Now Is the Time

I need someone to explain to me why we must so diligently defend the right to own a gun.

No, really. Someone please explain it to me. Real reasons.

I confess up-front: I hate guns. They are instruments of death, created only for the purpose of injury or killing. That said, I understand that some people need guns to protect themselves or their families from wild animals. I understand that some people need to hunt in order to eat. I understand that some people live in places where they don’t feel safe unless they have one. I have a bit of trouble with that last part, because I don’t think owning a deadly weapon should be a safety blanket, but I don’t live somewhere where I feel I need a gun, so I won’t claim I understand.

But here is the amendment so many people so vociferously and sometimes ferociously defend:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Why do we always seem to forget about the first half of that amendment and insist on the second half? A well regulated militia securing a free state. Also known as the military and law enforcement. Not everybody and their brother. Everybody and their brother are not a well regulated militia. 

What has happened so many times in our country is not just about the second amendment. It’s about a lot of things. But it does have a lot to do with guns, because the other potential reasons – the breakdown of family, the secularization of society, generational poverty, lack of opportunity, the glorification of violence in mass media – none of those things cause murder with spoons or sticks. Mental illness is a global problem – it does not discriminate based on age or gender, nationality or creed, geography or income level. I will always, always advocate for the mentally ill. I will always insist that we remove the stigma of those who are unwell. I could and might write a whole separate post about it. But there have always been the mad among us… yet there have not always been these kinds of mad acts. Proof of this exists in the numbers of gun-related deaths around the world. My God, we have so many more. And so, so many unsolved. Welcome to America: you’re free to fire. Wave that flag.

And it’s not that I don’t love my country. In fact, it’s the opposite. I love my country so much that I want to stop proving to the world how much tragedy we allow under the guise of defending words ratified 221 years ago (December 15, 1791), presently pushed in the name of commerce, trade and lobbying. There hasn’t always been easy access to guns. But we’ve already slid down the slippery slope. We already have literally hundreds of millions of guns in this country – I heard one estimate that there’s one for every man, woman and child.

The Constitution, the Bill of Rights – these are not the Bible. These are not the infallible words of God. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written by human beings trying to extricate themselves from a king. They had rifles that had to be loaded through the barrel with a tamp, and pistols that puffed smoke when they fired. Bring back Jefferson, bring back Adams, bring back Hamilton and Franklin and all the undersigned, and I swear to God they would all tell us we’re out of our minds for letting everybody who wants to own a gun do so in these times when we are not trying to beat back Redcoats in front of the farm. I swear to God they would want to know how all the people who walk into gun shows and all the people who thrill at the power of the weapon in their hands constitute a well regulated militia.

We are wrong about the Second Amendment. We. Are. Wrong.

But we have slid down the slope, so I can be reasonable. Can gun rights advocates be reasonable, too? I won’t take away your right to own a handgun or a shotgun. But I for damned sure am done with your supposed right to own anything more, or to own, frankly, more than one or two. I am done with your supposed right to own more than ten rounds of regular, non-armor piercing, non-hollow point ammunition for a handgun, or the average number of shotgun shells needed to bag your family’s dinner for a month. It’s just not reasonable. It’s not. And I declare this forcefully because no one has ever been able to explain to me why it is.

Twenty-eight mass shootings since April 1999 and Columbine. Twenty-eight. And every time, those who advocate for gun rights say “now is not the time… don’t politicize the tragedy… guns don’t kill people – people kill people.” I’m done with it. NOW IS THE TIME. Make it political, because gun rights are political. The NRA can go to hell. Twenty children are dead. 

I’m done.

 

Newtown

I was grumpy today. I didn’t even realize it until I was at the chiropractor and she was being pushy and I didn’t have the grace to entertain it. I was worried about a sudden $1300 medical bill I didn’t expect, and the fact that my washer won’t spin and the clothes have had to be wrung out by hand before I could put them in the dryer.

Then I got a text from my sister, asking if it was really true that 18 kids had been shot to death in a Connecticut elementary school.

I feel many things, like all of us do, but mostly I feel so tired. Enough now. Enough. I have stopped asking why things like these happen. There is no reason. Reason implies logic, and there is nothing logical to mass murder, regardless of the ages of the victims. There may be explanations, and we may learn more as time goes on. We may come to greater understandings about the gunman’s disturbed motivations. And there may be causes. Contributing factors.

But there is no reason.

My nephews are five. That’s how old a lot of the victims were. I can’t even imagine their parents sitting home tonight with Christmas trees sparkling and gifts hidden for a child who won’t open them. An elf perched on a shelf to make sure she doesn’t misbehave. The beginnings of a college fund somewhere in a bank. 

There will be no Christmas in Newtown, Connecticut this year.

What hurts us the most as a society is the innocence of these victims. Too young to have done anything wrong yet. Too small to have harmed a soul. Too sweet, too round-faced, too bright-eyed, too soft.The worst things they’ve done was to kick a sister or color on a wall or break a mother’s heart heading off to school as time requires. No one deserves a day like this. But all of us have things for which we must account when we meet our final judgment. These children had nothing to confess.

Children are the hope of the old, the frightened, the lost, the weary. Children are the hope of nations. The world got dimmer today. The night is not as bright.

The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels.

And there is no reason.

A Note Before You Vote

You didn’t think you were going to get to Tuesday without another political post from me, did you?

Just a few things to think about before you head to the polls… provided you didn’t vote early.

Who Do You Really Dislike?
Not as in hate. As in, if you have a problem in the political sense, with whom does that problem truly sit? Here’s why I ask: we do a great job making a big deal out of the presidential election. And we should. It’s hugely important. But it’s not the only important thing. There’s also Congress.

Food for thought: Since January 2009 when President Obama was inaugurated, his lowest approval rating was 41% (March 2012). His highest was 57% (May 2011 – right after Osama bin Laden was killed).

Since January 2009, Congress’s lowest approval rating was 10% (August 2012). Its highest was 39% (March 2009).

That means that President Obama’s very lowest approval rating was better than Congress’s very highest. And when the nation was least happy with him, he had still satisfied four times as many people as Congress had.

