Prose and Thorn

Political hay makers, seeing the sun shining, start making hay

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:36:00 +0000

"Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects." - Lester B. Pearson, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former prime minister of Canada

An adage has been validated, over the past ten days or so, that politics is a bloodsport, somewhere between boxing and dagger throwing. Vulnerabilities exposed are vulnerabilities exploited, sometimes with a direct hit, sometimes with the glancing blow of rhetoric and hyperbole.

Like any hard fought match between an aggressive foe and a punching bag, there are body blows that leave the administration to catch its breath, like the IRS' overzealous, allegedly biased interpretations of the laws surrounding 501(c)4 applicants, and there are hay maker punches, which have plenty of dramatic wind-up, but ultimately land ineffectually, like the Republicans' hit and miss attacks in its "investigation" of the Benghazi tragedy. The bell has rung, and the administration has been forced to step into the ring with various, agenda driven House committees, who have already demonstrated the mentality of a pack of foaming dogs in their pursuit of scoring partisan points against the White House. They are looking for blood, of the highest order, and in that hunt, a fleeting pass at establishing truthiness is all that is required. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

Boston to Houston: a right to radicalize?

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:45:00 +0000

"As Tamerlan's devotion to Islam became more intense and radicalized, Dzhokhar showed signs of his brother's influence" - The Atlantic Wire, May 5, 2013

"A YouTube account apparently belonging to Tamerlan Tsarnaev gives tantalising hints of his radicalisation before the Boston bombings" - The (UK) Guardian, April 22, 2013

"Rojanksy will speak to the notion that Islamic extremists, and Chechen ties, contributed to the radicalization of the suspected bombers" - programming notes for the April 24, 2013, episode of CNN's Piers Morgan Live [emphasis mine]

Since the horrible events in Boston, last month, it is impossible to browse a news site or watch television news without having the word thrown in your face like a water soaked towel. Guantanamo radicalizes. Middle East politics radicalizes. Islam radicalizes. The Internet radicalizes.

"I think that this is a very difficult challenge when you have individuals who are self-radicalizing, they’re not part of some massive conspiracy or a network," President Obama told a Univision interviewer, Friday.
To that end, Newsweek's Michael Moynihan, in a piece where he uses a pseudonym to explore extremist websites, defines "self-radicalization" as "the process by which those unconnected to organized jihad are lured toward extremism via the Web."

If the online snuff films and photographs of dead children that Moynihan describes are part of the jihadist call to arms, then coming down from the dark cloud of the terrorist underworld can only be countered with an equally potent validation of community and belonging.

"A lot of these videos, they are very emotive," Haris Tarin, of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told PBS' Bob Abernethy, last week. "These sermons, they use violence and gruesome images to tug at the emotion of young people."

But while the media is scrambling to compartmentalize "self-radicalization" as a behavior in which only a handful of sociopathic, homegrown Islamic terrorists engage, there's one place in the American conversation where radicalization from an organized group gets only minimal attention from the press, as an existential threat. I'm speaking, of course, of the National Rifle Association.

In Houston, this past weekend, the NRA paraded speaker after speaker, who railed against Obama and gun safety advocates with the hateful energy of a radical imam. Through the exhortations of their leadership, the NRA are behaving like American jihadis. Like the terrorist who twists the Qur'an to defend their murderous ways, the anti-government, cultural isolationists of the NRA re-interpret the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights to justify arming themselves for revolution.

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D.C.'s vulnerability tactic - a cry for help?

