To the Moon

A POEM for Monday, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822):

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

When ignorance runs amok

I MADE a rare visit to my Facebook page the other day and saw this note posted by a former colleague, a Muslim American:

"I spoke to the sender of the e-mail, and he said, “It was just a joke.” Here lies a problem with phobias and intolerance — joking about it doesn’t make it less of an issue. When was it ever okay to joke about hatred and persecution? Was it acceptable when Jews were grotesquely drawn in Nazi cartoons? Or when Emmet Till was brutally murdered?"

Well said. (Evidently, some slack-jawed jerk wrote something inflammatory in one of the discussion forums on Facebook. I’m glad my friend took him to task.) Perhaps Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) put it best when he wrote, “No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.”

Taking intolerance to the next level, the good (but paranoid) people of Oklahoma just approved a measure barring state judges from using Shariah Law (the Islamic religious code based on the Koran) in formulating rulings. Never mind that no American court has ever done so, or ever will. Scarier still, the so-called “Save Our State” bill passed with 70% of the vote, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It is stunning that so many presumably well-meaning folks are so clueless about the dangerous slippery slope they’re on. This tragic error has been repeated over and over throughout human history. And yet we seem to learn nothing.

Irish poet William Butler Yeats put it best: “Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.”

Where would we be without the poets? I shudder to think.

Defying our inner Bligh

BETWEEN editorial floggings by the press (“20 more lashes, Mr. Christian – and be quick about it, man!”), former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham manages to derail the Obama narrative with a much needed dash of historical reality.

He argues, “Obama is not surprised that the kingdom of heaven has failed to arrive in his first two years. A more historically minded country would not be, either.”

Aye, mates – if only me own Cap’n William Bligh and ‘is scurrilous pack of sea-dog pundits could figure that one out. Arrgh! But I digress.

Meacham thinks:

A president who understands that life will never completely conform to our wishes - that the world will disappoint us again and again, yet we have a duty to press on and make the best of things - is a president particularly well equipped to endure calls for a "reset" or a "move to the center," as though he has been dabbling in Marxism as corporate profits continue rising.

Extraordinary leaders tend to seem ordinary in real time. Thomas Jefferson left office disappointed and defeated by the threat of war with Britain. Abraham Lincoln expected to lose the 1864 election. Franklin Roosevelt divided the nation between those who loved him and those who could not speak his name (to the latter group, he was "that man"). Ronald Reagan risked impeachment in his now-fabled second term.

In other words, let Obama be Obama.

In closing, Meacham says that “In politics, what distinguishes genius from folly, masterstrokes from blunders? Winning.” No one can dispute the prodigious amount or the historic scope of Mr. Obama’s accomplishments thus far. So, I’d say he’s doing just that – winning. Arrgh!

Currying favor abroad

This morning, the New York Times reported that an Indian college student in Mumbai (Bombay for you old-schoolers) asked President Obama about how his spirituality and how he applies “Gandhian principles.”

Obama grinned and replied: “I’m often frustrated by how far I fall short of their example.”

Obama, who is on a four-nation swing through Asia, added that he did learn at least one lesson from Mahatma Gandhi concerning his party recent electoral defeats:

“On this journey you’re going to experience setbacks and you have to be persistent and stubborn, and you just have to keep going at it. You’ll never roll the ball all the way up the hill, but you may roll it part of the way up.”

I’d say that’s sage advice for anyone in any walk of life. The Times reporter couldn’t resist noting that Mr. Obama’s answers “hardly broke news” and that he was “characteristically delicate in all of his responses.” True, but those observations didn't add anything to the story, either. That quibble aside, the piece is well-reported and worth a read.

I must say it’s a pleasure watching Obama, an obvious sample of America's best, confidently stride the world stage. Whenever George W. Bush left for foreign visits, cringe is the word that always came to mind.

I had to chuckle, though, at the observation made by 20-year-old student Chetman Rawal. “We call him the world king, king of the world,” he told the Times. “I think he will change the world.”

King of the World. Heh. High praise indeed – and a very tall order. But let's hope history will prove young Mr. Rawal correct.

Blue people and ‘unobtanium’

I just finished watching James Cameron’s “epic” sci-fi movie Avatar on HBO. I’m one of the few people on the planet who never got around to seeing it in a theater. Meant to, but, well, just never did.

Before posting this, I re-read Robert Ebert’s review of the film last December:

"Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na'vi, as "Lord of the Rings" did … It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation.”

Ah, yes. Now I remember. This was the "event" that would CHANGE EVERYTHING. The New York Times called it, “A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic.”

My reaction? Not bad. Way kewl computer-generated imagery, imaginative Blue People (the Na’vi), overwrought acting, goofy/adolescent dialogue and predictable storyline (as in I could see it coming 10 miles off). But not bad. The underlying pro-green/anti-war message, while nice, was as subtle as one of those touchy hammerhead rhinoceros things. The Times’ verdict on Avatar, a “glorious and goofy and blissfully deranged” movie sounds about right. Still, it wasn’t un-enjoyable, and there are worse ways to spend 2 hours and 46 minutes of life I’ll never get back.

As you can gather, I was kinda underwhelmed by Avatar. Would seeing it in 3D have helped? No. To get my socks rolling up and down, a film has to offer a fabulous story, whip smart dialogue/writing, fully drawn characters and great actors to pull it all off. Avatar mostly failed in those areas, for me at least. CGI (2D or 3D) is merely a film tool, a way to add exposition or realism. It is secondary to the story. Cameron’s last movie, Titanic, accomplished these things (to my surprise), and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So, I’ll bide my time for the next movie that really does contain that elusive “unobtanium” I seek in great films.

The Lemming Effect

With tongue in cheek, my first post on Twitter this morning was this:

'Shellacking': [Noun] 1. a whipping; flogging; beating. 2. utter defeat. 3. News media meaning: Dead horse beaten repeatedly.”

