Prometheus 6

We Need Strategy Not Temperament
By Thomas M. Donnelly

In his acceptance speech last night, Barack Obama said he was ready to have “a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander in chief.” But other than a reiteration to withdraw from Iraq and “finish the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan,” he didn’t give us much idea as to what he’d actually do as commander in chief.

Every speech will necessarily leave out a couple of subjects. There just isn't time to cover everything so you'll always be able to say "In this speech, the candidate didn't cover X."

So I'll tell you what. Let's judge Obama's whole campaign by this one speech, and I'll pick a McCain speech on which to judge McCain's whole campaign. I'm leaning toward "Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb bomb Iran..."

I believe the real reason McCain picked Palin is that no one else would do it. McCain is the Republican nominee for the same reason Dole was picked to run against Clinton: seniority in a year when no one believed they had a chance in hell of winning anyway.

I remember the trouble Dole had finding a veep. I remember who was picked. Do you?

Exactly.

McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate
By MICHAEL COOPER and ELISABETH BUMILLER

DAYTON, Ohio — Senator John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate on Friday, shaking up the political world with a surprise pick at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women, especially disaffected supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In choosing Ms. Palin — a 44-year-old conservative Christian and self-described “hockey mom” who has been governor for less than two years — the McCain campaign reached far outside the Beltway in an election where the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, is running on a platform of change.

The pick, confirmed by Republicans familiar with the decision, amounted to a roll of the dice, a gamble that an infusion of new leadership — and the novelty of the Republican party’s first female candidate for vice president — would more than compensate for the risk that Ms. Palin could undercut one of the McCain campaign’s central arguments, their claim that Mr. Obama is too inexperienced to be president.

And this is what they got to replace Vito.

In just the last week, Dr. Jamshad I. Wyne, the finance chairman of the Republican Party on Staten Island and a candidate for Congress, accused his rival in the primary, former Assemblyman Robert A. Straniere, of trying to persuade him to make illegal contributions to Mr. Straniere’s failed 2001 campaign for Staten Island borough president.

Mr. Straniere, while passionately denying the charges, pointed out that Dr. Wyne, a cardiologist, recently began using Jim in his campaign literature, rather than his legal first name, Jamshad, as he is listed on the ballot for the Sept. 9 primary. That change, Mr. Straniere said, is an attempt by Dr. Wyne to conceal his Pakistani and Muslim roots.

“When you grow up living in a white corporate world, there’s always a part of you that thinks, ‘Gee, if I sold out,’ or ‘How can I do this and also stay true to myself and true to my own identity,’ ” said Jeh Johnson, another top fund-raiser and New York lawyer who today serves as the informal chairman of the group of black law partners that Mr. Davis first joined three decades ago. “Here we have a guy who’s running for president and managed to do it in the political world and managed to do it so well.”...

Nevertheless, stories of slights, or a nagging sense of “otherness,” are prevalent even among this accomplished group....

Indeed, for all of the signs of progress, there remain feelings of frustration about what has not been accomplished. 

Top Black Donors See Obama’s Rise as Their Own
By MICHAEL LUO

DENVER — When Gordon Davis, a top fund-raiser for Senator Barack Obama, made partner at his white-shoe law firm in 1983, it was a vastly different world for aspiring black professionals like him.

At the time, there were just five black partners at major law firms in New York, Mr. Davis recalled. The group had a tradition of taking each new partner out to an intimate congratulatory lunch. Today, there are more than 200 who take part in the ritual at the Harvard Club.

The advancements of professionals like Mr. Davis over just a few decades have enabled a cadre of black elites to emerge as a significant force in the most prolific fund-raising operation in presidential history.

I'm going to endanger my sanity by giving the Republican convention the same type of attention I gave the Democratic convention. I'll be wearing the psychic condoms of CSPAN and PBS rather than, well, any cable news channel at all.

Meanwhile, I would like to direct your attention to driftglass (who writes like he could actually be Samuel R. Delany),

The Negrological Constant

Because the prevailing model of the Universe at the time was fundamentally flawed (presumed to be static, not expanding), when Albert Einstein first tried to apply his general theory of relativity to the Universe\, the results thoroughly freaked him out (Universe collapsing! Cats and dogs living together!)

I was going to link this one in the previous post, but on reflection I find I actually like the thing, even though it sits in the Washington Post's On Faith section, which I promised the other deities I wouldn't mess with.

Righteous History
Posted by Susan K. Smith on August 28, 2008 9:09 AM 

We are people of privilege. I say that because we are living in a moment in history that is almost too great to comprehend. From our beginnings as slaves in this country, we are witnessing the ascension of an African American to heights our ancestors might never have imagined. Many of us didn't either.

When Senator Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America on Wednesday, a link in the chain of our history was broken. From slavery and the insult of being considered property, our people have moved to the possibility of one of our own being on the verge of the presidency.

It is almost too awesome to take in. At the moment Senator Obama was officially nominated, black people wept. My friends' parents, both octogenarians and participants in the Civil Rights movement, sobbed. A little boy, fascinated but not fully understanding what was going on, asked, as he watched his parents cry, "Are we supposed to celebrate or something?"

