Republican campaign tactics have seemed to lack a certain gravitas of late, but it wasn’t until they began to resort to outright mockery that said tactics began to look particularly desperate. It honestly seems as if McCain’s camp has been able to find so little with which to hang Obama, that they’ve opted, instead, simply to employ easily refutable arguments premised, apparently, on the hope that no one will watch or read the news. Ever.
So, it turns out I was really wrong about that guy. It is still a bit heartbreaking that someone could look at a person like that and yet it meant nothing. Lesson learned, I suppose. Instead of dwelling on the impossibility of men, let’s talk about politics, shall we?
Perhaps I was just naive or we as a country were, but when I was younger it did not seem like political parties would so brazenly lie to the public. It felt like they would think twice about flooding the media with misinformation in an attempt to obfuscate their own misdeeds. It seemed like the media was truly concerned about ferreting out truths and not just mastering the razzle dazzle of soft journalism. I wonder if Watergate would even have been found out today, or if Nixon would have been able to effectively spin his way out of it.
However, I know politicians have always lied, so perhaps I am nostalgic for politicos who respected our democracy enough to bother to do it well. Or perhaps I miss politicians who, at the very least, possessed a strong enough grasp of the elements at play to effectively manipulate perception. How cynical is that?
For eight long years, we have had someone in office who has arrogantly flouted his responsibilities to all the American people, and not just his corporate cronies or the people who voted for him. We have had someone who is too obtuse and too proudly incurious to comprehend fully the issues with which he must grapple or the human lives in his charge. Is there anything more galling than being condescended to by an idiot? This is a man who celebrates his bizarrely simplistic thinking. This is a man who has spent most of his two terms on vacation.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, I just want to thank Barack for signaling the possibility of a new kind of politics.
So unless you’ve been living under some sort of judiciary rock, then you know the Supreme Court ruled today 5-4 in favor of overturning the 28-year-old Washington D.C. ban on hand guns. This, of course, is a wonderful day for gun enthusiasts, proud NRA members, and the generally ornery. As for the rest of us, it seems much remains to be seen. While the NRA begins filing law suits all over the country to overturn past judicial rulings which imposed limits on gun rights, it seems worth considering, just from a general common sense perspective, exactly why the court ruled in this manner, and just what it means.
First of all, the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. Without delving too deeply into the history books, we can, at least, recall that a number of realities of daily life have changed significantly since that time. Most notably, perhaps, the fear amongst individual states that the Federal government would overstep their bounds and violate the basic tenets of Unification. This stark reality was reason enough for Americans to seek and secure the right to own guns in some manner, whether or not you understand the Second Amendment to be referring specifically to a militia or not. Desperate times demand desperate militias.
In 2008, the above seems at least overly romantic, if not downright preposterous to my lily-livered arse. The government has systematically overstepped it’s bounds a legion of times in the intervening 207 years, and yet the only offense ever deemed worthy of revolt was when they tried to put a stop to slavery. Props to the North for having some guns of their own lying around!
Still, since the Civil War ended in 1865, most of us seem to have begun expressing ourselves through political mechanisms or largely peaceful resistance. Though we certainly faced our share of struggle throughout the late 19th, 20th and now 21st centuries, that revolutionary spirit now seems, for the most part, like something from a bygone era.
Everyone who doesn’t fall into the above two categories, which by current estimates amounts to roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population, for some reason fails to arouse the sort of fundraising enthusiasm evident in the National Rifle Association (or even your average criminal defense lobby). The experience for this population at the center is a rather murky one, and it is sadly rather hard to quantify the effect of the American love affair with guns as it relates to them.
Certainly gun deaths affect family members and friends who don’t fall into categories 1 or 2 above. Certainly the facts support the notion that guns make violent encounters more violent and more potentially life threatening. Certainly in neighborhoods where gun violence is prevalent, the climate of fear for non-gun-owning residents is also a very real phenomena, though it is probably one of the toughest realties to quantify. Given this, it’s no surprise that average folks will opt to draw some anecdotal conclusions about the recent Supreme Court decision. My conclusions follow:
1) Washington D.C. is and was a very violent city. 2) Between 1976 and yesterday, it was, at least, safe to assume that anyone carrying a gun in D.C. was a criminal. 3) Many other cities throughout the country have not outlawed handguns, yet they continue to enjoy demoralizing crime rates. In most of these cities, by my last check, the gun-owners, have not mobilized and brought their firearms to the aid of the innocent citizenry in their municipalities. 4) D.C. will now join those cities where it is NOT safe to assume that a person carrying a gun is a criminal. Also, it will be safe to continue assuming that there will not be an armed citizen revolt against criminals in any city. 5) Maybe this all adds up to a net wash, but I think policing gun crimes just got a little more difficult, and it will just get worse.
To sum up, while I would love to pick a fight with the NRA, that is not my intention. In fact, based on my recent NPR listening, it sounds like the guys (yes, only 10% are women) who love their hunting rifles and home protection pistolas, are really not the key problem. Still, while I’m no Antonin Scalia, I find ZERO resemblance between the current pro-gun movement and the early Americans for whom the Second Amendment was written. Instead, the public face of the NRA appears to pursue their agenda with a dogged selfishness which seems to come at the expense of the safety of ALL Americans.
To co-opt a little quote from George W. Bush, I say, if you’re a gun owner who is not part of the solution, then you are either anecdotally or implicitly part of the problem. I say, the Second Amendment addresses the rights of militias, so why the hell aren’t you guys mobilizing your guns and man-power and working for us? I say, as long as your Second Amendment rights are being re-affirmed and expanded, then you owe the rest of us something in return.