Ba-Da Ching!

There’s a reason for my bad joke. As is my habit, my first stop every morning is the New York Times to learn what news the venerable Gray Lady deems fit to print. Today’s big headline is President Obama’s trip abroad (I bet he could hardly wait to get the hell out of Dodge).

So anyway I’m motoring along in the piece when I come across this sentence: “The Asia trip is Mr. Obama’s first extended foreign foray this year, and he arrives weakened by the self-described “shellacking” he took in the recent mid-term elections.”

There it is AGAIN, that word, “shellacking.”

In his morning-after news conference, Obama used the noun to describe the Democratic defeats in the recently completed midterm elections. I wish he hadn’t. Now there is no escaping the word in the press. (Scan the headlines or listen to any anchor and you’ll see what I mean.)

And why am I bringing up such a minor matter upon which the nation’s destiny decidedly does not depend? It’s just a small but classic example of the routine, lemming-like behavior of our news media. In this case it’s harmless, comedic even. Often, however, it is not.

Remember the run-up to the Iraq war? Remember how the media, in full patriotic rapture, jauntily went along with this Excellent Adventure into the Mesopotamian sands? No one asked, “Um, excuse me, sir, but have you, Mr. Bush, thoroughly considered what happens *after* we topple Saddam’s statue?” Think about how the war might have gone differently (possibly saving lives) had the news media done its job – holding power to account – instead of being such willing lemmings. It did not, of course, and we all ended up taking a “shellacking.”

Just something to chew upon, noble friends of The Portal.

Deep Thought

I was researching something on The Google when I stumbled upon a comment by someone. I noted the time, laughed out loud, and reproduced it here for your morning meditation:

"Obsessive-compulsive fanatics know no real rest," said an anonymous Internet user at 3:24 a.m.

Ba-da-ching. Heh.

Forgetting Sarah Palin

I'VE NEVER forgiven John McCain for foisting Sarah Palin on us. But that, as the cliché goes, is water under the bridge. She’s here. And we have to live with it.

Apart from the occasional glancing blow, I’ve spent virtually no digital ink on Palin, here on The Portal. And I’ll likely continue that policy into the future in the interest of keeping my blood pressure down. Obviously, if she decides to make a presidential bid (a subject of endless speculation) or does something above and beyond the call of just-plain-craziness (a distinct possibility), I’ll be forced to revisit my policy. With those provisos, Sarah Palin is dead to me. In my humble opinion, she is an empty vessel adrift in a sea of her own ignorance and self-gratification. Palin's manipulative magnetism and symbiotic relationship with an obsessed press make her a "clear and present danger" to the body politic. She’s not even a nice person. Pondering Palin simply isn’t worth my time or, if I might boldly suggest, yours. (What? You're waiting for me to tell you what I really think? Heh.)

That said, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a very good piece on her political prospects (virtually nil in his view) in the wake of the midterms. It’s actually worth a quick read, if you’re so inclined.

But that’s not why I really brought any of this up. It was something Douthat said during the course of his discussion that knitted my brow:

”But having watched Sarah Palin pretty closely over the last few years, first with great interest and sympathy and then with frustration and disillusionment ...”

Wha’? How could Douthat, a rational, highly intelligent (conservative) dude who lives in the same reality-based universe as I do, ever view Palin with “great interest and sympathy?” If memory serves, it took me maybe 2 days of due diligence to discover that Palin was – um, well, I’ll be nice – spectacularly unqualified to be McCain’s VP, let alone president. And yet, conservatives rushed to rationalize how she was eminently qualified for both jobs. Indeed, as qualified as Obama. Remember? It was utterly jaw-dropping. Ushering Palin into the White House is akin to asking an airport porter to pilot Air Force One. Sure, the laws of probability say there’s a chance our skycap could pull it off. But would you make reservations for the flight? Me neither.

This is something that profoundly confounds me. Just how does one intellectually get to a place where one believes Palin is qualified to be president? Why do some voters fawn over candidates who say “I’m you” (as in I know nothing and I’m proud of it) and therefore I’m qualified for office?

Well, at least Douthat came to his senses. Good boy. And with that, I’ll go dark on the subject of Sarah Palin. With any luck, my blackout it will endure far, far longer than an Alaskan winter night.

Populist Obama – Ctd

Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor for The Atlantic, had a bit more to say today about the current debate about Mr. Obama and populism:

“No matter the target--bankers or the poor--it seems to require its leaders to say, 'There's nothing wrong with you America.’ … The notion that Americans are pure, and what's really wrong with this country, has everything to do with aliens--the media, the Muslim, the poor, the illegal, the rich, the elites--but nothing to do with the natives strikes me as comfort food. Moreover, it stands in direct opposition to much of the patriotic rhetoric we hear. If America is so mighty, if its people are so dynamic and great, how can it be that they are so often and so easily deluded? Perhaps repeatedly telling voters ‘You're a good person. It's not your fault.’ is essential in politics. I don't know.”

But we do know. Telling voters they are perfect and never wrong is essential in politics, but only because we make it so. Look, America’s virtues far outweigh its vices. When I criticize her for being overly anxious in today’s uncertain times, I do so only out of tough love. I want us to stop whining, quit asking Daddy Obama to save us, grow a set and get back to the work of shaping destiny.

Yet, as Coates’ halting words suggest, it isn’t easy to speak the truth about the public to the public in public. It’s easier (and safer) to dance in the end zone and join the “America: F**k Yeah!” bandwagon. But the truth, however unpleasant, must be said. Once it’s acknowledged, problems are so much easier to reckon with. We’re a great people. The recent record speaks for itself.

What I ask is probably impossible. But we (and our boot-licking politicians) really do need to get over ourselves, and face life as it is. Only then can we ever hope to change it for the better.