My point is, a shocking number of people don’t know who represents them in Congress. Given that, they can’t possibly know what that person stands for, how they vote, what positions they take in politically touchy situations, from whom they take money, to whom they’re beholden. So why are we all so angry when they don’t do what we think they should?

The country’s problems are not all about its presidents, and we should pay much more attention to our representatives and senators. If you want to see who your congressperson is, go to www.house.gov/representatives/find/  and you can plug in your zip code to find out. If you want to know how they’ve voted on issues and bills, go to www.opencongress.org. Do it before Tuesday, because they’re all up for re-election. Congressional representatives are elected every two years. If you discover too late that you don’t like what you see, you have two years to keep track of them and get it right next time.

What’s Really A Distraction?
One of the most common refrains this campaign season has been that insert Issue That’s Hurting Party A — here – is a “distraction” put up by Party B. But not everyone finds the same things distracting. In fact, some of us find some of those so-called “distractions” pretty important. There is more than one issue facing this country. It’s not just about the economy. It’s not just about jobs. It’s not just about regulation or deregulation. Or taxes. Or education. Or immigration. Or women’s health. Or abortion. Or federal funding for programs. It’s about all of those things, and to say otherwise is insulting. Don’t dismiss an issue out-of-hand simply because you didn’t feel like listening to the discussion. And don’t allow your leaders to do it, either.

And Speaking Of Self-Interest…
One of the things that disappoints me most about people in general and about American politics specifically is that everything happens because of money. I don’t just mean campaign fundraising or Congressional budgets. Money pushes policy we would otherwise think objectionable on more than one level. I think it’s compromising our (dare I say) moral standard as a union. This is particularly true of political decisions that hurt the communities they affect, rather than helping them. For example: the casino built on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. The west side is poor. The casino is there because the people were powerless to stop it, unlike residents in other parts of the city. And the area around it has only declined. Similar example: Atlantic City. Been there? It’s a hole. The flash of the lights keeps your attention away from the crumbling infrastructure and dilapidated homes. (No jokes about Sandy, please – I have a deep connection to the Jersey Shore, despite my opinion of AC.)

And more and more, we as individuals seem to think only of ourselves. It’s natural to vote one’s interests, but there seems to be a growing insistence that one’s own interests be the only interests one must consider. “Give me everything, or give me death.” Sometimes I find myself wondering whatever happened to the inspiration that came from President Kennedy’s simple call: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Let’s not forget that this is a nation forged in the interest of the greater good, and for everyone’s rights equally. Not just yours.

Yes, Your Vote Does Count
It’s easy to get discouraged when your political leanings are opposite those of your fellow state residents. It’s easy to feel like no one will miss your opinion at the polls. But in a population of 1,000, twenty such opinions can change a race entirely. Yep, just two percent. In 2004, President George W. Bush only got 3,000,176 more votes than John Kerry. Two percent.

But about 21,000,000 registered voters stayed home.

So this is it. I’ve smacked you around with political posts for more than 16 months. I’ve gotten myself worked up. I’ve chased my tail and shaken my head. I’ve done my best (through absolutely no mandate at all from any of you) to share what I hoped were informative and at least mildly entertaining breakdowns. And now we have arrived at the doorstep of yet another moment in American history.

Be part of it.

Vote.

Early Voting: My First Experience

I suppose the second cup of coffee was ill-advised.

I still haven’t closed on the house. To recap: it was set for Tuesday. Then the Atlantic Ocean got all pissed off and the lending banks were like, “Whoa.” Then it was going to be Wednesday. Then it was going to be Thursday. Then it was “looking like” Friday. Then  they said, “it’ll almost definitely be Monday.” Now I’ve just gotten a call saying it’ll probably be Wednesday, because the appraiser insisted on a second look after the storm. Which doesn’t make sense, because shouldn’t that be the inspector?

Fine. Whatever. I just need to lie down.

I had a therapy session with Ali Velshi today, appropriately. I have realized in the last two visits with him that one of the tells of my anxious highs is that I talk a freaking mile a minute. I already talk fast, but whew. My previous therapist (Ali Velshi is my second) used to point it out to me when I was “zooming.” Ali Velshi hasn’t really taken that tack yet, though I did catch him eyeing my foot as I twirled it around and around and around while I talked to him. Unfortunately, what I do for a living and the people I work for are very unforgiving, and that is actually the greater part of the stress. Everyone gets stressed buying a house, and plenty of people have had far worse setbacks than I have. Hell, I could have closed on a house at the Jersey Shore on Friday. It’s work that compounds the problem for me.

Yesterday, after I ran out of boxes and bubble wrap, I turned around in circles in my living room a couple of times before I told myself aloud that I could go vote. And so I did.

What an entertaining hour that was.

It bears noting that this is my first time voting in my particular area, where I’ve only lived for two years. Sadly, this means I have nothing with which to compare the amusement of yesterday’s outing. Usually, I walk in on election day around 9am and it takes all of 15 minutes. Early voting isn’t really my thing – I prefer the patriotic, Sorkinesque rush of the shared First Tuesday In November experience to the wah-wah that it becomes after people have already done their civic duty days or weeks in advance. But alas, since the bank, work, Mother Nature and the universe are conspiring to kill me on or before November 6th, off I went.

If the signage can’t properly direct me to the where I should park for early voting, we’re off to a bad start. Just sayin’.

Eventually, though, I found the appropriate lot, and entered what used to be a school building and is now used for police and fire training to find an environment not unlike what I imagine Soviet Russia to be. Which, you have to grant, is ironic.

Don’t get me wrong. It actually went very smoothly. But first, we were corralled into a former gymnasium full of rows of chairs. Everything was painted cinderblock. Colors were drab. The chairs were Machiavellian. (I’m mixing metaphors. Deal with it.) We all had to sit next to each other – no empty chairs between voters, for the sake of the republic. And I’m fine with that, but not everyone else was. The election officials kept asking, “Is this an empty seat?” as if it were some sort of outrage.

Every so often, they’d take the first row of congregants. The rest of us didn’t know where those people went. It was kind of scary. But when they’d take the first row, then everybody had to get up and move exactly one row up from their previous seated position.

Can I tell you something? It’s troubling that not everyone can handle this kind of “upset.”

The woman next to me was one of those people.