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:21:00 +0000

"I think it comes as no surprise not [only] to the American people, but even [to] members of Congress themselves, that right now things are pretty dysfunctional up on Capitol Hill."
- President Barack Obama, Tuesday, April 30, 2013, during a White House press conference

It's very hard to tell, but it seems that the policy branches of our federal government have bared themselves to our anger, disappointment and distrust. They have embraced a recovery program - not an economic plan, but the one that starts with them finally admitting they have a problem. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

The burning bush of progressivism

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:52:00 +0000

"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."
- attributed to 19th c. minister, Rev. Theodore Parker, popularized by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a commencement address to Wesleyan University, 1964

Take your sandals from your feet, America. We've climbed the mountain, and stand on the holy ground of progressivism. Feel the heat of rigorous, enforceable gun laws. See the burning triumph of love over intolerance in the fight for marriage equality. Hear your own meek voices rising to a crescendo on immigration reform, fair wages and feeding the hungry. The call has gone out. Though rainmaker lobbyists and extreme ideologues have unleashed a hell storm of fire on sanity and common sense, our republic will not be consumed. Tell the stiff necked in Congress, more beholden to what is good for their careers than what is good for the country, to let our government go, that it may worship the reality of a functional America. After more than thirty years in the wilderness of anti-union, anti-government and anti-social welfare policy, welcome back to the mountain top. Before us lies the promised land. This is not the time for humility or discretion because who we continue to be as a country is what is at stake, not just for the Joseph Campbell sized myth with which we regard ourselves, but also the story we write for our place in the world.

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To be in the conversation, be part of the conversation

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:49:00 +0000

That could really be the mantra of the transition from Obama's very public, bully pulpit tactic of campaign style events, highlighting the issues he wants the American people to help him see through, to his new, private "charm offensive," a series of dinner and lunch meetings with Republican Senators and Representatives aimed at getting past the immovable conversation in Washington, DC.

As recently as a month ago, during the State of the Union address, the president made clear his conviction that "it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story."

His actions show that he believes in us that much, and if he could have asked for that commitment from all of us that night, right then and there, without rhetorical flourish, in a way that would have had us all on our feet, saying, "Yes, Mr. President, I will stand with you, march with you and fight with you," maybe he would have us believing it, too.

But this latest outreach to Congress makes it seem as though the president has given up on getting any broad, mobilized consensus from the populace.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

SCOTUS arguments show 'there is still work to do' on voting rights

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:03:00 +0000

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act,
with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights
leaders in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC, 08/06/1965
(Photo credit: The U.S. National Archives)

There are few words that cut through the perennial story of American pride in its exceptionality, like "racism." That one, ugly social system, propped up over our sordid history by institutional and ideological bulwarks of denial and ignorance, like Jim Crow, is part of the DNA of our country, away from which we are continually attempting to evolve. But just saying it's over doesn't end it. Seeing more minorities voting than ever doesn't end it. Electing an African American president doesn't end it.

Ask the people whose 2012 vote was protected by the Department of Justice denying attempt after attempt in states affected by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The need for DoJ clearance and oversight is essential to implementation. That's what makes the law "rational in theory and practice," the loss of which, the plaintiff representing Shelby County, Alabama, in the case, argued Wednesday, should be grounds for overturning the preclearance called for in the disputed section of the VRA.

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History, truth and the insane belief in mainstream politics

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:23:00 +0000

"'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
"'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.'
"'Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'"
- from "1984," by George Orwell (Part 3, Chapter 2)

If you have paid any attention to the Chuck Hagel, SecDef nomination hype, you probably heard the former Republican Senator's detractors calling him "out of the mainstream," when it comes to Israel, Iran, and involving the US in talks with terrorist organizations.
Witness Thursday morning's exchange between Hagel and Sen. John McCain, during the former's confirmation hearing. Hagel, as a Senator, made statements against Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq, equating it to a potential quagmire, a word used often to describe the war in Vietnam, where Hagel served and was wounded. McCain, himself a prisoner of the Vietcong during that conflict, insisted that the surge was a success and wanted his former colleague to take it back, to admit his previous position was a mistake.
“I’m not going to give you a yes or no,” Hagel told McCain. “I’ll defer that judgement to history."
"History has already made a judgement on the surge," McCain insisted, "and you’re on the wrong side of it."
This insistence on defining history as mainstream truth is a revisionism worthy of Orwell. Honest and frank answers are eschewed for blind allegiance and party fidelity. Engaging in "You're either with us or against us" tactics, especially when it comes to what's true or not, endangers our republic, because it attempts to supplant evidence with conviction.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