Who Obama is not

MEMO TO those desperately seeking a presidential daddy figure (and that would most of the nation if you believe the press). You need to own up to a plain fact. Our president is not and never has been “Franklin Delano Obama.”

He is not the glad-handing fellow pictured at left clinching a cigarette holder upright in his teeth as he radiantly works the crowd. (That would be camera-needy Bill Clinton, minus the smokes.)

To be sure, Obama owns a set of dazzling high beams. Stare at his toothy smile too long and you’ll go blind. But there’s not an ounce of FDR ham in him. But Smoked Virginia Ham is exactly what the punditry says we need. ”Obama is aloof. Obama is cerebral. Obama lacks Bill Clinton's gift for political empathy. Obama is out of touch with the angry, frustrated mood of the country,” writes The Atlantic’s Christopher Orr, summarizing the near unanimous handwringing by the chattering class.

Um, except for one thing. Obama – who is as charismatic as they come – was hired for his brains and cool steadiness under fire, not his gregariousness, ability to do card tricks and dance for the cameras (again, that would be Bill Clinton). He was (and is) The Serious Man for Serious Times. Liberals proudly touted him as the perfect genetic cross between The American President’s Andrew Shepherd and the West Wing’s Jed Bartlet.

Had Time magazine done a more accurate caricature of the president, it would have Photoshopped him as “Honest Abe Obama.” To me, Obama is far more Abe Lincoln than FDR. Both have brilliant and serious minds. Both are blessed with rapier wit. Both are honest, charming and sincere. Like Lincoln, Obama is a strategic thinker. Like Lincoln, he is deeply introspective. Like Lincoln, he welcomes opposing viewpoints but does not suffer fools gladly. Like Lincoln, Obama exudes a serene confidence (the handmaiden of dazzling intellect and good fortune) often mistaken for arrogance. Both presidents are enigmatic. And, ironically, there is (I think) a trace of melancholy in Obama stemming, like Lincoln, from his upbringing.

But evidently, a brilliant, charismatic, Lincolnesque president simply won’t do. It turns out that when the going gets tough, the tough gets all wobbly on us. Now, it seems, everyone is screaming for the return of America’s Dad: Cliff Huxtable of the The Cosby Show. Daddy, did you save the world yet? It’s almost the weekend, and we need the keys to that car you got out of the ditch for us.

The mind reels.

No longer ‘The One?’

PERHAPS you’ve heard. Every commentator with a digital pen (or near a TV camera) has been piling on about President Obama’s alleged populism problem.

The sheer abundance of pontification is approaching the surreal. Firing wildly, a great deal of it reflects shallow or simplistic thinking on the part of pundits.

Virtually all of it, I think, misses the real issue: This really isn’t about Obama’s failings (though he has skin in the game), it’s about ours.

Get comfortable. I’m going to deconstruct this in detail. Hell, somebody has to.

Christopher Orr, senior editor at The Atlantic, sets the table and gives us a pretty good idea of what the chattering class is spilling ink over, over and over again:

”Barack Obama is aloof. Barack Obama is cerebral. Barack Obama lacks Bill Clinton's gift for political empathy. Barack Obama is out of touch with the angry, frustrated mood of the country. If he hopes to rebound from the Democrats' midterm wipe out, Barack Obama will have to adopt a more populist tone. If you've read any political journalism this week, you'll have come across variations of this analysis, and probably not for the first time. The idea that Obama should ditch his unflappable aura in exchange for a little populist fervor has been near-ubiquitous among the chatterati throughout his presidency.”

Later, wading into tricky racial territory, Orr says "there's a reason why Obama has, to a striking degree in contemporary politics, played up superego at the expense of id. His composed, borderline uptight demeanor allayed white anxiety about his race; and, less self-evident but no less real, his being black saved him from the nerd purgatory of Adlai Stevensonism.”

Andrew Sullivan, Orr’s colleague at The Atlantic, then takes a bite at the apple:

Some kind of left-populism would simply empower right-populism. I think the key to Obama's long-term success is being Obama: the calm, restrained, sober, reasonable adult in the room, always focused on actual problems and their feasible solutions. And Chris is right: his race actually helps balance this cerebral and temperamental calm. He's an Eisenhower in a room full of McCarthys. It may take some patience but we all know who won that game in the end.

Sullivan is spot on with the Ike verses “Bomber Joe” analogy. But I think the well-meaning Orr and Sullivan are off the mark on the white anxiety/angry black man construct. Both overstate it. This is one of those whitewater stretches in our cultural river where misunderstanding between black and white is widest, I think. To the extent there is a modicum of merit in Orr/Sullivan’s ideas about how race plays into all of this, Ta-Nehisi Coates – yet another Atlantic editor but who happens to be black – makes this observation: “Granted it's been decades, but I think Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis are still instructive here.” I agree. So does Black America, I think. So does Obama, I think. Enough said.

At bottom (and beyond race), the problem is not Obama. The problem is us.

Stated simply, the nation is traumatized, perhaps in a way not seen since the Civil War. That trauma affects both left and right. Its deeper causes are multifaceted. For the left, it began with the bruising Gore v. Bush presidential contest in 2000. The dispute over who won was nightmarish. The outcome was shocking. “We was robbed,” as the old saying goes. It left a scar, and deep ambivalence toward the political system.

THEN 9/11 happened. When the Twin Towers collapsed into rubble, it took our illusion of perceptual security with them. If Al Qaeda’s goal was to terrorize, then it worked. The gnawing sense fear and helplessness it engendered remains palpable. Bush’s military rush into Iraq war turned America into a pariah in the eyes of many, deeply hurting our pride. Bush told us to return to the malls for the sake of the economy. He said it was "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq and promised the war was well in hand. It wasn't. Abu Ghraib and the administration's appalling justifications for the use of torture shocked our moral sensibilities. And the constant color-coded alerts kept our fears at fever pitch.

