissed dissent around foreign invasion, energy policy, and a host of other issues. Our nation was wounded, badly, on 9/11. We were full of rage and near panic. The Bush administration was exactly like those charlatan preachers that prey on the fears of seniors to bilk them of their money. We were afraid, we trusted, we were taken for a ride. That’s immoral behavior.

Second, the official decision to pursue traditional torture techniques like waterboarding was beyond the pale, and speaks, in my mind, to morally diseased motivation. This is especially true, given what we now know: torture just doesn’t work. This has been extensively verified, most notably by real, effective interrogators dealing with actual al Qaeda members in actual, “ticking time bomb” combat conditions. A simple review and enhancing the existing methods and safeguards would have been more than sufficient, but instead Cheney went back to Vietnam-era black ops programs as a starting point for our official policy. Why would you do that unless you had a predisposition to, at some level, wanting to be agressive, punitive, retaliatory – beyond the point of civil, reasonable policy or morality? Bush’s immorality is his unquestioning embrace of this mindset.

Third, the attempts at legal cover, obfuscation and even hubris around this new dark legacy of torture reveals premeditation – a need to justify something morally incorrect by either hiding it or daring the public to enact a consequence. From day one of this new policy, the White House employed its lawyers to cover its tracks in case of possible future attempts of war crimes, and pursued an Orwellian policy of redefinition of torture as something else not so hard to stomach. Piled on that, it harshly punished soldiers like Lynndie England as being “bad apples” for simply carrying out its own policy and attempted to silence and ruin the reputations of honorable soldiers like Captain Ian Fishback for whistleblowing. And as a final insult, Bush refuses to own any of it at practically the same time Cheney clearly states that he advocated waterboarding.

Put all this in context of it happening in a direct relationship with another human being. Obviously, there’s not a direct equivalence for nation states with personal human relationships, but these are human beings leading us and their decisions/motivations mean something morally. When you lose, or don’t have, the capacity as leader to make these decisions with some fear and trembling and some sense of taking responsibility, when you go to more lengths to protect yourself from legal action than you did to prevent someone from dying while being tortured, when you use the power of your office to persecute whistleblowers and proclaim your hubris because the protections it gives you – it is immoral and you are responsible.

I include Rick Warren in this list of let-downs because as a Christian leader in a very influential public position, he had the same duty to speak out as Nathan did to David about his crime against Bathsheba’s husband. I’ve heard numerous times in church from preachers like him that you have more of a duty to do this to leaders that loudly proclaim your same Christian faith, as Bush has often done. That he did not, and equivocated about it by saying “it never came up”, is a moral and spiritual failure. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary stances by our public leaders in all areas, and he, among many others, failed that test of moral leadership.

Stephen, in one sense, I take your response as true for the nation as a whole (especially about the financial crisis). As Ross Douthat says in his thought-provoking post:

But here, too, I have uncertainty, mixed together with guilt, about how strongly to condemn those involved – because in a sense I know that what they were doing was what I wanted to them to do…

But anyone who felt the way I felt after 9/11 has to reckon with the fact that what was done in our name was, in some sense, done for us – not with our knowledge, exactly, but arguably with our blessing. I didn’t get what I wanted from this administration, but I think you could say with some justification that I got what I asked for. And that awareness undergirds – to return to where I began this rambling post – the mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt that I bring to the current debate over what the Bush Administration has done and failed to do, and how its members should be judged.

But, to be clear, I never felt this way. Even immediately after 9/11, I felt scared by the where the collective rage and need for a pound of flesh was going to take us as a nation, especially given our leadership at the time. We, as a nation, wrote Bush a blank check and he bankrupted us. But I, and many others, were outspoken about our concerns all through this even through a lot of push-back from our conservative friends and family, and I feel no need to step back from taking our leadership to task. In this one case, I was right, and those who felt the same were right and are justified in our outrage now.

I would counter that to force responsibility on these leaders when they will not accept it for themselves is engagement. We as a national community, need to find a way to complete the narrative of the last eight years in a way that establishes the rule of law and decency for the future – whether its Nuremburg-lite, a special prosecutor, a deep truth and reconciliation process that gives us all an honest look at ourselves, or even a refusal to let Bush’s version of his tenure become the official historical record. These men did not represent the best of who we are, and more than that, they dragged us lower. This shame is theirs to own, fully and, if possible, legally.

