Historic Election

Seconds after the large television screens that hung near the podium declared Barack Obama winner of this historic election, a uniformed police officer leaned against the back wall of the tightly packed Skirvin Hotel ballroom.

He was there not as an on-duty Oklahoma City policeman. But as a citizen to witness what no one had witnessed before. To stand quietly, but to soak up the sight and sound and feel that made this special. At that moment he glanced and then looked me straight in the eye, and smiled. It was a smile not of a man of authority, not of a man of different race than me, and not of a man of different experience or culture or thoughts.

It was a smile of a fellow human being who recognized that we – the black police officer and the white lawyer – were there for precisely the same reason. And I returned that recognition in the same way. With a return smile. A smile that you give your brother when on Christmas morning you gather around the tree and open the presents that you have given each other, and realize that the giving is greater than the gifts.

In that moment there was a sameness in this grand ballroom that at least for this period in time swallowed any racial division that any of these participants - black, white, brown or red – had ever imagined or had ever experienced.

The candidates in this election said it was about "change". As it turned out the election wasn’t just about change of policies in Washington, it became about a change in the way we see each other as people.

The celebration at the Obama/Democratic Party watch party was like a gush of emotion and elation that rivaled the final seconds of any team’s national championship. The ballroom was adorned with blue Obama signs and the "Yes We Can" banners. With the announcement that the 232-year-old United States had elected its first African-American as President, there was an eruption of sound, then a blur of movement and then a cacophony of aural celebration, marked by the most notable chant, "O-BAM-A...O-BAM-A...O-BAM-A."

A band blared some catchy tune that captured the feeling that America had risen to the level of idealism which school children have been taught for ages, which Hollywood has portrayed with the patriotic sounds of John Williams scores, but which for our country’s entire history has been seen as lacking and even sometimes disingenuous when the color of skin was considered.

People danced and people danced on chairs. Men high-fived. Well dressed women of all ages hugged. Couples kissed. There was no barrier — physical, political or perceived – among these many people who celebrated the election of a man who brings hope that America is indeed the great democracy of the world, and on this night we proved it to the world.

On this night, November 4, in the year 2008, in this red-state ballroom of nearly 800 people, one rock band and a half dozen TV reporters, there were no black people. There were no white people. There were no differences. There were only Americans. Americans standing, and dancing, and smiling at each other -- proud of what we had accomplished.

--Mike D.

Obama: No. 1 Liberal or not?

I’ve noticed that the FOX talking heads (yeah, I saw Hannity recently), keep referring to Obama as the MOST liberal person in the Senate. That of course is the first time I’d seen anyone identified as more liberal than Ted Kennedy. But, anyway, I checked with a website that is liberal and which ranks senators and house members on a liberal (progressive) vs. conservative scale on all votes that have come up and this is what I found:

Progressive Punch Senate Rankings

This is a ranking of all votes – not just on certain issues that might skew the tabulations one way or the other.

Obama ranks 25th on the “liberal” scale in the Senate (that’s his lifetime score). For 2007-08 he’s 43rd (that puts him two notches ahead of Joe Lieberman, a ways behind Hillary and quite a bit behind his fellow Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, who is Number 1 in 2007-08).

While Obama does not fall into any conservative tendencies on any issues, he loses his chance at being No. 1 “most liberal” on the following votes: moving class action lawsuits to less consumer-friendly federal courts; voting with Republicans to move forward on Senate approval of Republican judicial nominations; he voted against a move to delete funding for an additional prison at Guantanamo Bay; he voted against an amendment by Tom Coburn that would have made the 9/11 Commission recommendations expire in the year 2012, thereby siding with Republicans, while Coburn sided with some Democrats (it’s a wacky, wacky world sometimes); he sided with Coburn on Tom’s amendment to an appropriation bill to cut $100 million for security at the presidential party conventions this summer; and he voted to confirm Condelezza Rice’s nomination as Secretary of State in 2005, despite criticism at the time for her role in lobbying for the war in Iraq (which Obama opposed). Much of the rest of his poor showing as a “liberal” was because he was absent during close votes on issues regarding big business and restrictions on credit card companies.