Shocker: Government shirks responsibility, again

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:54:00 +0000

The deal approved today is truly a missed opportunity to do something big to reduce our long-term fiscal problems…”
- from a statement released Tuesday, by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of a bipartisan deficit reduction committee

If you don’t stand broadly and shoulder the responsibilities of governing, there should be no surprise when the house of cards you’ve tried to build over the last two years comes crashing down around you. That’s what happened over New Year’s Day, when the Senate, and then the House, passed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill that mitigated the effects of the final sunset (thank God) of the Bush tax cuts.

As a solution to the so called “fiscal cliff,” the Senate version of a revamped House bill falls short of averting every slippery rock on the way to the economic edge, but it was the only lifeline of agreement left after Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH), turned down the president’s offer of early December, refusing to take the same tack with his caucus that he essentially was forced to take Tuesday night. Since he dropped the ball the White House handed him, Boehner had to make do with the cold, meatless bone of a compromise worked out between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Vice President Joe Biden.

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Gun laws, of course, but what else?

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 01:48:00 +0000

“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”
- President Barack Obama, Sunday night, addressing participants at a prayer vigil for the 26 teachers and students, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Friday

There is no snow on the mid-December ground in Newtown, Connecticut, to hide the furry ears of teddy bears, the bundles of flowers, the mounting piles of notes and photos, mourning the dead children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary, beneath a quiet pile of white. Instead, the cold ground, in the small New England town, under tears and rain, lays its sadness bare. The national empathy is loud and palpable, through sad news reports, police press conferences, brave family statements, and the president’s words of comfort to a community devastated over its loss of innocence, and innocents.

President Obama addresses prayer vigil in Newtown, Connecticut, Sunday, December 16, 2012.
(From Whitehouse.gov video)

“Are we really prepared,” President Obama asked, at Sunday’s vigil, “to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
“I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens,” he promised, “in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”
He said he would gather those who can help with the issue of mass killings at the hands of deranged minds, including parents, teachers and mental health professionals. But in this inexplicable tragedy, we are all stakeholders. We are all engaged. We are all responsible. We cannot only rely on whatever politically expedient solution the leaders of our country come up with, and call it done.
But what else do we do?
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

Throwing stones at Goliath – the frustrating fight for the states

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Lest you thought you could stop and revel in the leaf turning another few degrees leftward through the political arc, with November victories muting many of the worst DC ogres and trolls in their teabag hats, December comes with its season of deception, and reminds us all that the fight for a progressive America is not just what happens in a room with the president, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Majority Leader. We were all so busy admiring our woodcarving handiwork, we’ve forgotten that this is a country full of Tea Party termites, happy to lull us into a sense of accomplishment for what our efforts presented to the world, while state by state, they chew at the infrastructure of community interdependence that built our nation. If we are not more vigilant, we will be staring at a husk that turns to dust when flicked by an American flag rat tail, wielded by an uninformed, ignorant electorate.
What happened the past five days in the great state of Michigan is neither the opening salvo of our battle against our big-money foe, nor is it the last arrow in their quiver. It was exactly two years ago this week, when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), fresh off his election, announced he was going to seek to curtail collective bargaining for the public sector unions in the Badger State. Neither unions nor AWOL state senators were able to stop the Koch brothers’ acolyte, Walker. The support from Democrats, on the national level, was almost non-existent, as the unions sought to punish Walker for his about face, with a failed recall election.
What these two similar events demonstrate is that the sleeping giant of conservatism lives in the state legislatures...
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

Michigan attempt to stifle labor puts politics ahead of people

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Rick Snyder, 48th Governor of Michigan,
takes the oath of office the Capitol, in Lansing,
at his inauguration.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

President Obama, Monday, drew a parallel between the divisive politics of the federal budget's so-called fiscal cliff, and the politics of the Michigan governor's fight against unions. "These so-called 'right to work' laws, they don't have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics," he told a crowd of supporters at the new Daimler diesel plant, in Redford, Michigan, at a previously scheduled stop to push his call for a tax rate increase for top earners.