Then, in 2004, in Bush v. Kerry, Dems took yet another body blow. Their man was unscrupulously “swift-boated.” Although the hapless Kerry had brought only a dull knife to a gunfight, we still felt as if we “was robbed” again. And all of us heard the incredulous snickering echoing across the Atlantic from Europe. And then the real estate market imploded, sparking the Great Recession. Skyrocketing unemployment and financial uncertainty added fuel to the raging wildfire of national anxiety.

Into this cauldron stepped Barack Hussein Obama, the skinny guy with a funny name. With his sublime message of hope and change, underpinned by dazzling charisma and intelligence, how could he possibly not be seen as anything other than a Messiah (“The One”) to a nation desperately yearning for a way out of its malaise? Obama became a Rorschach inkblot upon which people projected their preconceived notions (good or bad). It was salve for aching souls.

But if Obama was seen as salvation incarnate on the left, he was perceived as the mysterious “Other” on the right, and quickly demonized by the smaller (but loudest) far right sects. To wary conservatives, Obama symbolized a profound end to Traditional White America. Though irrational (we have been multi-hued from the start), Obama deepened fears in those who clung to both their guns and “Father Knows Best” fantasies. That fear remains the wellspring of the endless birther-Muslim quackery.

AND THEN, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, destiny took a hand. The inaugural clock chimed noon on January 20, 2009, and Obama had to govern. And he had to do so as the last adult standing in Washington, all while fighting two wars, staring an economic calamity in the face, and crossing swords with a recalcitrant GOP cynically dedicated to ending him.

Governance meant compromise. It meant making hard choices. It sometimes meant making unpopular decisions (e.g., bank bailouts) in the interests of a nation only dimly aware of what’s good for it. When perception met reality, not unlike When Sally Met Harry, adoring Democrats learned Obama neither wore a halo nor owned a Hogwarts wand. He couldn’t plug the hole with a finger snap. Obama, in turn, learned his liberal base was like a high-maintenance girlfriend: If he didn’t shower her daily with roses and swear his undying love every 10 minutes, she’d go all hysterically weepy on him, then sulk and then threaten to leave him forever if he didn’t “change” (think DADT). The Democrat romance, conceived in a magical moment of electoral delusion, was bound to hit the political shoals.

All of which brings us back to today’s quandary.

Our evident insecurity (the mother of frustration and fear) is borne out of the multiple traumas – real or imagined – that I have sketched out. They date back at least a decade. It affects all political persuasions, all classes and all races. It is structurally rooted in uncertainty, the result of terrorism and economic instability. It saps our traditional “can do” attitude and encourages infantilism. It feeds our obsession with celebrity, trivial pursuits and reality shows, which is really the equivalent of pulling the sheets over our heads as we hide from the shadowy things that go bump in the night.

When the threat of terrorism fades (or we grow numb to it) and the economy recovers (and it will), America will crawl out from under the sheets, shake off its malaise, course-correct and face reality again. But until it does, Obama is stuck with the task of being the biggest reality star of them all. That’s not his fault. It’s ours.

We The People, spurred along by an idealistic chattering class prone to handwringing, insist that Obama be the new Bill Cosby, America’s Dad – whether he likes it or not. And America, like sweet first daughter Malia, desperately wants Daddy to make it all better. Like, by the end of next week.

And what will Mr. Obama do given this surreal state of affairs?

Beyond additional, better choreographed outreach to his base (gotta keep Ms. Libby High-Maintenance happy), probably not much. Despite it all, Obama understands what underpins the nation’s current anxieties. He knows that if the economy adequately rebounds by 2012 and he diligently tends to the nation’s business, keeps terror at bay and the “river don’t rise,” America will not only reelect him, she’ll be tripping over herself in the rush to put him Mount Rushmore. And the chattering classes, in full A.D.D. in-patient mode, will fill the air with songs of praise while tossing hosannas at the feet of their new American Caesar. (I’d bet money on it.)

At Grant Park, Obama memorably said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” He is still waiting. And we, who have not lost faith in him (and there are many of us), are waiting, too. Grow up, America. Daddy is too busy saving your world to tell you a bedtime story tonight.

Sweet Twitterings

During an interview, the good folks at the Poynter Institute learned that NBC news legend Tom Brokaw (a non-Tweeter) doesn't believe Twitter has not proven itself journalistically yet. He also doesn't get the "Tweebs" who use it. Brokaw said:

"I don't get Twitter. I know that it's very popular and that it's a quick way of getting a text blast out, so to speak, but an awful lot of it seems to be ... just stuff that fills air. [When the Mumbai attacks occurred], it alerted the world to what was going on, but was that journalism or was it just a cry for help?"

Journalistically, Brokaw is right. Though Twitter can be useful for real time information, it’s unfiltered. As such, be wary of its accuracy. He’s also right that most tweets on any given topic are just content-free confetti. Still, none of this means Twitter doesn't offer value.

Along with an occasional (and mostly impossible) 140-character “commentary,” I use Twitter to alert folks to news I think is important, thoughtful or stimulating in some useful way. But mainly I employ it as a digital fire hose of political news & commentary from the reporters/pundits I trust. Best of all, it has liberated me from the TV talk shows. So that’s Twitter’s value to me. Now, would I be there if the national press corps wasn’t there? Not a chance.

If you use Twitter to fill your own “news hole” (as we say in the business) on some topic of interest, then it’s valuable. I’m way less convinced about the worth of exchanging banalities with “Tweebs” for its own sake. But, alas, this is the activity makes up the bulk of traffic on Twitter. And that makes no sense to me. But as Star Trek’s Captain Picard puts it, “sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.” I'm doubling over.

Meditations

Some ancient but wise advice from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (abridged):

“REMIND yourself constantly of all the astrologers who so solemnly predicted their clients’ doom; the philosophers who expatiated so endlessly on death or immortality; the great commanders who slew their thousands; the despots who wielded powers of life and death with such terrible arrogance – as if themselves were gods who could never die.”