I may have to reconsider my support for Obama. He may be too conservative for me.

Meanwhile, according to this ranking, there are 40 U.S. Senators more conservative than John McCain (based on lifetime votes). He lost his “conservative” star by voting with Democrats/”liberal”s the following way: to stop debate on an immigration bill; to curb an expansion of the list of crimes that would prevent illegal immigrants from applying for legal status; to allow federal funds for embryonic stem cell research; to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate for cheaper pharmaceutical prices for senior citizens (apparently Repubs are healthier and don’t need medicine); he voted with Democrats to reduce certain tax breaks for persons earning more than $1 million annually, in order to fund greater veterans medical benefits; he authored a bill requiring current background checks for gun buyers to apply to “gun shows”, thereby closing a loophole. This was hotly opposed by the NRA (the bill was then added to the gun liability bill, which was soundly defeated when the gun lobby ramped up); he voted with Democrats for $100 million in aid to Mexican farmers hurt by falling coffee prices (someone tell Starbucks about that); McCain voted against an amendment to the drug bill that would have barred states from providing health insurance to poor legal (yeah, legal) immigrants. The amendment failed, but McCain was one of only 8 Repubs to vote against it; in 2004 McCain sided with Democrats and voted against a bill to cut funding for education and social security and provide tax cuts for the highest tax bracket taxpayers; he voted against a bill to cut taxes on social security benefits and allow budget deficits to increase; in 2002 he voted against allow pharmaceutical companies to extend their patents (his vote thereby allowed less expensive generic drugs to become available at the current time frame); in 2005 he voted to re-instate polluter-pays fees to fund the bankrupt Superfund trust originally created to clean up abandoned toxic waste sites (the bill failed, so the taxpayers have foot the entire bill, but clean up has slowed to half what it was before); he sided with Democrats in a bill requiring the Dept of Energy to set timelines for development of hydrogen fuel cells (32 REpubs voted against this for whatever reason); in 2004 he voted against opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling; and in 2002 he voted with Democrats to create a commission to examine spikes in energy prices. His absence on several key votes regarding pharmaceuticals also affected his score.

But before you call McCain the most liberal of Republicans, he is ranked 19th most conservative in the Senate in the 2007-08 period. There are 30 Republicans who score more liberal than him over-all, according to this study of each senators entire voting record during that period. But there are only eight Republicans who score more liberal than him when the senators’ lifetime voting record is taken into account.

Both Obama and McCain missed about the same number of close votes on various issues in the last two years.

So when you hear FOX labeling Obama the MOST liberal in the Senate, that’s obviously not true. He may be far more liberal than they want, but it’s the sort of hyperbole that we are fed by cable TV media who have an agenda. If conservative critics label McCain too liberal, he probably is for their tastes, but mostly due to his votes critical of big business or the gun lobby.

-MDD

Rudy's Bomber

Norman Podhoretz is a New York neo-conservative columnist who advocates a pre-emptive military strike against Iran, for fear that Iran will build a nuclear weapon some day and threaten the western world. He acknowledges this could create a huge backlash of anti-Americanism world wide. But, he says, it is worth it.

Podhoretz is Rudy Guliani's senior foreign policy advisor.

You can read his "Case for Bombing Iran" here.

Podhoretz openly advocates what he calls World War IV (III being the cold war) and makes analogies to Adolf Hitler when referencing Iranian's nutty president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Podheretz is quick to point out that the Iranian leader's agenda is to first "wipe out" Israel.

I suppose it is not surprising that a Jewish neo-conservative from New York would be advocating the U.S. save Israel by bombing an Islamic country; nor surprising that Guliani would be the presidential candidate listening to this guy.

So, if you are tired of this war in Iraq, but want another, then vote for Rudy.

On the other hand if you think Podhoretz is a warmongerer (and that such is a bad thing), then you will only vote for Rudy if you have lost your mind. If Rudy wins, then we all will be losing a lot more: many thousands more of our young men and women in a purposeless and unnecessary war.

-- Mike