Saying the unions that thrived in the cradle of the American automotive industry "have helped build not just a stronger middle class but a stronger America," Obama called the actions of Gov. Rick Snyder and the Michigan state legislature to remove rules regarding union membership in union shops, a politically vindictive choice rather than necessary legislation. He then used the familiar language of frustration, unmistakably similar to that used in the budget debate in Washington, DC. "[W]e’ve got to get past this whole situation where we manufacture crises because of politics," he said.

Both these events - the fiscal cliff created by Congress' stubborn ineptitude and the unexpected turnabout of Michigan's Snyder on the unions who supported his election - the president went on to say, are attacks on the health of the American middle class...
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>

Republicans shameless attacks based on sham principles

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:17:00 +0000

It’s probably a holdover from war propaganda technique. Dehumanize your enemy; make them less sympathetic. For Republicans, that requires inventing an artificial social standard for which they can create consensus, something they ironically call the “real America,” a militaristic, political force of religious, cultural warriors who fight for all they choose to define as good and true, a standard that exists only because believing makes it so. They then point out how communities that challenge that standard are unfaithful, greedy heathens.
It could be as simple as Group X saying, “We keep the poor from dying,” and the Republicans claiming Group X gives help to murderers, rapists and thieves. Wanting a hand up is cast as envy. Wanting a fair wage is seen as ingratitude. Asking for considerations when one has needs but no means becomes socialism.
Planned Parenthood and the United Nations are among those the GOP has singled out in its fight, organizations that a generation ago were honored and revered by Republicans and Democrats alike. Emboldened by their hand in the destruction of ACORN, an organization that did nothing but help inner city communities, they think they have a precedent of success for their self-righteous attacks.

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Wal-Mart protesters call for workers' rights

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 02:28:00 +0000

Workers' rights are human rights. That's what one hand painted sign said at a protest outside a Wal-Mart store in Decatur, Georgia, Friday. About two dozen protesters stood on the sidewalk across the street from the mega-retailer's store in this suburb, just east of Atlanta, playing drums, waving flags and signs, and shouting at motorists to make them aware of what they see as the questionable labor practices of the world's largest retailer. "We wanted to show our solidarity with Wal-Mart workers," said Diana Eidson, who took part in the event on the unofficial kickoff day of the holiday shopping season. Many Wal-Mart associates around the country walked out, Friday, to demonstrate their own dissatisfaction with their employer.

"We're saying community, not consumerism; family, not frenzy," Misty Novitch, a social justice activist, agreed. "We're trying to offer a different way of doing Black Friday, that supports the [Wal-Mart] workers on strike around the country, striking for just a living wage, healthcare, predictable scheduling," she explained, "so they don't get retaliated against when they try to form a union, the ability to form a union without fear." READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE...

Fiscal cliff compromise a wolf in elephant's clothing

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Here we go again. The Republicans are skipping down the path toward obstructionism, aiming to get away with doing the least by convincing us it is the most they can do. It isn't. They will give it another sham title like "Tax Reform." It won't be. They're saying it will increase significant revenue by being "fair" to the middle class and the "job creators." It won't, and it isn't.

"The math tends not to work," said President Obama, at his first post-election press conference, last Wednesday. While he agreed with recent statements by Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH), that "there are loopholes that can be closed, and we should look at how we can make the process of deductions, the filing process easier, simpler," the president added, "what I'm not going to do is to extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it, which would cost close to a trillion dollars."

By focusing only on closing loopholes and changing the tax code, the Republicans are actually taking aim at middle class households. The top two percent aren't the only ones who benefit from deductions.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE...