“SPEND, therefore, these fleeting moments on earth as Nature would have you spend them, and then go to your rest with a good grace, as an olive falls in its season, with a blessing for the earth that bore it, and a thanksgiving to the tree that gave it life.”

Still miles to go

WHEN I logged into Twitter this morning, I noticed “African Americans” as a topic was trending big time. Hmm, what’s up?

It seems a handful of news orgs had pointed out that the new Senate will no longer have an African American member. As in, zero. That fact sparked the outpouring of chatter on Twitter.

Sooner or later, this event would have surfaced in my mind independently. But it hadn’t yet. And that’s rather – interesting. But it may have something to do with what Blanche K. Bruce (pictured above), the first African American elected to serve a full term in the US Senate, said during a 1876 speech:

“When I entered upon my duties here as Senator from Mississippi, the question ceased to be novel, and had already been elaborately and exhaustively discussed.”

Today, 134 years after Bruce spoke those words on the Senate floor, it is no longer novel to see African Americans wielding political, military, corporate or cultural power anywhere in America. And as to my surprise at my own mild surprise for not automatically thinking "race" when I pondered the makeup of the new Senate, the answer is that my "radar" was turned off. That, I guess, is progress of a sort.

The election of a black man to the nation’s highest office permanently sealed the deal in terms of altering our societal perceptions. Forget about politics for a moment. Obama’s very presence in the Oval Office is as profound as it is historic. Maintaining the old stereotypes in the face of this new reality is now difficult if not impossible for the rational among us. From a black perspective, at least, anything seems possible now. It isn't always about race. That feeling is new. It is liberating. And it sprang fully to life on that sublime election night at Grant Park. When Obama made it, we ALL made it. And that, to me, is the Obama Effect.

None of this means we have reached some post-racial nirvana. Hardly. As long as fear exists, so will racism in some form. One only has to observe certain ugly elements of the Tea Party to see its current face. What has changed is race is no longer the debilitating barrier it was once. But I digress.

Blacks make up 12% of the US population. Our heritage literally dates back to America’s beginnings. So, yes, there is something absolutely wrong with having zero representation in the Senate. No one should be happy about it. Yet, the absence is surely temporary. The election of new black senators is not a question of if but when. It is largely a matter of who (like any other ambitious pol) is batty enough to run and when they choose to do so.

There have only been six black senators in US history. Apart from Obama and Illinois Sen. Roland Burris (appointed to complete Obama’s term), the other four were (in reverse chronological order): Carol Moseley Braun (also of Illinois), Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, and Blanche K. Bruce and Hiram Revels of Mississippi. There are currently 41 black members in the US House.

Before leaving the office in 1881, Sen. Bruce of Mississippi said:

“I have confidence, not only in my country and her institutions, but in the endurance, capacity and destiny of my people … Whatever our ultimate position in the composite civilization of the Republic and whatever varying fortunes attend our career, we will not forget our instincts for freedom nor our love for country.”

Those poignant words gave me goose bumps as I read them. If only this lone black senator had known, in those dark days of Reconstruction, that the future would reward his faith in country and a people’s destiny, in ways he could not possibly imagine. Progress, of course, is a game of inches. And all of us still “have miles to go,” as Robert Frost wrote in his classic poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
...
The woods are lovely, dark and deep;
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Blue & the Gray-Matter

This morning, the Arizona Republic reported that Gov. Jan Brewer “scored an easy win over her opponents on Tuesday, fueled by her staunch support of Arizona's controversial immigration law and a national mood that favored Republicans.”

Continuing, the postgame piece noted for history:

Brewer's victory Tuesday capped off a remarkable political comeback for a candidate dismissed as "toast" by members of her own party as recently as March. Elevated to the Governor's Office after Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Brewer spent her first year in office locked in a heated budget battle with her fellow Republicans in the Legislature. This year Brewer found her political footing, signing Senate Bill 1070 and becoming a national figure on immigration issues. Vocal opposition to federal health-care reform further enhanced her standing among Arizona's electorate.

Sigh. Like most Democrats in the Grand Canyon State, all I can do is gape slack-jawed at this depressing spectacle. Before the brainy ex-Gov. Napolitano left to help Obama save the world, she essentially played the role of a plucky Union Army regiment charged with keeping the kepi-capped GOP opposition in check here. She fought valiantly, and has the battle scars to prove it. But when the “regiment” decamped to DC, we Dems had to fend for ourselves. But armed only with a Mameluke sword, a six-shot Colt revolver and six bullets, our chances against the screaming Brewer Banshee Brigades were slim to none. The ensuing skirmish during the midterms was nasty, brutish and short. So here I sit in the Phoenix annex of “Andersonville” pondering the prospect of the reelected governor marching the state backwards.

FedUpInArizona, an anonymous Republic website reader, put it this way:

“Electing Brewer gives new meaning to the phase, stupid is what stupid does. Which pretty much explains Arizona voters.”

Well, that’s a bit harsh. But it reflects the intensity of the frustration felt by many democrats here. I actually wish Gov. Brewer well. I hope she will resist governing from the extreme right and, assuming it exists, find her inner moderate.

However, her minutes-long, deer-in-the-headlights stare as an answer to debate questions did not exactly inspire confidence in her natural gray matter. And since brain enhancing pills are not yet available on the market, she’d be wise to hire the equivalent in the form of much smarter staff. Good luck, governor. We’re all going to need it as the Blue and the Gray continues the political battle here.

Governance, poetry & prose

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein mused about the end of the 'do-something' Congress and hit upon public perceptions of it:

"If you see the point of politics as actually getting things done, the last two years, for Democrats, have been a stunning, historic success. Whatever else you can say about the 111th Congress, it got things done. ..."

