Sunday Night Springsteen

The title of the previous post used a line from a relatively obscure Springsteen song - Goin' Cali -

He went down to the desert city where the rattlesnakes play
And left his dead skin by the roadside in the noon of day
Sun got so hot it almost felt like friend
It could burn out every trace of where you been

So, for Sunday night, a little rattlesnake speedway action, in the Promised Land (from 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey) -

Down To The Desert City Where The Rattlesnakes Play

From Atrios, we learn about an incredibly vapid, stupid and clueless commentary in today’s Washington Post -

Why Not A Debate In Dubai?

By David Ignatius
Sunday, June 29, 2008; B07

Here's a crazy idea that's being discussed by the rulers of the Persian Gulf city-state of Dubai: What if they were to invite Barack Obama and John McCain to come to the desert oasis for a presidential debate?

Yes, I know: This is America's presidential campaign, not a traveling roadshow to be shared with foreigners. And if the candidates can't even agree on a schedule of town meetings out in the American heartland, why should they travel to a sheikdom that's 7,000 miles from Washington -- and a short boat ride from Iran?

But the idea of a Dubai debate is appealing, not least because it would link the epochal 2008 campaign with a world that cares passionately about where America is heading. The United States is unpopular abroad these days in part because of a perception that we're arrogant -- that we don't care what the world thinks. An overseas debate would help change that perception.

I think that embracing the idea of a debate in Dubai will give the world a quite different impression, but more on that in a moment.

According to Mr. Ignatius' column, "The idea for this debate emerged in conversations and e-mails over the past week with officials in Dubai. … Dubai's leaders 'realize the importance of such an idea and are ready to receive the candidates and organize the event,' one senior official told me." Since so far this idea only seems to be covered in his column, and not in other news sources, one can only assume that this is something that Mr. Ignatius himself thought was a good idea. After noting that the campaigns appear to be cool to the idea (appropriately, in my view), Mr. Ignatius practically gushes over the perceived charms of this oil-rich oligarchy –

So the chances that a Dubai debate will actually happen are pretty slim, which is too bad. For it would be a good venue to engage the Middle East. As much as any place in the Arab world, Dubai is a symbol of modernization and change. It's a bit over the top, to be sure, with an artificial ski resort, man-made islands in the shape of a palm tree and rococo hotels with make-believe canals and Arab castles.

What's likable about Dubai is that, as a boomtown, it's a city that's "too busy to hate," as was said a generation ago of Atlanta. I wish that the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, would send an ambassador to Israel. But the UAE has been a strong supporter of the peace process and a key Arab ally in fighting terrorism. The 2006 congressional attack on Dubai Ports World, and its bid to manage some American ports, was sheer poppycock.

Elections are always about change and renewal, but that's especially true this year. The success of a charismatic African American named Barack Hussein Obama has inspired young people around the world, just as it has young Americans. John McCain, the torture victim who demands that we stop torture, also wants to make a new start. The message of Campaign 2008 is that America is turning a page.

A quick glance of some of the realities of Dubai would show what a stupid idea this really is. Dubai and the UAE aren't even close to being any sort of democracy (what part of the word "Emirates" doesn't he understand?). The vast majority of the residents aren't citizens, and are mostly imported workers from other Arab countries, Iran and South Asia. Human Rights Watch describes the conditions of those foreign workers in Mr. Ignatius' "city that's too busy to hate" as being little better than slavery or involuntary servitude –

Dubai, with its glittering new skyline of high-rise buildings and its profusion of luxury resorts and real estate, is the most globally emblematic evidence of the economic rise of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As the UAE undergoes one of the largest construction booms in the world, at least half a million migrant construction workers are employed there. Behind the glitter and luxury, the experiences of these migrant workers present a much less attractive picture—of wage exploitation, indebtedness to unscrupulous recruiters, and working conditions that are hazardous to the point of being deadly. UAE federal labor law offers a number of protections, but for migrant construction workers these are largely unenforced.
…

All of the construction workers interviewed for this report said that their employers confiscated their passports upon their arrival in the UAE, also commonly known to be a “custom” of employers in the UAE to protect against their migrant workers’ absconding. Although UAE courts have ruled that employer confiscation of passports is illegal, employers continue the practice totally unfettered by any concern that the government will enforce the law.
…

In most other places, a worker faced with hazardous working conditions and unpaid wages, in a free market economy that has an extreme shortage of labor, would move to a different job. But this is not an option for the migrant construction workers of the UAE, who like all other migrant workers in the country are contracted to work only for a specific employer. A worker seeking to move to a different employer is eligible to do so only after working for two years for the present employer and obtaining his or her consent to the move.