-PBG

For Obama, it's really always been about unity

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:30:00 +0000

President Obama, Vice President Biden and their
families celebrate their reelection, in Chicago, early
Wednesday morning. (From Voice of America video

If there was ever a question about which commitment President Barack Obama has made in his life that will live beyond his presidency, it is his stubborn belief that a united America, without the distraction of division, can and will accomplish great things. Regardless of whether he is able to reach effective but difficult compromises with the Republican led House of Representatives over the next two to four years, he will always be remembered for the clarion call for unity he sounded in his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention. He doubled down on that plea early Wednesday morning, when, in victory, he addressed thousands of supporters in Chicago.

"I believe we can seize this future together," he said, "because we are not as divided as our politics suggest; we're not as cynical as the pundits believe; we are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions; and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can take the stage and argue with the White House and the Senate majority over revenues and deficits and the fiscal cliff, but in the face of a voting public hungry for Washington to set aside its differences, it makes them and their caucuses seem small and petulant, mice in the face of the human sized task of serious governance. It is a task the president seems ready for.

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Sandy's reality provides opportunity for Obama 'One America' redux

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:21:00 +0000

"For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people...
"It is that fundamental belief - it is that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: 'E pluribus unum,' out of many, one...
"...there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America."
- Barack Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention

Even in the face of an election season full of the most rancorous and extreme partisanship, there is a takeaway from the politics of the Hurricane Sandy tragedy, one that reprises President Obama's seminal assertion that, eight years on, there is still only one America. With the recent praises of FEMA and the president's leadership coming from the unequivocal Chris Christie, New Jersey's no-nonsense Republican governor, it appears that the storm that devastated that state and region has done what no hard running politician could do - show that level headed and reasonable responses to responsibilities destroy divisiveness in favor of cooperation.
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Commander in Chief vs Commander of Shift

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:45:00 +0000

"You said that, first, we should not have a timeline in Afghanistan. Then you said we should. Now you say maybe or it depends, which means not only were you wrong, but you were also confusing in sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies."
- President Barack Obama, talking to Gov. Mitt Romney at the third presidential debate, October 22, 2012

We have a Commander in Chief, and his name is Barack Obama. He successfully made the point that if Mitt Romney carries his knack for shuffling his positions into the realm of foreign policy, it will be a disaster for the United States' standing in the world. Unless, of course, like a third world despot, Romney is telling us one thing and telling the rest of the world something entirely different.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE...

What's so foreign about foreign policy?

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:21:00 +0000

In a time when so much of U.S. foreign policy involves our global military footprint, ongoing engagements, waning engagements and threatening engagements, it's easy to think that war is the sole function of that governing platform. Americans are conditioned that way; like a computer that insists on entering a discarded wi-fi password at your favorite cafe, many young voters cannot remember a time when it was not how we operated in war that ran our international relations, but how we manage our peace.

God, and the voters, willing, that period will return soon.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE...

Administration Benghazi story consistent with intelligence docs

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Fire burns in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi
after the attack there on September 11, 2012.
(Photo credit: Voice of America)

News reports appeared, Friday night, that it was not al-Qaeda that was involved in the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month, but a local militia group that launched the assault after watching the violence in Egypt on television, earlier that day. "The attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo," an unnamed U.S. intelligence official told the Los Angeles Times, in an article published Friday.

In a similar story, the Washington Post's David Ignatius writes, "The senior intelligence official said the analysts’ judgment was based in part on monitoring of some of the Benghazi attackers, which showed they had been watching the Cairo protests live on television and talking about them before they assaulted the consulate."

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Truth slightly distorted - the Republicans' latest cobbled frame

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:01:00 +0000

"The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted." -G.C. Lichtenberg, 18th Century scientist and satirist

Word has come, from a piece in New York Magazine, that former President George W. Bush has begun to paint, "making portraits of dogs and arid Texas landscapes" to occupy his time in retirement. It's a good hobby for a 66 year old man to take up, especially one who used to represent a party that makes it its business to hold up a picture of what they want Americans to see, instead of what is actually there.

As Bill Clinton said last week in Las Vegas, in aping Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, over his sudden teleportation (not turn, because it was too sudden a shift to be congruous) from "severely conservative" to the political center, "Who ya gonna believe - me or your own lyin' eyes?"