"That this has been the most "do-something" Congress we've seen in 40 years hasn't made much of an impression on the public. Multiple polls have found that only a minority of voters know that the 111th Congress got more done than most congresses. That's true even among Democrats. Nor has their productivity made the 111th Congress popular."

"But if they failed as politicians, they succeeded as legislators. And legislating is, at least in theory, what they came to Washington to do."

The Democratic Congress and Team Obama have a lot to be proud of and history will validate it. Understanding public perceptions about those accomplishments is more complicated.

Did the Democratic politicians fail as “politicians” because they failed to adequately communicate their successes to the public? Or should the public shoulder most of the blame (if that’s the right word) for being too jittery, too easily distracted, too gullible (to disinformation) or just plain too lazy pay attention?

Answer: The politicians blew it. That means you, too, Team Obama. (More on this shortly)

Having been thoroughly frightened by the media’s nightly chant that “The End Is Near,” and by the economic wreckage what they see in their daily lives, the public can largely be forgiven. Since the media are now largely hamsters on a wheel, it’s pointless to judge them too harshly. Yet they have routinely eschewed congressional reporting or obscured legislative successes. For them, Tea Party crazies, presidential emoting, candidate views on masturbation and clowns shouting “You lie!” make for better TV. Reporting on historic legislation (or domestic infrastructure or Afghanistan or foreign policy) is too often viewed as a killjoy to ratings.

That said, the blame still rests mainly with the elected politicians. Effective communicating is an essential part of their jobs. They’ve done it poorly, and are paying the price. Congressional Democrats and Obama (especially Obama) should be more mindful of what Nixon once said of JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen: He had a rare knack for “finding phrases that penetrated the American psyche” and thereby helped shape public perception of that White House.

During his campaign, Obama also had that knack. “Yes we can” was one, and it worked brilliantly. In the White House, the poetry of the campaign was fortified with the prose of governance by necessity. But prose – checklists of accomplishments, setbacks or plans – has gotten the upper hand. Yet the public yearns to hear policy expressed in a simpler cadence, one that instills inspiration in troubled times.

Democrats deserve to take a bow for their work. To win public applause, Obama needs to better blend poetry & prose in governance, with the accent on the verse. As Sorensen so elegantly proved, the two are not mutually exclusive.

What's wrong with this picture?

Hot off the presses, Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism released a new statistic for the 2010 midterm elections. The most covered candidate of the season was -- wait for it -- Christine "I'm Not a Witch" O’Donnell. (pictured left)

The GOP senate candidate went from zero name recognition to celebrity starlet in 48 days flat. The folks at Pew think it might be a new record. So, everybody, please give it up for: The News Media (with a little help from her friends, Bill Maher and SNL). She simply couldn’t have done it without you.

Kinda says it all about today’s media priorities, doesn’t it?

How on earth did we get here? Historically, journalism has always served two powerful interests: It’s own and that of the public. Greed/profit drives the former. Nobly holding government accountable under the first amendment drives the latter. Sensational reporting (the more salacious, the more vitriolic & partisan, the more trivial – the better) serves profit. Serious investigative reporting serves the public and the nation's good.

Since the Second World War, a rough balance was achieved between the two interests. To resolve the innate conflict between serving two masters, publishers often sought absolution in the notion that while “sex” sells, it underwrites the serious reporting. The problem is readers gravitate to the sensational content whenever it’s offered. (See the Huffington Post’s “Most Popular” sidebar for a classic example of the phenomenon.) The result is the dog chasing its own tail. But never mind, that’s another story.

Sometime after the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency, that balance of interests began to waver and tip toward the Gordon Gecko Motive: "Greed is good." In part, you can probably thank “that woman, Ms. Lewinski” with whom Clinton “did not have sexual relations.” That tawdry episode, and the parade of events it spawned, made gazillions for publishers. We’ve been skidding faster and faster down the proverbial slippery slope ever since. When the economic downturn hit, the media’s corporate masters simply stepped on the gas.

And so, here are today, fawning over a candidate from Delaware who will never, EVAH see the inside of the US Senate chamber. (If the polls are right, she’s on track to crash & burn in a landslide defeat tonight, god willing and the river don’t rise. News at 11.)

Pew's other top 10 candidate newsmakers in 2010 coverage were: Meg Whitman (90); Rand Paul (88); Joe Sestak (85); Sharron Angle (80); Harry Reid (74); Charlie Crist (67); Blanche Lincoln (52); Carl Paladino (52); Jerry Brown (49); and Joe Miller (47).

There is, however, good news in all of this for O’Donnell. Between the post-election book (you know it’s coming), TV appearances, GOP/Tea Party speaking engagements, A-List celebrity status and the inevitable Reality Show, she’s about to become a very wealthy woman.

And why not? She’s harmless and can walk away with no hits, no runs, no errors. Enjoy the fame, Chrissy. Oh, and when this election thing is over, do go out and buy yourself a fancy [expletive deleted]. You’ve earned a little self-love.

Predictions

Today's winner of "Best Quote of the Day" goes to Time's Joe Klein. In his Swampland blog, he wrote:

"I hate predictions. Refuse to make them. Journalists are never so stupid as when we make predictions--it implies an inside knowledge that we simply don't have -- we're pretty good about reporting things that have already happened; less good at explaining them; dreadful at crystal balling."

Heh.

Midterms, politics & reality

On Twitter this morning, I posted this: “Deep Thought – Do you remember the 2006 midterms & where you were? Me neither. Expect the identical answer in 2014 about 2010.”

It was tongue in cheek, but meant to remind everyone that the screaming headlines heralding today’s midterm elections is a tad overblown. Indeed, my old newspaper, the Arizona Republic, unconsciously placed the midterms into its proper context on its website. The headline read: “It's Election Day: Polls Open, No long Lines Being Reported." Oh the irony.