So, it's Mr. Ignatius' brilliant idea that the next American President will change the perception of the United States in the Muslim world by taking part in a "Democracy Show" in a place where millions of those Muslims are practically enslaved and exploited in dangerous working conditions. In a Muslim world where Al Qaeda points to the United States as an enabler for Persian Gulf royal families, as a means to stir up hatred and violence against Americans, that's a really, really stupid idea.

George Carlin

We learned today that he died. To be perfectly honest, George Carlin meant a lot more to me as a personality, as a commentator, and as someone who challenged the powerful, than Tim Russert ever did.

Sorry, that's just how I feel.

Kevin Smith has a great essay on him, in Newsweek.

I know that everyone is talking about his "7 Dirty Words". When I was a kid (we're talking '76, '77, here), we had the "Class Clown" album, which that routine is on. My mom wasn't a big fan of that one, but my seriously Catholic mom would laugh her head off listening to another routine on that album, "I used to be Irish Catholic" -



And just before the "7 Words", was Mr. Carlin's piece on Muhammad Ali, which also made an impression on a high school kid back then (Ali had lost his title because of his conscientious objector status, although he later won it back) -

(Ali) had an unusual job: beating people up.

It's a strange calling, you know? But it's one you're entitled to.

Government didn't see it that way. Government wanted him to change jobs. Government wanted him to kill people.

He said, "No, that's where I draw the line. I'll beat 'em up but I don't want to kill 'em."

And the government said, "Well, if you won't kill 'em, we won't let you beat 'em up! Ha ha ha ha!"

Sunday Night Springsteen

Summer's here and the time is right, and all that.

Summer is a recurring theme for our favorite musical artist. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" would be an obvious choice. However, tonight let's go back to a song that I first heard over thirty summers ago.

The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night
And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine over the Jersey state line
Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain
The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants
Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane

Kinda makes one feel old and young at the same time. So, tonight it's Jungleland.

Money Don't Get Everything It's TrueWhat It Don't Get, I Can't Use

We're being told that we are supposed to be upset because Senator Obama decided to forgo public financing, and the spending limits that accompany it.

Senator McCain is arguing that it's a "broken promise", but nobody can find any promise other than a questionnaire response indicating that Senator Obama was willing to negotiate a real spending cap. The existence of independent groups, which Senator McCain said he could not stop or control, pretty much eliminated that possibility.

I don't understand why everyone is forgetting that donation limits are still alive and well. I thought the public financing/spending caps were there in order to encourage/reward candidates who dropped out of the race for campaign cash, and all the attendant problems with that. Senator Obama has a valid point – it's a new world of communication and connection out there. You're reading my random thoughts on this topic, not because you know me, or because I've been published by a news source that you look to for information, but because we're here on the internet. Just as Mr. "Cautious-Man-who-thinks-he's-all-that-because-someone-visited-his-site-today" can communicate in a way that wasn't as common four, or certainly eight years ago, raising campaign money is different now, also. It doesn't have to be a "fat cat" game any more, as Senator Obama has demonstrated.

(Of course, it doesn't hurt that all the Clinton fat cats are now available to be tapped for cash also, but I digress.)

Why would Senator Obama need to make sure that he has as much money to spend as possible? Do I really need to ask that question? Does anybody really think that the prospect of a Democratic President, a fairly progressive Democratic President, and (yes, I will go there) an African-American Democratic President, won't encourage some people to go all out to do whatever they can, to prevent that?

If anyone doubts this, just look at what happened four years ago. The smear campaign against Senator Kerry, and anybody associated with him, was disgusting. We received a reminder of that campaign in today's NY Times, which had a story about the men who served with Senator Kerry, and who therefore were also abused and mocked by the "Swift Boat" smear. These are men who had their lives made fun of, because they committed the "crime" of (a) serving this country, and (b) doing so under the command of someone who would eventually run for President.

For most people, “Swift boat” has become a political verb, a synonym for the kind of attack that helped destroy the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry in 2004.

But for a group of Vietnam veterans at the center of the attacks, it is still a fresh fight.

On Friday, the group, who served with Mr. Kerry in Vietnam, sent a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman who helped finance the 2004 attack advertisements, taking him up on a challenge he issued last November: that he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single charge the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Mr. Kerry.

The letter-writers served alongside Mr. Kerry during the events that the Swift boat group insisted he had embellished or made up to win his military decorations.

Identifying themselves as “patriotic, concerned veterans” they say the accusations of the Swift boat group damaged their reputations and deeply affected their families, “tarnished the sacrifices we made, called into question the medals we were awarded and challenged the very authenticity of our service.”

What is truly amazing, is the fact that the "Swift Boat" smear is still believed by people, and that right-wingers still insist that it was a fair attack on Senator Kerry, despite all the holes that were poked in that argument –

Extensive news media accounts undermined the Swift boat charges in 2004, pointing out that some of the Swift boat critics had written statements in Vietnam lauding Mr. Kerry for extraordinary bravery in the incidents they later said he made up. One critic had himself received a medal for heroism during a hail of gunfire he later claimed Mr. Kerry had concocted to win his third Purple Heart.