Whether, as Clinton suggested, moderate Mitt is back, or whether he just rejiggered his campaign because of the influence of of his family, as some have suggested, it seems rather apparent that the Republican party as a whole will continue to carry the hard right's message, even as Mitt distances himself from it.

For the former Massachusetts governor, re-framing is second nature. For the GOP, re-framing is what they do when they want to distort a perceived chink in an opponent's armor or shield their nominee from his own weaknesses.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE...

Romney's Core

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:34:00 +0000

Mitt Romney, as CEO of the Salt Lake
Organizing Committee
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Given all the different positions that Mitt Romney has taken throughout his political career, it may be easy to label him a liar and a flip-flopper. But if voters are looking for the "real" Mitt, they will have a hard time trying to peer through the gauzy obfuscations to the man at the core. Mitt plays politics in a carnival funhouse, and one cannot tell with certainty if what they are looking at is the authentic Romney or one of a series of distorted reflections, each intended to please a particular block of voters.

Somewhere in the center of the rotating Romney record that spins on the public life turntable, needle dropping alternately (that's like an iPod shuffle, to you Millennials) on the Senate candidate cut, the Bain cut, Massachusetts governor cut, the 2008 presidential candidate cut, the 2012 GOP primary cut and the 2012 official Republican nominee cut, is a tall, silver spindle that is unmoving and unmovable. It is the axis around which everything that is Mitt Romney swirls.

The first debate, in Denver last week, was the ultimate clue that the Romney campaign is both more and less than it seems. To attribute his polymorphic politics to mere pandering, is to imply a schedule of nefarious plotting by the candidate and his campaign. That is not only antithetical to the moral man he claims to be, it ignores the possibility of a simpler explanation, an Occam's Razor, if you will. It is not only possible, but likely, that he sees no disconnection between his stoic center and the political characters he has trotted out on the stage throughout his life.

Read the entire article...

Can't hang your hat on polls when winds of crisis blow

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:42:00 +0000

In politics, you can't hang your hat on a poll, because the winds of global events will easily send it tumbling away. In the battle for leading a nation, there are only two things you can plant at the top of a poll: a flag or your ass, and if one isn't up there, the other soon will be.

It's safe to say that following the revelation of the recent video with Mitt Romney speaking "off the cuff," as he called it, at a high end fundraiser in Boca Raton, this spring, his keester is high in the breeze, hoisted with his own Mitt-tard, as it were. He just cannot get away from who he is. As Bob Marley sang, "You're running, and you're running, and you're running away, but you can't run away from yourself."

But there are still seven weeks until the decision is final, and anything can happen.

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Peace withers when religion tramples the vine

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 03:27:00 +0000

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton greet
caskets of four U.S. victims of Libyan violence, at
Andrews Air Force Base,
White House Photo, Pete Souza, 9/14/12

Faith requires so little - only the willingness to abandon what one knows to be true in family and society, in favor of something less certain, outside one's usual life experience. That is where a prophet of faith begins his (or her) personal journey. It is not until after others have also stepped forward, into the uncertain chaos of new belief, that system and structure begin to emerge, and what once was an exiled gathering of like minded individuals is re-absorbed into the larger community from whence it came. There, after derision, discrimination and death, the movement finally takes hold as a religion, as true to its adherents as fire, air and water.

The Arab Spring, that began in the winter of 2011, could not have happened without the tenacity to true faith that Islam has in the everyday lives of people in North Africa, the Middle East and East Asia. These were not revolutions for individual freedoms, as some in the West may think of them, inasmuch as they were populist actions to overthrow dictators and despots. They were revolutions for democracy, because the people did not feel their voices were being heard. We can harbor no illusion that they would suddenly become reasonable players on the world stage, since it was often those dictators and despots who would have helped keep things, like what happened this week in Cairo, Benghazi and Sanaa, from getting out of hand. (Well, maybe not so much in Libya. If Gaddafi were still around, he'd probably lead the assault.)