“What?! Oh, hell naw. No. Why it have to be like this?” she wanted to know.

Lady, just effing move up one seat. This is not hard. Do it.

While a small child wailed behind me and her mother continued a conversation on her cell phone, we played the musical chairs game. Sans music. I will admit that my eyes were directed almost entirely upon my phone during this wait, but only because I forgot to bring a book. Then I heard someone saying, “Take care, now,” while the click-clack of her heels reverberated through the room. I looked up.

It was the mayor.

Meh. Back to my phone. Interestingly, though she’s popular and has done a very good job (and is not up for re-election this year), no one jumped up to talk to her or shake her hand. She just walked on through.

She looks good, though. Lost a lot of weight. G’ahead, girl.

Some couple who might have come from an Eastern Bloc country kept trying to jump the line. This nearly caused bedlam. I don’t know if they genuinely didn’t understand the process or what, but I found myself mildly irritated with the people who were unhappy about it. We still all get to vote. Who the hell cares if they vote before you? 

It’s interesting to see the passions ignited at a polling place. Apparently, not only is it essential that we are given our right to vote; it is also essential that we are given our right to vote in the precise order of which we entered the building.

Settle down, y’all. Russia ain’t near closed yet.

Eventually, I was in the front row. When it was time to move me and my compatriots, we went to another holding cell, where a few people got upset about the order in which we were lined up and I remembered that I should probably just sit quietly and not try to fix anything. This is the part where random people started trying to tell the election officials how to do their jobs.

Hold up. You couldn’t handle moving up ah row. You think you can tell an election official how to keep an orderly line? You still get to vote. Even though I’m pretty sure at this point that you probably shouldn’t.

After another waiting period, we got to move into the actual voting area. There: more line issues. Apparently it’s difficult to form a line. This is the part where I started worrying about the entire voting process and wondering if dictatorship wasn’t really the best way to go. But the election official easily found me in the list of city residents and handed me my electronic card. Then I joined another line (all lines were marked by – of course- gray tape) and waited for a Trapper-Keepered voting machine to become available.

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve done my homework, so actually voting didn’t take long. There were no glitches with technology. All went well. I handed in my electronic card and left the building.

Some people in the parking lot tried to drive out the wrong way. I briefly pondered whether the police directing traffic should find out their names, go back inside, find their voting cards and pull them due to a total lack of intelligence.

But no. That’s not how this country works. Never has. It does not matter whether you are smart or not. Frankly, not everyone is blessed with the same degree of sense, common or otherwise. But everyone is granted the right to vote.

God bless America.

And I mean that.

******
PS. Know what I did while I waited to vote? Joined Twitter. Grudgingly. Follow me over on the right where you see the little birdie.

 

The Lost Art of Campaigning

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Something profound has happened in American history. Oh, we’ve seen the signs since the country was founded – campaigns have always been ugly… brutal, even… lies spread every which way about every candidate in every form of communication. That part isn’t new.

What’s new is the lies now spread about the American people.

It’s insidious. Even as much as I follow politics, I didn’t see it clearly until now.

Somewhere along the way, presidents and presidential candidates have forgotten that, in the White House, they must be the president of everyone, not just of the people who voted for them. They have become willing to throw entire groups of people away, to offend their sensibilities, their beliefs and their convictions, for the sake of currying favor with those other Americans who hold opposing views.

Elections have become less about pitting one candidate against the other and more about pitting one group of Americans against another in the name of a candidate. We’ve heard it called “the politics of fear,” and that’s accurate, but it’s usually a phrase flung forward by a candidate using it to scare their supporters away from their opponent. We’ve heard it called “class warfare” – a term that amuses me, since the last uncounted years demonstrate that class warfare has always been waged – but usually on the poor instead of the rich.

We are now in a time when greatly offensive words uttered in private fundraisers and recorded are called “inelegant” instead of what they really are: the truth of a candidate’s feelings accidentally spoken aloud. It is as true of then-candidate Obama’s “guns and religion” as it is of Mitt Romney’s “victims.” That these things were said doesn’t surprise me. Both comments offended me. In campaigning, I’m willing to call it a wash. But in the intent to govern the American people, what it truly is is a name-calling. A categorization of some Americans into “those people.”

And so when it happens, a candidate or a president has two choices: stand by it and essentially claim it as your true feeling, or back off from it and apologize for offense. Mr. Romney has done the former; the president, the latter. I don’t know which one is more sincere or more admirable, but I do know which one acknowledges offense and error (albeit after the fact).

It is no coincidence that these uncovered utterances happen at private fundraisers. It is, after all, money that is king in a republic meant not to have one. It is in front of $30,000-a-plate diners that candidates are willing to make those less elegant feelings known, so they can gather funds from the people who agree. Until they’re in office, they speak only to friendly audiences.

But of course, all candidates, all people, have their biases. We’ve heard it in decades-old tapes of Presidents Nixon and Johnson in the Oval Office. It is the information age, the age of global media and the internet, that have laid those biases bare in campaigns in recent years. Maybe nothing has really changed at all, and it’s just that we know about it all now. But the Observer Effect tells us that the act of observing a phenomenon or event changes the phenomenon or event. So the fact that the American people can now hear and see these biases will change the way campaigns are run, the way we vote, and the way we are governed.

It was the Great Communicator, the Republicans’ sainted and oft-invoked Ronald Reagan, who first understood that we were coming into a global media atmosphere. His speeches stirred the masses because they found them inspiring. Are we inspired now by the messages we hear? And if so, what are we inspired to do? Are we inspired to support a candidate because he reinforces our distrust of a group we consider opposed to us?

If so, that’s the wrong way to be inspired. On either side. And it is our responsibility to be aware of that.

Somewhere in the fairly recent past, politicians came to believe that the key to getting elected is to make us distrustful of one another. It’s what spurred the sea change of the 2010 congressional elections. It is what’s driving this presidential campaign. It is an engine of its own, churning so mightily in Congress that it is propelling those who used to be moderates either out to the margins or out of their offices voluntarily, if not by elective force. Politicians believe that this is what we want.

And we’re proving it, every time we vote a moderate out of office. It may be the single greatest unintended consequence of American government: the sacrifice of our government’s ability to work together.