I’m weary and depressed tonight. The physical part of it comes from looking down the long barrel of another all nighter following a full day’s worth of dev. But my main sadness is mental, and spiritual.

The Levin/McCain report just out this last week officially determined that Bush and his administration willfully set out to implement a policy of torture, replete with interrogation tactics (hypothermia, stress positions, humiliation, simulated drowning) borrowed from regimes like the Viet Cong. It’s also been clear for some time that Bush’s office tasked John Yoo and David Addington with creating a legal framework to give them cover on war crimes prosecution. Hell, Cheney brazenly admitted it to ABC News – saying directly and unequivocally “yes, I approved waterboarding and other tactics”.

Astoundingly, the media still refuses to call these methods torture, instead preferring to parrot the phrases “harsh” or “enhanced interrogation techniques”, phrases coined by the Nazis to rhetorically obfuscate their crimes. The media also seems perfectly fine to hound Obama on non-existent ties to the buffoon of an Illinois governor, while giving Karl Rove space to say, with a straight face, that Obama needs to be more transparent. And Rick Warren, champion of “Biblical principles”, still cannot bring himself to condemn Bush’s moral failure.

Millions are losing their homes from predatory lending. Our hard-earned tax dollars are being flushed away into the coffers of the same crooks and incompetents that got us into this mess.

These aren’t abstractions. These are families and lives shattered by war, injury, financial failure, fear. These are wounds to the soul and psyche that will take a generation to heal.

Bush is off to a mansion in Dallas, Cheney to a massive personal fortune and ranch in Wyoming, Rove to a leadership spot in the GOP and a commentator on Fox, the media baboons to their six-figure incomes, the incompetents to other circles of power and wealth, Rick Warren to his prestigious pastorship.

We have been let down by our leaders, our truth-finders, our men of God. And for what? Who is left to make an answer for all this besides the bloodied victims and an outrage-numbed and distracted public?

I’m thinking on the 73rd Psalm. Its baffled anguish resonates and feels deeply true.

I know that Bush is the lamest of lame ducks, beyond what we’d normally see in a transition, but Obama’s announcements of his security team yesterday cast Bush’s feeble skills and petty partisan weaselhood into even sharper relief.

After the announcement, I read some pundits drawing equivalence between Obama’s selection of heavy hitters and Bush’s selection of experienced hands when he took office, trying to inflate concern that Obama’s picks might mask the same kind of self-congratulatory ignorance that has characterized Bush’s governing of, well, just about anything he’s ever done. To which I say, are you frickin’ serious? Can they be that naive, comparing leadership by merely comparing staff resumes?

Bush’s brash confidence was plastic and un-self-examined, born of a lifetime of entitlement, and his hubris was magnified to terrible purportions in his administration because he stocked it with similarly hubristic managers. Bush has had to win nothing, to take responsibility for nothing – he’s only been given toys to break his whole life.

Obama’s confidence is a deep self-trust born from a lifetime of skill-building and introspection, achievement and hard work, and he naturally exhibits an air of poise and command. He’s comfortable with himself as the leader of this team not because he feels entitled to power, but because he won every inch of ground that was necessary to take that position, and has become more human in the process. This has allowed him to pick a team that is strong-willed and diverse, one that will encourage debate rather than quash it, as the internal Bush team did in such a dangerous way.

Without Obama even taking office, his sure-footed decisions have revealed how horrifying it is that we’ve been at the mercy of the “Decider” for the last eight long years. Obama’s is the shadow government everyone is looking to right now, and already feels more real, more adult, more reflective of American values than Bush’s administration ever has.

So says BagNewsNotes in comparing and contrasting images of Obama and Bush today.

Barack and Michelle took the girls to serve in a food line at a local church where the Obamas have served food in years past.

After seeing a “We Love Our Prez” sign in the school next door, they decided to make an unscheduled stop to talk to the kids.

Obama said that if they worked hard and treated their family and community with respect, they too “could become President some day”.

More images of the Obama’s service day here.

How many tens of thousands will be inspired to donate $$ and time this holiday season solely because of this simple gesture?