In the Arab and Muslim world, this week, it is not the brambled hedge of religion that is under attack. It is the thorny vine of budding peace, trying to wind its way around the stake planted during the Arab Spring, that is struggling.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Come up with a position - Mitt will be along shortly

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:26:00 +0000

He has been running for president of the United States for almost six years, and there are still so many doubts about his backbone and his political footing that opposing party partisans are not the only ones questioning his ability to be leader of the free world. But if he doesn't belong in the Oval Office, where does Mitt Romney belong?
His bona fides may suggest Secretary of Commerce, or a modest financial adviser to the chief executive or the Treasury secretary, but the Republican party has pushed him to the fore, out of a bevy of imbeciles and a cattle call of kowtowers, to be their alternative to President Obama - a well liked, popular incumbent with exceptional social skills, and a record of modest improvement from the situation the nation was burdened with when he took office, almost four years ago.
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2012 Democratic National Convention

comments@proseandthorn.net (PB Goodfriend) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:26:00 +0000

September 6, 2012

A verdict to be rendered, votes to be gathered, victory to be won

There is a two part movie analogy to what took place at the Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week. One is the the trial drama, where the parade of witnesses for the defense - and the incumbent is always on the defense - testify to the jury of voters, and validate allegiance to the candidate and his policies. At the end of the trial, all the voters are charged to deliberate and render a verdict: re-elect or not to re-elect.
The other kind of movie scene the convention spectacle brings to mind, is the Braveheart moment, where the general rides up and down the line, motivating the troops for battle, letting them know how important their sacrifice of time and their commitment to the outcome are the keys to victory, for the candidate, and everything for which the president stands. The faithful then charge ahead, into the phalanx of skeptics and naysayers, and their barbed memes, relying on the party lieutenants to keep them from being outflanked.
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Cooperation and the Clinton effect

: (Photo Courtesy: Johannes Worsøe Berg)

Why is it that a Bill Clinton speech can soften Republican hearts when President Obama hardens them so much?
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September 5, 2012

Jerusalem, God amendments to Democratic platform added on close vote

In what can easily be described as an uncomfortable three minutes for the Democratic National Convention, its chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, was forced to take three, apparently close, voice votes from the delegates in Charlotte, to amend the party's platform, Wednesday, to include mentioning God and affirming the party's belief in Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
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Reproductive rights not Sandra Fluke’s only passion

Sandra Fluke's accidental celebrity, this year, may have come about over a Capitol Hill clash on women's reproductive rights, and an unworthy epithet hurled at her from a right wing radio blowhard, but when she takes the podium, Wednesday night, at the Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, she is going to reveal to the country that her interests in women's issues goes, she says, "beyond the contraception conversation."
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September 4, 2012

Democrats say value in American Dream is in who you are

One of the earliest speeches to the delegates of the Democratic National Convention, Tuesday evening, came from a man in a white cowboy hat - Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. It kind of set the theme for the night."Barack Obama has lived the American Dream," he said. "He has walked in our shoes."
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Democrat platform – familiar themes and contrasts, plus the wonky bits

As a policy document, one could get lost in the weeds about NATO, North Korea and loose nukes, but the wonky bits in the 2012 Democratic National Platform don't start until halfway through the forty page document. The first twenty pages of the platform, which the party will approve at their convention in Charlotte, Tuesday night, is all about one thing - growing the middle class.