I didn’t divulge the name of the person I quoted at the beginning of this post for a reason. He was a contentious figure, one regarded as vitriolically partisan. And he was not a politician. I didn’t divulge his name because I wanted to see how many people who might philosophically disagree with him would in fact agree with at least this statement, without knowing the speaker’s leanings. Sometimes I think we could use more of that kind of decision-making – the kind that eliminates party or platform, that takes “those people” out of the message and speaks simply to common sense, even though common sense can differ.

It was common sense, and a common goal of independence and the betterment of man, that created this country.

Perhaps that is what we need to sustain it.

 

 

Benghazi

Four Americans are dead, including an ambassador. I am frightened and terribly saddened by what has happened, which looks, in Libya, increasingly like a planned attack to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.

And I have lost all respect for Mitt Romney.

My regular readers will know that I have spent a lot of time watching, reading, analyzing and writing about the presidential campaign, starting with the very first Republican primary debate. And along the way, I have been careful to be informative, and sometimes funny, and often snarky, but I usually have not revealed for whom I would vote in the end. That’s partly because I am fair-minded, partly because I don’t think my readers want to read a bunch of partisan acrimony, and partly because I truly didn’t know for whom I would vote.

I made up my mind a few months ago, and without saying what my decision was, I can tell you now that I will not be voting for Mr. Romney, because he demonstrated to me in his response to the incidents at the Cairo Embassy and the US Consulate in Benghazi that he does not understand what it means to be commander-in-chief, nor does he remember what it means to be anything other than a campaigner.

The Obama and Romney campaigns had agreed: for the 24 hours of September 11, 2012, there would be no negative attacks on each other.

At 10:09pm that day, the Romney campaign released a statement. It was in response to a statement issued by the Embassy in Cairo hours before. That embassy’s statement dealt with what the Embassy sensed was mounting unrest over a film from an American producer that depicts the prophet Muhammed (in itself offensive to Muslims) as, among other things, a philanderer. Here is the full statement from the Embassy, which was first picked up via internet around noon on Tuesday, EDT (6pm Cairo time, and 12 hours after it was initially released):

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

Six hours after the statement’s initial release, protestors had gathered around the embassy. Four and a half hours after that, the embassy confirmed that its wall had been breached and its American flag removed. Thirty minutes after that came the reports of clashes at the US Consulate in Benghazi and the possible death of one US official.

It was five hours after that that Mr. Romney’s campaign released his statement. It was embargoed until midnight, meaning no one was allowed to publish it until then – so the campaign could adhere to its agreement not to attack the president on September 11th.

But the campaign lifted the embargo at 10:25pm.

Here is the campaign’s full statement, posted on its website:

I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.

It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

(There is a timeline of events at the end of this post; I urge you to read it. I think it will clarify much of what’s happened. I think you’ll find some of it very interesting, and I suspect we will hear much more about the first and last elements of the timeline in coming days.)

We could parse whether the Embassy’s statement was sympathetic to the attackers or not. The factual problem was this: one minute after Mr. Romney’s campaign released its statement, the White House told Politico that it had not approved the embassy’s statement, and that the statement did not reflect the position of the US Government. The Obama Administration had not made that statement – it was made by a public affairs officer at the embassy on his own.

But that wasn’t all that was wrong.

My visceral reaction when I first learned of what had happened and what Mr. Romney had said 15 hours before my post remains with me now: You do not come out with an attack on the president in the midst of an immediate crisis in which American lives are in danger or lost. I do not care that it’s the height of a political campaign. I do not care who is in the White House, Republican or Democrat. You voice heartfelt empathy for those who are in danger, those who have died, and their families. You stand in unity with all Americans, and you reiterate that justice will be served.

And then you shut the hell up, because you are not the President of the United States, and you do not know nearly as much as he knows.

But it didn’t stop there. The next morning (Wednesday), and in fact all day long, Mr. Romney, faced with questions of whether he had spoken too soon or been too critical, doubled down on his statement, insisting that he was right, that the president was wrong, and doing so even after the early-morning confirmation that four Americans were dead, including Ambassador John Christopher Stevens.

Mr. Romney, like anyone else, has the right to disagree with a decision from the president. But given that he wants the job, he should act presidential. And his behavior is not presidential, nor is it well-informed. It is stubborn, it is brash, it is disrespectful and it is tone deaf.

I am so, so saddened that this is where we are.

Mr. Romney’s statements were designed as a play for votes.

This is not a time to play.

******
A timeline of the events leading up to, including, and following the incidents in Cairo and Benghazi (Source: Fox News)

Monday, 9/10. 11:46pm – Video by Ayman Al Zawahiri of Al Qaeda surfaces, mourning death of a top Al Qaeda member killed in a June drone strike. Zawahiri calls fighters to avenge his death. Video cuts to file footage of Zawahiri’s brother, Mohammed Al Zawahiri. Analysts note the choice of footage

Tuesday, 9/11 (early) – Embassy in Cairo prepares for expected protests over anti-Islam video made in US. Associated Press quotes US official: “Embassy security had sent most staff home early after learning of the upcoming protest.”

6am (noon Cairo) – Cairo embassy officials release statement about video condemning “continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”

noon – Statement seen online, linked on Twitter

12:15pm – wires alert that Cairo protestors are scaling walls of embassy, tearing down US flag and replacing with Islamic flag resembling Al Qaeda flag. Witnesses report hearing chants of “We are all Usama.”

4:29pm – Embassy official’s tweet confirms breach of wall

5:00pm – Wires report clashes at consulate in Benghazi, Libya; reports that one US official may be dead

6:30pm – Cairo Embassy tweets “This morning’s condemnation (issued before the protest began) still stands, as does our condemnation of the breach.”

10:09pm – Romney campaign releases statement embargoed until midnight: “I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi… It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

10:10pm – Obama administration tells Politico that the Cairo embassy statement “was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States Government.”

10:25pm – Romney campaign lifts embargo on Romney statement

Wednesday, 9/12, after midnight – original Cairo embassy statement, subsequent tweets removed from embassy website and Twitter account

12:09am – Obama campaign spokesman emails reporters: “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.”