I think, as a practical matter, that those who want Black folk to militate against voting in general, and against Democrats and Obama specifically need to see what they're up against.

I threw in the last guy, who is just biting, because white folks have identity issues too.

Ms. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful of delegates who on the same day in 1963, Aug. 28, stood with hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech.

“I was young, naïve enough to think I would see that in 5, 10 years,” she said. “Then you see leaders killed, you see police brutality, residential segregation in cities. About 10 years ago I thought: I won’t see this. This is something for my grandchildren.”

The Bush administration had already indicated it would appeal but Justice Department lawyers said Wednesday that they will ask the court to step in quickly and temporarily put Miers' appearance on hold while the appeal plays out. It's a risky move for an administration that has spent years trying to strengthen the power of the presidency.

If the appeals court refuses to temporarily block the testimony, it would essentially be endorsing Bates' ruling against the Bush administration. Miers likely would have to comply with the subpoena, setting a precedent that would give Congress new teeth in its investigations and weaken future presidents.

Don't worry, I know you mean "restore the Constitutionally mandated balance of power" rather than "weaken future presidents."  But do it again and I'll start issuing demerits.

Bush steps up fight over congressional authority
By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 28, 2008; 12:53 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is raising the stakes in a court fight that could change the balance of power between the White House and Congress.

Justice Department lawyers said Wednesday that they will soon ask a federal appeals court not to force the president's top advisers to comply with congressional subpoenas next month. President Bush argues Congress doesn't have the authority to demand information from his aides.

Pelosi's priorities begin, in order, with ending the war in Iraq, expanding access to health care, rebuilding infrastructure and weaning the nation off oil. But with economic problems looming ever larger, she and other Democrats say providing relief could be their first target: "I'll just use a four-letter word," Pelosi said. "Jobs."

Obama Team Works With Hill Democrats
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2008; A01

Eager to avoid the missteps that plagued the first months of the Clinton administration, aides to Barack Obama have begun working in concert with top Democrats in Congress to craft a preliminary legislative agenda that would guide the senator from Illinois should he capture the White House in November.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has assigned her committee chairmen to begin with low-hanging fruit to build confidence and provide a new, young president quick legislative victories, then pivot to more challenging issues, from ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq to broadening health-care coverage. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) said his policy staffs and Obama's have been working together for more than a month.

I can't decide which side Timothy Egan is on. In Stranger in a Stadium he presents pretty much every Republican-crafted doubt about Obama in a rather sympathetic sounding framework. Many of the commenters seem to accept the framework as indicative of his message.

Me, I see things like this

Obama’s central dilemma — strange in this age of media saturation — is that so many voters still don’t know him. 

“My story is your story,” Obama tells crowds. But it’s not. 

“Do we know if he ever sold drugs?” Sean Hannity, ever eager to inject a lie that fits a stereotype in the national bloodstream, asked Jerome R. Corsi, the professional character assassin and author of “Obama Nation.”

The Texas Republican Party targets Obama with a Web video that shows pictures of an African who lives in a shack, identified as Obama’s half-brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama. Hint, hint.

And at a Washington state fair this week, the Republican booth distributed $3 bills depicting Barack Obama with Arab headgear and a camel.

So, Sen. Obama is no longer the presumptuous nominee (that's a Freudian construction...). And everyone has all this advice about what he must say tonight. Prove he's a regular guy. Make the case that his programs are what America needs. Stuff like that.

Quite reasonable sounding...but let us not forget, this is a pep rally right now. Understand that and you'll understand why Obama wants to rev up 70,000 people.

People tend to do what they see other folks doing. Call it peer pressure, call it in-group norms, whatever. It is a physical fact that the best way to get someone to do something is to get the guy next to him to do it. And that sounds like an infinite regression but it's not because it can be seeded by convinced thinkers. If there were a way to poll just them, Obama would have a higher percentage of them than of Black folk.

More, though I suspect there's some pheromonal impact you miss, watching folks on TV is almost as good as watching them as they stand next to you. 

There is apparently a real chance that Hurricane Gustav could hit New Orleans next Monday — which happens to be the day that President Bush, Laura Bush, and Vice President Cheney are scheduled to speak....

We hope Gustav fades harmlessly away. And if it does hit land, we hope the people in its path are properly taken care of.

We must say, though, that we like the idea that as the Bush administration comes to an end, nature is forcing the President and the Republican National Committee to think back to the horrifically bungled response to Katrina — one of the worst part-natural, part-man-made disasters in American History.

I've been holding out on you. I've been taping the convention on CSPAN while watching some of the coverage on PBS. It was the best way to get more data than noise.

Now that we're at the end of the convention I'll give you the only links I felt guilty about hoarding. PBS had a panel of historians analyzing the convention. Asking folks whose careers depend more on generating light than heat was an excellent thought. 

Best of all, you're like one degree of seperation from one of them, Peniel Joseph, author of Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America.

Here are the transcripts. The first two have streaming video, the second two most likely will have it later today.