Among regular folk, the main talk will be of last night’s World Series finale, the rush hour traffic, the weather, getting little Melissa to soccer practice and, honey, what’s for dinner tonight? The fact is most of the electorate won’t vote today. They never do in the midterms. That’s not a good thing. A penalty in one form or another will be paid for our complacency. But the fate of the nation does not hinge on it. And it probably never will.

Despite the perpetual myth, American life – among its citizenry or its politicians – has ever resembled a Norman Rockwell painting, particularly the one pictured above. But that’s okay. We Americans are imperfect human beings doing the best we can in an imperfect democracy. It was true in 1775, and it remains true in 2010.

Our delicately balanced system of checks and balances makes for a messy republic. The unanticipated rise of political parties made it even messier. The recent backward trend by the news media toward pamphleteering makes it messier still. But it works, albeit barely, most of the time. And though democracy might be the worst form of governance to mind the affairs of mice and men, it remains, as Winston Churchill famously observed, “better than all the others.”

Go vote. But unless you’re a political masochist, I’d steer well clear of the television news media today and its nattering legion of clueless political “analysts.” Talk about a jaw-dropping Reality Distortion Field – Wow.

In fact, there’s only a single congressional race worth watching – the one starring Christine “I’m You” O’Donnell. Will the good people of Delaware elect a witch to the Senate? Pass the popcorn.

So, how ‘bout those San Francisco Giants ... ?

Playacting Napoleon

New Rule: President Obama must stop being serious, drop his plans to change the world and embrace cheesy theatrics. It’s the only language We the People understand. “Serious” won’t cut it. Oh, and don’t forget to feel our pain, constantly.

With apologies to Bill Maher, my (bad) contribution to his “New Rules” shtick is only slightly more ridiculous than what Daily Beast founder Tina Brown proposed in her column today.

“As soon as Tuesday’s drubbing ends, Barack Obama needs to embrace the theatrics of the presidency, however cheesy that may seem to him,” she wrote. I can almost hear that grating, pseudo-cockney accent of hers (she’s a Brit).

Before getting to her other big New Rule ("Obama should be more like Napoleon Bonaparte"), here are a few of Brown's eye-poppers:

”Stop being so high-minded.” Want to neuter those Muslim rumors? Stride to church every Sunday with “a big old Gutenberg Bible.” And take those cute first daughters (dressed in their “adorable Sunday best") with you.

Obama should dole out fancy perks to big donors, she says cattily. Bill Clinton did. “A night in the Lincoln Bedroom is a better deal for the public than a zillion-dollar rich guy tax break or a fat no-bid contract.”

“Obama should go broad, not niche; megaphone, not dog whistle. Big gestures with a halo effect."

Then administering a swift backhand, she insists that Obama is a crybaby. Oh sure, she says, he “ended torture, got us out of Iraq, extended health care, and prevented another Great Depression,” but he whines about not winning hosannas from the public. What a wimp.

So what’s Brown grand solution? “Along with all those books about Lincoln,” she condescendingly writes, “Obama might read some biographies of Napoleon. The general who established the Legion d’Honneur understood that people fought as much for medals as for morals.”

Yeah, right up to part when The People stood mute as he was imprisoned and exiled to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The little martinet's reputed knack for glad-handing didn't work out too well. Remember? New Rule: Tina Brown must read some history before claiming that she knows some.

Happily, most Americans have never heard of the Daily Beast website, let alone Tina Brown. Therefore, whatever she has to say about anything is meaningless. Oh, and I’ll stick with Cool Hand Obama just as he is, Tina. He’s writing history. You’re just watching it without a clue.

NPR in Red America

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan spotted this one. A conservative fan of NPR says he isn’t unique:

I knew other NPR listeners in rural Nebraska: electrical journeymen, shop keepers, school teachers. They noticed NPR’s political and religious blind spots. But they appreciated its consistent effort to put policy before personality and substance before scandal. I am not sure if these virtues are conservative, but the people who valued them were.

Attempts to spot and highlight media bias have, I think, caused us to overestimate its importance in media coverage. ... Rural Americans are no more susceptible to being buffaloed by liberal bias than their suburban or urban counterparts.

Like I said, the gulf between Blue and Red American is not as wide as the media will have you believe.

Jumping the shark

MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann (left) has become infamous for his increasingly pompous "Special Comment" in which he howls at the liberal moon. As I noted in an earlier post, Olbermann took umbrage at Jon Stewart's criticism of the cable news media.

In his blog today, Time's Joe Klein wrote, "I think Jon Stewart's final plea for sanity at Saturday's rally was among, well, the sanest statements of the political year. Keith Olbermann didn't like it."

Klein then pens a pitch-perfect "Special Comment" to Olbermann, a "language he should understand":

"You, sirrrr, have gotten a bit too full of yourself. You're not a charlatan like Glenn Beck, but you do go on...and on, in a crashingly inflated manner...with little of the irony and whimsy that used to make you fun to watch--the irony and whimsy instilled in both of us by our beloved high school English teacher, Arthur Naething. You've become mockable, which is tragic. Lighten up, dude! As the man used to say, Go forth and spread beauty and light!"

Oh SNAP! Klein wrote what I was too polite to say in my own post. Well played, sir. I salute you. :D

Counting un-hatched chickens

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, 30, surprised me this morning. The young conservative thinker said, “Since Barack Obama took the oath of office, the country’s leftward momentum has reversed itself. In some cases, nearly 20 years of liberal gains have been erased in 20 months. Americans are more likely to self-identify as conservative than at any point since Bill Clinton’s first term.”

Say WHAT?

The “inevitable liberal epoch,” Douthat implies, now lies in ruins, like so much smoking rubble on the ash heap of history. Now Douthat is a smart fellow. He is usually intellectually honest. And though I’m prepared to give him the benefit of doubt and assume he is basing his conclusions on something, the evidence makes no appearance in his column.