5:30am – Confirmation that US Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other staff members are dead in Benghazi attack

9:00am – Sec. Hillary Clinton speaks at State Dept., says attack was “by small and savage group,” not the Libyan government and not Muslims as a people

10:16am – Romney addresses attacks and his own criticism, reiterating and defending previous statement

10:42am – President Obama address from Rose Garden, condemns in “strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack.”

12:30pm – Intelligence officials confirm Ayman Al Zawahiri’s brother Mohammed was at protest in Cairo

 

KONY 2012

There are new ways to wage wars.

The Arab Spring has shown us that social media can be used for a power greater than gossip or banality.

The link below will take you to a powerful piece of production. Production value sometimes makes us trust the message less. “How is it so slick,” we ask, “if it’s so dire?”

But if you can suspend that for 30 minutes, if you can give that time, you will understand so much more.

 

 

 

 

You will learn who Joseph Kony is and what he is doing. You will wonder how it’s even possible.

 

 

If you think it does not merit involvement, your sentiment will not be without precedent.

 

 

You cannot un-know.

 

Make Joseph Kony famous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

What We’re Not Hearing

Confession: my last post was half-assed. Like the candidates themselves, I wasn’t really into it, and even though I figured out a direction to go in, I could have done it better.

I know. You’re devastated. You feel let down. You don’t trust me anymore.

I guess I can run for office now.

Going forward, though, I’m starting to gel some things that I’d like to see the candidates discuss… things that either aren’t asked about or aren’t probed enough.

Not the same thing. Not intended to be.

The Constitution vs. the Bible (not as in “pitted against”)
I am a lover of history and a pretty patriotic person, but I’m struck lately by all the talk about what is in the Constitution and how it alone contains the answers to how the country works… no ifs, ands or buts. I think the founding fathers had an amazing thing going. To be brave enough to sail off to a “new world,” found colonies, organize societies, work the land, build a home… that takes guts. To start a country that disowns the King of England… that takes serious guts. And smarts. But somehow, over the course of the next 235 years, some parts of the nation have come to believe that the founding fathers were demigods. Infallible. That the Constitution they wrote and ratified on parchment somehow set in stone the values that they would have had even 235 years on, the things they would have said or believed or stood for even after 235 years of societal change, growth, and the onset of a global marketplace and a global interdependence to maintain peace. I am not saying that we need to rewrite the Constitution, that we need to make dramatic changes, that we need to create a new flurry of amendments to add to the 27 we already have, that we should in any way disregard what the Constitution says. I think it is the most solid foundation we can grow from, and I find most modern calls for new amendments to be calls for the implementation of one group’s values as federal law.  But I believe that the Constitution does not hold the key to every lock. I believe it is intentionally vague sometimes, and all the fighting we do over what it really says is sometimes silly, because it might not really say anything that determines the answer to a question at hand. We cannot ignore that the nation has changed, her people have changed, the world has changed. To insist that a strict interpretation of the Constitution is the only way the nation can be properly governed lends that amazing document the same heft, the same authority, that fundamentalist Christians give to the Bible. Christianity is a religion. American government is a political concept. There is only one Bible. The Constitution is not it.

Unless you believe a black person is merely 3/5 of a person, and a Native American is not a person at all.

The true effect of eliminating the Department of Education

Less technology in school if DoE doesn't rule?

I don’t know the true effect of eliminating the Department of Education. I genuinely have to ask the question, because I have this concern: if we send total responsibility for educational standards and practices back to the states, doesn’t that mean we will be condemning the children in poor states to a lesser quality of education? Doesn’t it mean that there would be an under-representation of  certain states in colleges and universities? Wouldn’t that result in the children from those states, on average, earning less, thereby perpetuating the relative poverty of states, thereby perpetuating lackluster education? And doesn’t that mean, if we extrapolate it out, a risk to national security because of a lack of competitiveness in intellectual property?

Super-PACs gobble up corporate cash and load TV up with unfiltered ads

The effect of the super-PACs on campaigns and campaign ads
Super-PACs are essentially the product of two rulings: the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision in the Supreme Court and the Speechnow v. FEC decision in the DC Circuit Court. These are the rulings that led the way for corporations to be considered people and for them to be subject to no limits in what contributions they make, provided they do not make the contributions directly to the candidate’s campaign itself (because federal election law limits the amounts that can be donated on each occasion of donation and does not allow general funds from organizations like labor unions, etc., to donate to a given candidate). And they can say and show whatever they want; the FCC does not allow television stations to in any way censor or alter political ads.

Already, there have been several ads released by groups in support of one candidate or another that launch nastier-than-usual attacks at opponents. And by law, the candidates these ads purport to represent cannot interfere with their production; they are not allowed to communicate with the super-PACs.   This has already resulted in candidates getting questions on whether they really support the accusations presented in the ads.

The effect of the super-PACs may, to some, not seem any different from any other PAC campaign ad (the ones that are paid for by any group other than the candidate’s campaign itself). But the fact that it is unlimited money from corporations means companies will play a bigger role than ever in electing the next president… and candidates will spend much more time talking about ads they, by law, cannot control.

Why Ronald Reagan is so constantly invoked
No one does it more than Newt Gingrich, who tells everyone with every chance he gets

Not sure this would work

that he worked with President Reagan in the early 80s. One of the things that frustrates me about the current campaign is how much it hearkens back to the 80s. President Reagan left office 23 years ago. It doesn’t sound like that long ago, but a lot has changed since then, and I am afraid the American people will believe that things now are just like things then, so the fixes should be the same. Mentioning President Reagan reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in The American President (yes, a liberal president): “You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character.” Sounds fine, right? But it’s a bait-and-switch. It’s the poison cup that feels all warm and fuzzy going down. There are plenty of people who could remind us of the struggles and hardships of the Reagan Era, and plenty of them would invoke a different phrase: “trickle-down economics” – the idea that the top echelons of income are job creators and if the government gives them tax breaks, the money will eventually make its way down to the lower echelons. Sound familiar? That was Reagan’s economic approach. I don’t know how many people truly believe that works – maybe you do, but I have always thought that if you give a company more money, it will not give the money to its lowest-level employees, and it will not necessarily hire more people with it, either.