September 3, 2012

Yes, the Democrats have a Southern Strategy, of sorts

"We are thrilled to have the Democratic National Convention here, thrilled to have our party fighting for the South." - Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor Anthony Foxx, in a statement welcoming the media to his hometown, September 3, 2012

Mayor Foxx called the Democrats' mobilizing in North Carolina, "a ripple effect," because, "we border Virginia, and some of the other states around us, that could be competitive in this race."
"It gives us just as much of a boost in Virginia, the neighboring state, as it does in North Carolina," agreed Obama campaign press secretary, Ben Labolt.
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Open, accessible and diverse, versus secret, exclusive and white

Flip the coin over. The Democrats in Charlotte are planning what they consider a kind of antithesis of what the Republicans just did in Tampa, and, they believe, it's as much about population and platform as it is about publicizing policy.
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History as caricature - Republicans selling malaise like it's 1979

"[O]n issue after issue, Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan want to go backwards."
-President Obama, Boulder, Colorado, September 2, 2012

The Republicans want you to be morose, sad and resigned.
One of the themes that emerged from the Republican National Convention, in Tampa, last week, was how sad are the times, how disappointing is the economy, how grey the outlook for hope. You could see it in the drooping, puppy dog eyelids of vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), when he spoke of the Janesville, Wisconsin, shuttered GM plant. "It is locked up and empty to this day," he lamented, the corners of his wide, disappearing lips, drawing downward, feeling your pain, out there in the unemployed, closed factory towns around the country, "And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."
Hopeless. So hopeless. If you are resigned to the hopelessness of the "fading Obama posters" on your bedroom ceiling, for attacks on success and for government assistance to help you get your slice of the American pie, they said, then vote for Obama. "If you're looking for free stuff, that you don't have to pay for," like health care and food and the ability to afford a college education, the Republican nominee told a heckler during the heat of the campaign, "then vote for the other guy. That's what he's all about."
Gov. Romney continued the RNC's theme of Obama destroying American drive, the night after Ryan's appeal to despair, in (not surprisingly) a less nuanced, more direct approach:

"Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more... Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more... Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now, a place of their own...
"This was the hope and change America voted for...
"I wish President Obama had succeeded... [b]ut his promises gave way to disappointment and division."

Oh, it's so sad, too sad, that this president has turned your lives into a brother-can-you-spare-a-dime, ponderous time of high gas prices and low self esteem, he insists.
Despite Romney's claim that "every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction: 'you are better off today than you were four years ago,'" it is only Reagan who thought that question relevant, and because he won on it, every Republican challenger to an incumbent has felt it necessary to ask the same.
And since Romney-Ryan want to be the Ronald Reagan of the early 21st century, Romney had to ask the country, Thursday, what other one-term, Democratic presidents have failed to lift the spirit of the American people? Oh, yes. Jimmy Carter, and now, "this president."
The problem with Mr. Romney's argument is, the politics of the seventies were bogged down by more than just inflation and high gas prices. Entire government institutions, ones that had been celebrated only a generation before, had broken the trust of the people. There was no trusting the president because of Watergate, no trusting the Congress or the military because of the quagmire of Vietnam, and finally, the Iran hostage crisis that went on for over a year, shook our gullible, Madison Avenue, post-World War II belief in the nation's ability to lead in the world, and didn't end until the day President Carter left office.
Times are hard, to be sure, but these are not those times, and Romney is not the mythical Reagan. Reagan wasn't even the mythical Reagan. He was a tax raising union-buster who made the first baby boomers to work on Wall Street a lot of money, believed that the poor were happy living on the dole, and prosecuted a secret war on Nicaragua with money from Iran. But he was the Gipper, and he did all that with a wink, a laugh and a nod, and a patronly smile that made most of America feel really good about their country.
Now, the Republicans want America's thinking voters to park their analytical brains, and equate the political difficulties of Jimmy Carter and the seventies with President Obama fighting a Congress that has made it a point to frustrate his policy and mute possible successes for fear any compromise or acquiescence would mitigate their desire and promise to make him "a one term president." What does that mean for the Republicans? An excuse to call the president ineffectual.
What does that mean for the president? It means a reason to show that he is willing to cross the aisle to work with even the most extreme Republicans, that he is above all this partisan posturing, even if they aren't.
This week, in Charlotte, President Obama should play up his successes with Congress, as minimal as they were, to show undecided and independent voters that he is not only willing, but capable of running our country, even under the pall of extreme push-back from the opposition party. That's what we will be looking for, as we continue our election coverage from inside the Democratic National Convention.
-PBG
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