But that did not blunt the political impact.

Four years ago, it was considered an acceptable political tactic to spread lies about American veterans, who had done nothing to deserve the garbage that was thrown at them. I don't think that anything is inconceivable, with respect to what might happen in this campaign.

And Senator Obama has every right to want to be ready to meet anything that is thrown at him. And nowadays, that requires money, because he certainly can't rely on the media.

"If I Look A Little Different, It’s Because I’ve Changed"

As we all know, George W. Bush turned out to be very different from the first George Bush. And, as it turns out, the John McCain running for President now is very different from the 2000 version. In fact, he's so different from the "first" John McCain, that we may as well distinguish between the two, by calling the 2008 version "John W. McCain" -

Ask any American what they know about John McCain and they will probably reply that he is a war hero who survived years of brutality in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. They might add that he is a maverick, free-thinking spirit who values independence and integrity above toeing the party line.

That is the Old John McCain, the one that has been written about in umpteen newspaper profiles, the one whose campaign bus is called the Straight Talk Express. But while all eyes have been on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new John McCain has been emerging. For the past 407 days, since he threw his hat into the presidential ring in April 2007, McCain has been criss-crossing the country, presenting an image of himself that runs counter to his long-standing reputation.

That article quoted from above (as do many, many others) describes how the "new" McCain is different from the "old" version. There's the change on taxes, the retreat on immigration, the changed attitude towards megachurch pastors who try to influence politics, etc. The description of his appearance at an NRA event makes this point -

If Old John McCain had turned up to this annual convention of the National Rifle Association - one of America's most hard-core rightwing affiliations - the results could have been ugly. Old John McCain is loathed by the gun-toting right. After all, this was the man who proposed granting citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, and - which is worse? - did so hand in hand with that enemy of the nation, Ted Kennedy. The same man who accused televangelists such as the late Jerry Falwell of being "agents of intolerance". The candidate whom the NRA opposed when he last ran for president, in 2000, swinging its four million active members instead behind George Bush.

So how did New John McCain get on this time in front of some 3,000 NRA supporters? He began by squinting into the teleprompter. And then he started pressing buttons. Button 1: "At the outset, let me recognise the life of a great American, Charlton Heston." (Huge cheer for the film actor and NRA president who died in April.) Button 2: "I opposed the ban on so-called 'assault weapons' which was first proposed after a California schoolyard shooting." (Another big cheer.) Button 3: he tells the crowd he stands for low taxes, less government, a bonfire of federal bureaucracy. Button 4: he vows to fight on in Iraq until the war is won. Button 5: he chucks in a reference to the greatness of America, and to God.

I'm not the first to refer to him as John W. McCain, of course (see for example a reference from Mother Jones), but I think that it's a good habit to get into.

[Edited to add] Sonofagun, I should have done more research before posting. There's an actual John-W-McCain.com! There's also a "Wikiality" page for "John W. McCain". Cool.

"I Can Feel The First Breeze of Summer ..."

And "Summer's here and the time is right", and all of that.

I don't know about you, but part of me wishes that the campaigns would just take the first part of the summer off. There's going to be a lot of noise, without much useful information.

It harshes my attempted summertime mellow.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Quite the week in politics. But, it's far from over.

The words from this song came to mind this week, in thinking about what is really at stake in the November election.

You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do
And what we won't

Whether it's in politics, or in war, or in how to treat a fellow human being, there are a lot of people who are happy to do the things, that we should say we won't do.

So, "Long Walk Home". Live on the morning of the album's release, in New York on the "Today" show -

Down Here It’s Just Winners And Losers

I watched Senator Clinton’s speech yesterday with the Cautious Daughter, who has just finished her first year of college. While the Cautious Wife has been very much a Clinton fan (we have been avoiding political discussions in the Cautious Household), my peace-marching daughter did not seem as enamored of her. In watching the speech, she commented that Senator Clinton seemed to have spent a lot of time talking about herself. I replied that I thought her speech was a good blend of looking back at what she had accomplished, and looking forward to electing a Democratic President in November.

I deliberately referred to the Cautious Daughter’s attendance at the peace march last fall, because I think that the Iraq War is a big reason why Senator Clinton is not going to be the nominee. What if she had joined then-Senator Corzine, then-Congresman Menendez, and Senators Kennedy, Boxer, Reid, Feingold, Wellstone, Levin, Leahy, etc. in voting against the Iraq War resolution in 2002? Could Senator Obama have gained any traction in his campaign, if he did not have that significant difference between himself and Senator Clinton? Even with his clearly better organizational efforts in the caucus states, there may not have been a viable Obama campaign. He may not have won Iowa, and therefore the early primaries would have looked completely different.