If he had the money, he'd go negative in a heartbeat

The real reason some candidates vow they’ll run a “positive campaign”
It’s not about principle. It’s about money. The people who say they won’t run negative ads are the ones who don’t have the funding. Negative ads are expensive.  When you hear a candidate say they won’t run negative, it doesn’t mean they’re virtuous. It means they’re broke.

That’s my whole-assed post for the day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch part of the HBO series John Adams. Who — memo to Newt Gingrich, Historian — did not write the Constitution.

By the way, even though I didn’t see the NBC debate the morning after the ABC debate, I did listen to it on C-SPAN radio during my commute. (Have you not figured out by now what a total geek I am?) You can watch it here. 

The American Educational Standard: Up For Debate

Yes. There was another debate. This time hosted by CNBC on the campus of  in Rochester, Michigan. And I’m doing this post a little differently, because… well, frankly, I feel like it. I’m going to mostly just rant about one particular topic they discussed, and the reaction thereto, which made me wonder if I was having a stroke and just hallucinating what they said. Turns out… nope.

This debate focused almost entirely on the economy, and when I say almost entirely, I mean there was only one question that wasn’t about the economy. It was the question Herman Cain got about sexual harassment allegations. The moderator tried desperately (and pathetically) to link it to economic subjects by talking about CEOs and character, but the question was still about scandal. Cain responded that the American people deserve better than someone who gets tried in the court of public opinion on (he says) false allegations.

The audience booed when he got the question and cheered raucously when he answered it. As usual, the crowd really got fired up a lot in this event. I have to remember that they’re going to be oriented to the right of political medians since they’re attending a GOP debate, so maybe they’re just more likely to cheer for things like Newt Gingrich basically telling an entire generation of Americans (while standing on a college campus) that they’re a bunch of bums who expect too much from their education.

Yeah.

"Oh, you academic elite, you just don't get it."

Fine, I’ll be more specific: about 2/3 of the way through the debate, the candidates got a question on the burden of student loan debt. Among the answers: suggestions that maybe everyone should just go to college online instead of at institutions with actual brick-and-mortar buildings. Sure. Who needs the formative social and intellectual experience of college? Just do it over the web, alone, in your basement. Like porn.

Ron Paul, not surprisingly, began ranting about the Fed creating a bubble, audit the Fed, now the government holds a bunch of debt for an education system that isn’t working and is spitting out kids who can’t get jobs. On its face, that’s hard to argue against. But here’s where it started going to the zoo: Paul said he wants to get rid of the department of education and give tax credits to students if you have to. So the moderator asked how kids are supposed to pay for school if they can’t get government-backed student loans, and Paul said, “The way you pay for cell phones and computers!”

"Cell phones and computers! Ahh, that was a good one!"

Um… what?

I think what he was trying to say is that the market principles of supply and demand will eventually lower the price of tuition, but it’s a totally unequal comparison that left him looking absolutely clueless about how much it costs to go to college. As usual with Paul, I think there were thoughts in his head that had to go unexpressed due to time constraints, and he couldn’t congeal a coherent response, leaving viewers to take their own cognitive leaps.

"I crack myself up! They bought it! Can you believe it?!"

And then we proceeded to the next zoo exhibit when Newt Gingrich curmudgeonly blurted that these little rat bastards are just going to have to work for it. He cited the Johnson administration’s investment in student loan programs that eventually ballooned, he said, to allow kids to go to school longer because they don’t see the cost; take fewer hours per semester; and tolerate absurd rises in tuition. (“Absurd” is one of Gingrich’s favorite words.) Then he used the College of the Ozarks as an example of what he wants: a school you can’t apply to unless you need student aid, but which has no student aid. Students have to work 20 hours a week during the class year and 40 hours a week during the summer to pay for school, and most of them graduate with no debt. And then he said this:

“It will be a culture shock for the students of America to learn we actually expect them to go to class, study, get out quickly, charge as little as possible, and emerge debt-free by doing the right things for four years.”

The crowd went wild.

And my head exploded.

I don’t even know where to start with this. Does anyone even know a graduate of the College of the Ozarks? But I suppose I’ll start with the ways in which I think they might be right: I agree that tuition goes up absurdly from year to year at most schools. I agree that the federal loan system isn’t really working very well, creating insurmountable debt for students and for the government. And I agree that maybe more tax credits for parents or students paying tuition costs would help.

And that’s about where my agreement ends.

I did not hear anyone talk about how to actually get costs at colleges and universities down while still offering students the best possible competitive education, with highly qualified teachers and well-developed curricula that implements up-to-date resources. That is what is necessary to continue the education of America, which, by the way, is what leads to American business and manufacturing success… which leads to a better economy. Sure, back when American business and manufacturing were booming, a lot of people didn’t go to college, and there are people who didn’t go to college who have succeeded in business astronomically well (Bill Gates comes to mind). But it’s the exception, not the rule, in a changed world and a global marketplace. And in a time when we are hammering away on the American education system and the need for higher learning so that we can be successful as individuals and as a nation, it sort of tweaked me off to hear Newt Gingrich say that college kids just expect to ride through school without a care.

Does he know a college kid?

I worked before college. I babysat as a kid and had a job by the time I was 15. I worked when I was in college, 1995 – 1999. I worked a lot. And my school, my freshman year, cost $16,000 in tuition alone. By my senior year, it was $19,000. That’s incredibly good for a private, small, liberal arts college that has consistently been ranked among the best buys in education by US News and World Report from years before I started all the way through the present day. My four-year scholarship paid $8,000 a year. I was the oldest child and my parents saved for their entire married lives to send me (and my sisters) to college. My school turned out to be the second-least expensive of the four daughters. And I still had a student loan. It wasn’t a big one, but it was there.

Frehsman year I made $50 a week from the school for working on campus, unlimited hours that weren’t tracked; I just worked until the job was done. Spring of sophomore year, I was working without pay in an internship for at least 20 hours a week. By junior year, I was working those hours or more (sometimes 30) with pay, for $7.50 an hour, in the industry in which I wanted to work upon graduation. By senior year, I was working up to 38 hours a week. But I wasn’t paying my tuition or my room and board, because I wasn’t making a salary that was livable. I was just trying to save money so I could be independent when I graduated, get a place and not move back home. I was paying for my car insurance and my gas, and some incidentals here and there, but I was not a wasteful kid. My guy friends bought my beer. My money went to a car and an apartment when I graduated, and health insurance until my employer’s program kicked in. My paychecks through college got me to graduation. My $25,000 salary when I graduated kept me paying my bills and eating. That’s what I worked 20-38 hours a week (sometimes with two jobs) to build up.