You’ve been granted a great victory on this day, so get moving! Get out there and kick some ass with those awesome guns of yours! I’m sure we’ll all feel safer knowing you’re out there.
Either that or I suppose we can dredge up the tired-old argument that a conservative Supreme Court might actually have some dilatory effects on society as we know it.
Okay. So Clearly I had some very concrete expectations as to how the weather was going to be this morning when I walked outside my house. In short, I expected it would be really, really hot. Like, you know, hellfire kinda hot. I guess I also expected to hear some sort of booming macho voice shouting down from the heavens explaining that you get what you pay for.
Oddly, around 7am there was the usual squirrel fight in my backyard, and now at nearly 10am, I’m hearing quite a few birds chirping, but astoundingly few other signs of the apocalypse. I think I’m gonna wait to post this for a few hours. This could just be the calm before the inevitable storm.
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Uh. Hmm. It’s 2-ish now. That should have been enough time. Did I mention that THESE TWO LADIES GOT MARRIED!?
There’s gotta be a logical explanation. Do you think maybe a certain all-knowing ethereal being upstairs just forgot which day this law went into effect? Maybe tomorrow we’ll be rocking some hellfire? Yeah?
So as of this writing, the first few gay couples in Los Angeles and San Francisco are counting down the last butterflies-in-the-stomach minutes before they officially tie the knot and start rocking out some marital bliss.
But before the moment of truth, I wanted to go on record with a preemptive ”I told you so” before the sun rises tomorrow and we find ourselves living in a new kind of hell on earth, flush with fire, brimstone, and probably a few folks who have fallen down the slippery slope and opted to marry their house pet instead of a human (thanks for the warning Rick Santorum!).
Of course, if none of that happens tomorrow, then I guess I’ll have some egg on my face. Like if it turns out to be just another day wherein people go to work, bitch about gas prices and the war, then go home with some take-out chinese food to watch a marathon of The Deadliest Catch, then I suppose we’ll all look pretty stupid for complaining so much about gay marriage.
But really, come on. Let’s be realistic. It’s obviously gonna be the fire and brimstone option I’m sure. We’re totally overdue for some of that stuff. Seriously. How could it not end in a hell on earth with all the damnation and the whatnot?
“The passing of Tim Russert throws into high relief this country’s lack of steadfastly reasonable and fair reporting.”
I got home from a show at Glasslands late last night and ended up watching an in memoriam show for Tim Russert featuring Tom Brokaw, James Carville, Mary Matalin, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gwen Ifill, Mike Barnicle, Betsy Fischer (Executive Producer of “Meet the Press”) and Maria Shriver (who, I’m sorry, is one of the scariest-looking people alive today).
Obviously, I never knew Tim Russert personally, but my sense of him from his show and from what others have said about him is that he was truly an exceptional person, immensely respected and hugely influential. Russert was principled, curious, intelligent and unafraid to ask real and difficult questions and to expect real and complex answers.
Few journalists demand accountability from politicians or press them for answers instead of evasions, but Russert’s genuine interest and faith in politics and in people garnered him not only respect from people all over the political spectrum, but also goodwill and trust. According to his friends and colleagues, he was fiercely loyal and rejoiced in other people’s successes.
“Meet the Press” drove the news cycle and set the bar on reporting. If a fraction of news sources in the U.S. cleaved to that level of integrity, research and honesty, I wouldn’t have to watch the BBC World News to find out what’s happening in my own country.
James Carville did not actually cry (on camera) but he got very choked up. So did Brokaw (I’m pretty sure he cried when the camera cut away). So did Mike Barnicle. Mary Matalin was definitely teary-eyed, and at one point you could see a crumpled tissue in her hand, but what got me the most was how James Carville, one of the craziest, hardest, wiliest consultant-pundits ever, held onto her hand so tightly looking simply devastated. The outpouring of emotion Tim Russert evoked, who he was, what he did and what he stood for, was really moving.
I always scoffed when people mourned the death of Princess Diana with near-religious fervor. I suppose they identified with her or felt sorry for her. I do know she did a lot of good work towards eradicating land mines and with AIDS patients, but honestly people, she was not exceptional, because other people have done the same or more. She was famous for her pedigree and marriage, and the attention she received for her admirable charitable work has been inaccurately remembered as the impetus for the adoration lavished upon her.
Tim Russert was truly a force for good in this country, an example of civility and meaningful dialogue in a country overrun with pre-packaged sound bytes, empty rhetoric, macho posturing, pissing contests and shouting matches. I know this entry may seem overly effusive or exaggerated, but if nothing else, the passing of Tim Russert throws into high relief this country’s lack of steadfastly reasonable and fair reporting.
Tom Brokaw called Tim Russert “authentic” and in this day and age, that’s one of the highest compliments a person can receive.
Tim Russert, most beloved host of “Meet the Press”, died this morning of a heart attack at age 58. He will be sorely missed as his was one of the few voices of reason in the media.
Here’s a stellar clip we found on The Huffington Post of a Fox News reporter trying to ambush Bill Moyers. The backlash from his fellow journalists is priceless:
This is, hands down, one of the great moments in punditry. And since we’re gonna keep hearing about this subject of appeasement at the hands of plenty more talk radio buffoons and 527 groups targeting our man Barack, a little refresher course seems timely:
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