• Historians Reflect on the Democratic Party's Fractious Evolution
  One of the world's oldest political parties, the Democratic Party has evolved over the past 100 years despite different ideologies held by its members and leaders. A panel of historians discuss past fractions within the party and the leaders who have tied Democrats together, including Sen. Barack Obama
• In Speech, Clinton Tries to Unite Party Behind Obama
  As the Democrats wrap up day two of their convention in Denver, analysts and historians review the night's key moments, in particular Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech in support of Sen. Barack Obama.
• Historians Praise Former President Bill Clinton's Convention Address
  Former President Bill Clinton spoke emphatically in support of Senator Barack Obama Wednesday night at the Democratic Convention. Analysts and historians react to the speech.
• Analysts, Historians Give Final Thoughts on Wednesday Night DNC
  Following Joe Biden's keynote speech on Wednesday, analysts and historians give their final thoughts on the third night of the Democrat national convention in Denver. 

"The mayor has to understand with the hearing going forward, his biggest bargaining chip -- his resignation -- could disappear at any time, especially if the hearing is not going in his favor," said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor.

With historic hearing, Granholm sends clear message to Kilpatrick
Pressure on mayor to get plea deal quickly
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW, BEN SCHMITT and SUZETTE HACKNEY • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS •
August 27, 2008

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has designed the removal hearing she ordered for next week against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in a way that makes it difficult for Kilpatrick to survive in office, legal experts say.

"It's a clear message to Kwame that he's going to lose," said Maurice Kelman, a retired Wayne State University law professor. "There's no way she can exonerate him."

I wasn't impressed by her speech last night. And I know they worked out the procedure in advance. I know she had no choice.

But Hillary having just moved to end the roll call vote early and nominate Obama by acclimation, I am now willing to say she's not a problem at this point.

And I notice Ms. Pelosi gave absolutely no time for a response to the call for opposing votes.

I found the Independant Business News Network when The Field Negro sneered at their complaint that no Black Republicans are scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention. Under normal circumstances I would just chuckle and move on.

On Friday, August 15, 2008 I was approached by a gentleman who told me to “cool down”, don’t go after Ron Carey’s office or the RNC and we will get together later and work things out after the RNC.  He went on to threaten Barb’s campaign by saying, “If you don’t, Barb is finished!”  The RNC has given money to some local “point people” in the Twin Cities to have party events neglecting the most valued and important thing to attract voter’s of color to the Republican Party…”community engagement and outreach”.  No one from Minnesota’s non-profit agencies have been contacted by the GOP/RNC to teach the community about the Constitution of the United States or even to register voters. Remember…Liberty does not have a color, it has soul!

I get this really interesting email on upcoming political coverage from PBS Vote 2008...I suppose I should thank whoever subscribed me to the email list except that it wasn't me and that kind of sucks...

TAVIS SMILEY -- Weekdays at 11 pm (check local listings) -- A smart hybrid of news, issues and entertainment. This Friday: A panel discussion recapping the Democratic Convention with guests Marc Morial (National Urban League), Cornel West (Princeton University) and Matt Bai (New York Times magazine).

Mr. Bai: let me suggest you become known for talking to Black folks rather than about Black folks.You won't have nearly as much competition.

It's an interesting world when you run around correlating every bit of data you see.

The intent was to show the elitism of the Democratic Party delegates (5% have high school diploma or less while 42% of the rest of the party has a high school diploma or less). It made me think, hm...it's a lot more than Black folks having education issues.

I would like to see the same breakdown for the Republican Party delegates vs. the party at large come next week. In fact, I think I'd like to see McCain challenged to speak to his hoi polloi while catering to the delegates on the floor.

The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order

    Download: PDF 851.86 KB
    by Hochschild, Jennifer L.; Weaver, Vesla

Dark-skinned blacks in the United States have lower socioeconomic status, more punitive relationships with the criminal justice system, diminished prestige, and less likelihood of holding elective office compared with their lighter counterparts. This phenomenon of “colorism” both occurs within the African American community and is expressed by outsiders, and most blacks are aware of it. Nevertheless, blacks’ perceptions of discrimination, belief that their fates are linked, or attachment to their race almost never vary by skin color. We identify this disparity between treatment and political attitudes as “the skin color paradox,” and use it as a window into the politics of race in the United States over the past half-century.

    Publication Type: Published Paper
    Published Date: December 2007
    Field of Interest: Global Issues
    Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Vesla Weaver. "The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order." Social Forces, vol. 86, no. 2 (December 2007).

On Politics, Women and Generational Anxiety
By ELEANOR RANDOLPH

DENVER

Eighty-eight years after American women fought their way into the voting booth, some latter-day activists here are having trouble adjusting.

They saw Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as their reward, a final acknowledgement that it was worth all the bras burned and lawsuits filed and marches on an all-male Washington. But Mrs. Clinton failed to win what may be her only shot at the Democratic nomination, and these women are trying to get used to the fact that a new generation is taking center stage here: one represented by Michelle Obama.

You know what?

I think I want to read around the brown feminist blogs to see if there's a reaction to this, Me, my whole understanding of elections is changing as I sit here typing.