And not everyone can work 20 hours a week. Some kids aren’t blessed with the same gifts. They have to study harder, spend more time on things. And by the way, Mr. Speaker: if you want them to work 20 hours a week for pay while they’re in school, you’re leaving them no time to get internships that might give them entry into their field of study.

This is all a bunch of shouting at the rain, because Paul and Gingrich won’t get the nomination. I’m angry about their responses because they reflect what, judging by crowd reaction, is apparently a larger sentiment: you damned kids and your “intellectual endeavors.” Come down off your high horse and stop whining about how much it costs to get the education we’re telling you is essential to your escape from poverty.

I get that some kids don’t appreciate what they have, and some kids don’t realize that maybe they can afford the time to bear some of the financial burden of college. But to call out an entire segment of the American population – the ones who will take care of you when you’re really old, by the way – is just ignorant, careless and a lot of other words I won’t use because they’re blue. I’ve said since I was 19 that my generation will be the first not do to as well as or better than its parents. The generation after mine is in a world of hurt, too. They want something better, and Gingrich made it sound like the problem with the American higher education system is the students. And the crowd seemed to agree.

I’ve been saying for months that I might do a post on debate audiences. I intended it to be funny. But every time they cheer rampantly for things like this, I can’t fathom understanding them enough to do it. To be honest, the way debate crowds cheer for things I find completely objectionable really scares me. It seems fairly obvious that these people are voting with their voices and will probably vote with levers or paper ballots on election day. I have to hope they’re just excited to be there, and that their exuberance is the product of a strange kind of Orwellian group-think that takes over. Because if this many people all over the country really think that a candidate for president should not be questioned about sexual harassment allegations, that college students are lazy golddiggers, that gay people don’t deserve rights and protection from violence at the hands of their own military brethren, that might always makes right, that only white Christian straight Americans deserve food and healthcare and affordable roofs over their heads, that companies always matter more than individuals because that’s where the money is… I don’t understand what we’re doing anymore.

End of rant. Other, semi-impartial debate observations in brief:

"Hey, everybody! I've got you all fooled!"

Herman Cain’s answer to everything is “it’s not true” or “grow the economy” or “999.” That’s all he’s got. I don’t get why he’s still polling a the top. Wake up, America. There, I said it.

Most of the candidates are isolationist when it comes to Europe’s debt crisis. They do not want the US to step in beyond the capacity it holds with the International Monetary Fund.

"How can I convince you? What do you want me to say?"

Romney had a weak answer when questioned about how Americans can be sure he’ll stand firm on his positions if he changes his mind so often to run for office. He said he’s a steady and consistent man who’s been with the same woman for 42 years, in the same church all his life. It was a personal approach to a professional problem and I’m not sure it will work.

It seems the candidates have been scolded by the ghost of Ronald Reagan (and apparently he’s a saint now), so they did much, much less fighting with each other and gave each other much more credit and leeway on positions. Very interesting change from the last two debates.

Nobody won this debate, but Rick Perry had a total mental meltdown when he was asked which departments of the federal government he would eliminate. I can’t even describe it to you, so I’ll link to it instead.

Huntsman embraced the Occupy movement by saying he wants to be president of the 99%… but he also wants to be president of the 1%. Everyone else either avoided talk of the Occupy movement or distanced themselves from the people involved (and Gingrich still thinks they’re all a bunch of bums, like college kids, who, along with the media and “academia,” have no clue about history. He said it. I swear. And once again, the crowd roared in his favor. These people realize they’re on TV, right? They’re part of the media machine at this point. They know that, right?)

Michele Bachmann says freedom isn’t free, so people who are destitute should pay something – even if it’s “$10… the cost of two Happy Meals.” I don’t know whether that example was meant as a way to quantify what $10 is or if it was a sweeping judgment on the poor.

Herman Cain said the previous Congress kept a House bill off the floor because it would have required Americans to send healthcare control back to doctors and patients. He said “Princess Nancy” kept it in committee. He was referring to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. To call her “Princess Nancy” in the face of a growing sexual harassment scandal was incredibly stupid, let alone disrespectful.

"Ha! Did you hear that?! How is this guy standing here?"

The moderators (who sucked, by the way, and I usually don’t say that) gave Romney the lion’s share of time responding to what do do about China vis-a-vis trade, currency manipulation and the rising possibility that they will overpower the US in the world. I get that this is because he’s the likely nominee, but there’s a guy standing all the way down stage left who was the freaking ambassador to China. You wanna maybe ask him? Romney said he’d slap tariffs on China because they’re manipulating market price with their control of currency valuation. Huntsman (who laughed when the moderator told him he had 30 seconds to answer the same question) said you can toss out applause lines about slapping on tariffs, but that’s only pandering; it won’t work and in fact it will cause a trade war, because they’ll put tariffs on American goods in exchange. He said you have to continue sitting down and talking out trade options, without glamour or flash, but with productivity.

Why isn’t anybody listening to this guy? Oh, yeah, because the crowd wants blood instead of rationale.

Moderator Jim Cramer is completely obnoxious and better suited for a bad sports show than CNBC. Yelling questions at candidates is not helpful. It is entertaining, though.

Going forward: Cain’s got a lot to lose, and I think he’s on minute 13 of his 15. But nobody was particularly impressive tonight, so things might stagnate for a while until this Cain mess is over.

 

Is This All There Is?

I wish Michele Bachmann would stop sounding like an idiot, for her own sake and for the sake of all of womankind. Though I wouldn’t vote for her, I know she’s not an idiot. But she just keeps opening her mouth and saying things that are so freaking stupid, they make me want to reach through the television/intertubes and shake her and tell her to stop making my entire gender look like morons.

The woman has a post-doctorate degree in tax law. That takes a brain. Why won’t she make that obvious?