In a 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters, Obama said he thought it was only decent that the executives forgo their bonuses knowing they are laying off people. Michelle said they asked the White House staff to not do everything for the girls because they wanted them to “do their own chores” like making their beds, etc. Barack said that he was trying to figure out a way to pierce the “Washington bubble” around the President because “one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day”.

It’s about setting a tone.

P.S. I don’t know what it is about Obama, but kids love the hell out of him. Amira loves saying his name and always yells it out when she sees it on TV. And it’s not because we talk about him incessantly (this blog not withstanding..).

I guess the meme is in the air. Just after last night’s post about us electing Obama in the hopes that basic decency and personal values, intellectual curiosity and a connection to life here on the American streets will be enough to stem the tide that’s against us, Ta-Nehisi (a fellow Gen-X writer at the Atlantic) puts out a great deja vu post about why he voted for Obama:

I don’t know if George Bush is the worst president ever, but his legacy is appalling. What I saw, from my vantage point, was a government of suited thugs who squelched dissent and were intolerant of debate. Virtually everything about the last eight years, stands in direct contrast to everything I learned growing up in my parents house–work hard, be self-reflective, be intelligent, read until your eyes fall out, be honest etc. I supported Obama because, and this is weird to say, I thought he reflected my family values–I thought he represented in the world, the way I’d want my son to represent. I thought he was thick-skinned, deliberative, self-reflective, confident and an avid consumer of information…

Look, it all comes down to this. I believed Obama was the candidate least likely to fly over an American city in the midst of destruction, and appear days later only to tell his point-man he’d done a great job. The most important thing for me is for the leadership of this country to throw off anti-intellectualism and get down to business. I won’t ever know the most intricate details of government policy, and smite me should I ever write like I do. But as a voter, and I guess as a blogger, I knew I wanted someone in the White House who would be able to process all of those details–I wanted someone who was an intellectual, who had a supple mind, and saw no contrast between being a thinking man, and loving Monday Night Football. It’s small, but it’s what I wanted. And it’s why, so far, I’m not terribly disappointed. When it comes down to it, man, I just wanted shit to work again.

Exactly. I also largely voted for Obama because, after watching his brilliant organizational intelligence and his deliberate strategic style of three-dimensional chess, I knew he’d be the best possible choice to get us out of this mess and restore some kind of stability. And he has not disappointed. Anyone with the innate self-assuredness to pick three of his most formidable rivals for VP and Cabinet with the goal of getting things done is just flat-out someone who’s gonna do big things.

I’m mystified by the need of conservatives, liberals and the media to try and shoehorn his behavior into some kind of familiar meme – centrist, liberal, moderate, whatever. It’s this dogmatic, shrill, everyone-in-line kind of political fundamentalism that has been so disastrous for us over the last eight years. Even now, in this financial crisis, Republicans are STILL harping on tax cuts and less spending in the face of pretty much every rational economist agreeing we’re going to have to spend our way out of this.

Obama is a thoroughly post-modern leader. He seems impatient with the rigid categories set up during the last 30-40 years of ideological tug-of-war and wants to do what works – not what is ideologically pure. He has a kind of intuitive, humanitarian-focused pragmatism as his guiding governing philosophy, and has what I think is a healthy distrust of the rhetorical and political straitjackets that are created by adhering too closely to one creed or another.

And that is exactly what makes him so recognizably American. Because that’s how we are. There are very few ultra-pure ideologues in our populace, and because of our richly checkered cultural and political melting pot, we are not locked into having to battle through layers and centuries of class and culturals norms like many other countries are. It’s one of our major strengths and a reason the world finds us so attractive. And now we have a President that embodies that inherent, satisfying tension of many diverse stories jostling together, creating friction, creating debate, creating progress.

When Janece and I were first dating, the only model for calling each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” were other relationships around us that were co-dependent, manipulative or otherwise just icky. So we came up with our own labels – “boypal” and “girlpal”. We felt obviously more romantically engaged than friends, but we didn’t want to feel or treat each other like what we saw around us. People thought it was kinda strange, but those new labels helped us find balance we wanted together. Same with our name change.

So, I get it. Obama is doing exactly the right thing – following his own impressive instincts and being perfectly comfortable with letting the chattering classes roil and stew. There’s work to be done, and the labels of the last 40 years just aren’t up to the task. It time for something new, it’s time for change.

PS. Barack sez “I can do whatever I like!”