Am I getting a whiff of Simple Jack’s Potion No. 9 on Douthat’s breath? Et tu, Ross?

Then, disappointingly, Douthat launches into the familiar “It’s All Obama’s Fault” litany:

Nor have Obama’s political instincts helped him through these difficulties. Presidents always take more blame than they deserve for political misfortune, but Obama’s style has invited disillusionment. His messianic campaign raised impossible hopes (particularly among Comedy Central viewers, apparently), and he has made a habit of baldly overpromising, whether the subject is the unemployment rate or the health care bill. Obama seems as if he would have been a wonderful chief executive in an era of prosperity and consensus, when he could have given soaring speeches every week and made us all feel tingly about America. But he’s miscast as a partisan scrapper, and unpersuasive when he tries to feel the country’s economic pain.

An opportunity has opened for the Right that would have been unimaginable just two years ago — a chance to pre-empt a seemingly inevitable liberal epoch with an unexpected conservative revival. Now they just have to seize it.

Yep, Douthat has definitely been taking furtive swigs of Simple Jack’s between paragraphs. Dammit – they never should have given him that GOP flask for his birthday last year.

Fortunately, young Mr. Douthat only has a mild buzz. He concedes that the midterms “will not be as grave a defeat as many conservatives would like to think: the health care bill may yet be remembered by liberals as a victory worth the price, the demographic trends are still with the Democrats, and the Republicans will return to power unprepared to wield it.”

That’s better. On the brink of clobbering the Dems in tomorrow's midterms, I think it is safe to say that giddy Republicans, including Douthat, have fallen victim to counting the proverbial chickens before they are hatched. The hubris is understandable. But there remains a wily animal standing adjacent to the hen house, one that is continually underestimated. His name is Barack Obama, and he’s been awfully good at playing Road Runner to the GOP’s Wile E. Coyote. Beep beep.

Pass me a little bit of that Simple Jack, partner. Like Jack Nicholson says to the ghost bartender in The Shining, "Hair of the dog that bit me, Lloyd." Heh.

Simple Jack’s Potion

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve invented something called Simple Jack’s Potion, a silly metaphor for the elixir I think politicians drink just before they say or do something stupid.

I dreamed it up in a post called “Rubes R Us,” a lament about the triumph of our Dumb & Dumber culture, and a gullible public too willing to be swayed by charismatic voices of ignorance (Palin, etc.) over reason.

For the record: As I’m sure the moviegoers among you have figured out, I borrowed the fictional moniker “Simple Jack” from a Ben Stiller character in Tropic Thunder, a 2008 satire-comedy film. Concerned do-gooders criticized Stiller over his stereotypical portrayal of mental retardation. As usual, it was much ado about nothing. Most adults can separate satire from reality. Fortunately, it’s a free country, and I’ll keep running with it. Obviously, no offense is intended toward the disabled community.

From “Rubes R Us” I said:

Mystified historians will undoubtedly recall 2010 as the year Dumb & Dumber triumphed. A time when crowds paid homage to the astonishing number of "Simple Jacks" running for political office. … In tough economic times amid the shifting of our cultural tectonic plates, many conservative voters feel under siege. They are understandably anxious. They thirst for direction and answers. Some are so thirsty that they'll skip the Evian of rational ideas to swig down the fast, miraculous cure-all promised by Simple Jack's Potion -- i.e., the bottled pabulum served by the likes of Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell and Glenn Beck, who think a return to a Disneyland version of the 1950s is the solution to what ails us. To them … reason is anathema. "Cast off the demonic liberal rationalists and repent!" they say in effect, thundering like Charlton Heston's Moses. "And thou shall be saved!"

That is Simple Jack’s Potion (especially No. 9, Black Label), and its effects, in a nutshell. As Bogie said in Casablanca, here’s lookin’ at you, kid. Bottoms up.

Sanity Rally Redux

The New York Time’s David Carr has written the smartest take to date on the “Rally to Restore Sanity.” He says funnyman Jon Stewart “took steady aim on the one American institution that everyone can agree to hate: The Media.”

In what Carr called a “deft, very articulate stump speech” at rally’s end, Stewart criticized the news media as “the country’s 24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator.” Stewart conceded that the press “did not cause our problems,” but said that “its existence makes solving them that much harder.” So true.

But Carr noted something that has been missing from the dialogue:

But here’s the problem: Most Americans don’t watch or pay attention to cable television. In even a good news night, about five million people take a seat on the cable wars, which is less than 2 percent of all Americans. People are scared of what they see in their pay envelopes and neighborhoods, not because of what Keith Olbermann said last night or how Bill O’Reilly came back at him.

Carr added that Stewart referenced the brouhaha over the recent firings of CNN’s Rick Sanchez and NPR’s Juan Williams. Carr states: “All due respect to Mr. Williams and Mr. Sanchez, not many people know or care who they are.”

Carr is right. His observations are revelatory, and provide a useful reminder that most of the disheartening chatter we hear inside the cable news bubble goes unheard outside of it. Fox News then, is only a big fish in a small pond. Symbiotically-connected political bloggers – with their minute by minute sensationalizing – like to claim the Internet’s infinite galaxy as their oyster. Fortunately, political biology restricts them to the same waters as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Thus, their ravings are even more obscure to the general public.

That said, I’d still argue that the cable news complex remains influential in terms of shaping macro public opinion, and the actions of the political elite who run the country. And it only takes one person to contaminate, say, a barber shop with the erroneous or bias “news” he heard last night on MSNBC or Fox News.

Still, when conservative blowhards like Sean Hannity, nutcases like Glenn Beck or liberal firebrands like Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz go off the deep end (something they do often), it’s nice to know that most Americans are blissfully unaware of The Media’s almost daily, panicky predictions of apocalypse. Indeed, it is why I can still sleep at night.