She said the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired in New Hampshire.

It was in Massachusetts.

She said the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery.

Um, the founding fathers owned slaves. Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. Sixteen presidents into the republic.

She said John Quincy Adams was one of the founding fathers.

John Quincy Adams was 10 when the country was formed. He later became the sixth president. Much later.

She said John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa.

John Wayne was from Winterset, 150 miles away. John Wayne Gacey, the serial killer– he was from Waterloo. (Lady. Google it. It’s not hard to fact-check your speeches.)

She said (and continues to say) that she believes states have the right to make laws and that she would not force them to overturn their laws on gay marriage, but that she favors a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage… which, by definition, overturns laws in states allowing it.

Alright… she studied hard at most things. Maybe just not history.

Bachmann is also painfully bad at walking back misstatements and owning up to mistakes. After her “shot heard ’round the world” comment, she posted on Facebook: “So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it! And by the way, that will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s tele-prompter!”

I guess that means they’re not proud of it in Massachusetts anymore.

Nevermind that, when you’re running for president, you can’t just flippantly dismiss a misstatement that makes everyone think about elementary education. (See also: Sarah Palin’s version of Paul Revere’s ride.)

When Bachmann was questioned by Chris Wallace on her position on gay marriage and state vs. federal control over it, she couldn’t explain what she meant in any way that made sense (because it just flat-out doesn’t make sense – you either believe in state control over marriage or you believe in a constitutional amendment regarding it; you cannot possibly back both of those horses) and wound up talking about activist judges.

When George Stephanopolous of ABC News questioned her about the founding fathers/slavery statement, she started talking about how it’s good that we can change the things that are wrong in the country, talked about the Constitution, and then said the current administration is taking away our freedoms.

When she talks like that, when she answers direct questions with rambling talking points that only tangentially relate to what she’s been asked, she reminds an awful lot of people of Sarah Palin.

Pic snatched from theconservativetreehouse.wordpress.com, which may or may not still exist.

If she thinks that’s going to help her, I’m pretty sure she’s out to lunch.

With these two women coming from back-to-back Republican races, it’ll be a wonder if anybody (sane) ever thinks a woman could be smart enough to run the country and, by extension, the free world. A male friend of mine asked me, during the 2008 campaign, how I would feel as a woman if Sarah Palin wound up as vice-president. Politics aside, I told him there were so many other Republican women in American history – recent American history – who could do that job so much better that my feeling was, “Why does it have to be her?” Not “why does it have to be a Republican?” (I’m a registered Independent who, you may have guessed, leans left), but “why her?” I could have been proud if it were Ann Richards (though being dead would make her campaign difficult), or Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or Bay Buchanan, or Christine Todd-Whitman. I’m not saying I support their politics inherently, but those are smart, effective women.

It’s not fair to ask one female political candidate to carry a mantle for all of womankind, but frankly, that’s what she’ll likely be expected to do if she ever gets to that top echelon, and well… I’d like her to properly identify the Founding Fathers.

George Washington? Yes. (image from americaslibrary.gov)

George Bush? No. (pic from bspcn.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Bachmann and Palin are not the only politicians to make stupid mistakes when they open their mouths. Plenty of our male politicians do it too. I remember at one point during the previous presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain talked about the border of Iraq and Pakistan. The border of Iraq and Pakistan has its own names: Iran and Afghanistan. He made that mistake more than once. In fact, Sen. Joe Lieberman bent to quietly whisper a correction in his ear at one point (which must be why McCain originally wanted Lieberman to be his VP). He thought Darfur was in Somalia instead of Sudan. He called Vladmir Putin the president of Germany instead of Russia.

Facepalm, indeed. (pic from blog.reidreport.com)

These may seem like easy academic errors (after all, how many people know what nations border Iraq just off the top of their heads?) But when you’re campaigning to be president, and oh, there’s a war there, these kinds of fact errors matter. A lot.

And it’s not just Republicans who make these kinds of mistakes. President Obama said he had visited 57 states. He said his parents got together because of the march in Selma, Alabama, which happened three years after he was born. He said 10,000 people died in a tornado in Kansas that killed 11 people. Those are substantial fact-based errors too.

Sometimes I do think we’re sexist when it comes to female politicians, regardless to which party they belong. Chris Wallace, pointing out her history of making false, or at least partly false, statements, asked Rep. Michele Bachmann if she’s a flake. He stopped for a second before he said it, as if he knew it might cause a problem, and it did; he got a lot of flak from viewers who thought the question was sexist. I happen to agree. We don’t call men flaky. It’s not a perception problem; it’s a wording problem. Wallace could have found a better way to say it, but he chose a sexist word. That’s terribly unfortunate. I’m not going to peg him with the entire weight of sexism in this country and its political system, but it’s an example.

And again, it’s not just Republican women who take flak, although it seems the other side takes flak for different reasons. Remember how up-in-arms people got when the tough as nails Hillary Clinton momentarily softened and she got teary at a public event? We love it when men do that, but legions of people shrieked that Sen. Clinton wasn’t strong enough to run the country. If she showed her mettle, she was a b*&^h. If she softened, she was weak.

We seem to be in a political environment right now that allows any attractive Conservative woman to run for president or vice-president. I don’t know why that is; I don’t know why more attractive Democratic women aren’t garnering national attention. Then again, I don’t want those to be the criteria for candidacy; I’d much prefer someone like now-Secretary Clinton, who’s got the brains and the chops to get things done and not come across like an idiot.

But maybe, after all these years, this country still likes its women pretty and maybe not so goshdarned obvious about their smarts.

Nobody likes a show-off. Unless the show-off is a man. In which case, he’s just confident and capable.

Congresswoman Bachmann is smart, but maybe she’s not very politically savvy. Maybe that’s the distinction we need to make. She knows her talking points (without having to write them on her hand) and she knows that she needs to focus everything she says on how to make President Obama retire in 2012. But she has no skill or deftness, and apparently she either has no staff to help her with it, or she doesn’t listen to them. And either she needs to learn that or she’s going to continue to be the whipping girl for everybody out to find someone to hate in this election cycle.

Why be a sacrificial lamb? Get smart, or get out.