I think what did in Senator Clinton was compromise – that is, compromising with her own principles. She compromised when she voted for the Iraq War, and later excuses didn’t cure the fact that it enabled President Bush to invade the following Spring, even though the inspectors had in the meantime returned to Iraq. And, she compromised in how she conducted her campaign. She engaged in the divisive talk about religion, criticizing the people of Trinity UCC and going over the top in using Senator Obama’s poor choice of words (the “bitter”, “guns” and “religion” comment). She engaged in the divisive talk about race, stressing how she would win the “hard working” Americans, the “white Americans”. And she compromised in acting like a Republican, embracing the notion that we’re electing a “Commander in Chief”, as if the President was some kind of Generalissimo.

The back page of the New York Times “Week in Review” section has a dozen essays under the title “What Went Wrong. It includes Mark Penn whining that “The Problem Wasn’t the Message — It Was the Money”. In that article, he demonstrates the attitude which was fatal for the Clinton campaign, in my humble opinion: “Even schoolchildren got the message that Mrs. Clinton was ready to be president on Day One. As a result of her campaigning and ads, people saw her as a strong commander in chief, a good steward of the economy and a champion for people who needed one.” He should face facts - they had plenty of money, but they had the wrong strategy, and they presented their candidate in the wrong way.

A news article which is also in the Times today, entitled “The Long Road to a Clinton Exit”, shows how badly they were handling things, and what Mr. Penn really meant with that “on Day One” talk –

Mr. Penn shaped a message that she was “ready to lead” a nation “ready for change,” talking in early meetings about her need to spark a “movement” and dismissing Mr. Obama as a glamorous personality who would not connect with working-class voters the way she could, campaign officials said. “He may be the J.F.K. in the race,” Mr. Penn told Mrs. Clinton last year, according to an insider, “but you are the Bobby.”

Backed by Bill Clinton, Mr. Penn pushed for aggressive attacks on Mr. Obama, something other advisers resisted. At one point, Mr. Penn argued that Mrs. Clinton should find subtle ways to exploit what he called Mr. Obama’s “lack of American roots,” referring to his Kenyan father and his childhood years in Indonesia and even the offshore state of Hawaii, the campaign officials said. Mr. Penn recommended that Mrs. Clinton own the word “American” — she should talk about the “American century” and her “American Strategic Energy Fund,” and so forth. She should add flag symbols to her logo, he suggested.

My mom reminded me earlier today that President Clinton has been known to call someone a “scumbag” – I believe that word applies to Mr. Penn. That portrait of the campaign is consistent with what Congressman Rob Andrews said the other day –

Rep. Rob Andrews, who supported Hillary Clinton throughout the primary season, disclosed he received a phone call shortly before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary from a top member of Clinton's organization and that the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.

"There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," Andrews said at his campaign headquarters in Cherry Hill Tuesday night after he lost his bid for the U.S. Senate nomination. "Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign ... that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing."

As Carl Bernstein wrote, as part of that same “What Went Wrong” collection –

Faced with unanticipated adversity, Hillary and Bill Clinton took the low road too often, and voters noticed. So did the party leadership and superdelegates, who abandoned her and the idea of a Clinton Restoration.

Barack Obama’s candidacy was the Clintons’ worst nightmare. They had dreamed of the day when an African-American could be elected president. But they never anticipated it would happen on their watch and were utterly confounded.

I think the party decided that compromising with darker forces – war, religious intolerance, and racial bigotry – was not a criterion on which the next Democratic President would be nominated.

Sunday Night Springsteen ...

... isn't Springsteen this week. Three reasons:

(1) I missed a week, and we'd been so good lately. So, I didn't want to miss two weeks in a row, even if I couldn't come up with a good Springsteen video.

(2) This is R.E.M. performing live, and they've performed live with Mr. S., so it's close enough. If this is a problem, you may request a refund.

(3) Still trying to get my head around the fact that Senator Obama felt it necessary to let Senator Clinton, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the champions of ignorant religious bigotry drive him away from his own church.

Anyway, it's "Losing My Religion" -

They Made Their Choices, And They'll Never Know ...

In case it's not evident from the posts and the reading list, let me make it clear that I am a native-born resident of the Great State of New Jersey.

We have a primary coming up in June (we had the Presidential primary on "Super Tuesday", due to a [now clearly] ill-conceived attempt to be "relevant" in the Presidential selection process). Anyway, this primary includes a nomination contest between Senator Frank Lautenberg, and challenger Congressman Rob Andrews.

Would it have been better if Senator Lautenberg retired this year, and gave a chance to one of the very worthy Democratic office-holders to replace him? Yes, it would have. Was Congressman Andrews one of those "very worthy office-holders"? No, certainly not at the top of the list, imho.

Nevertheless, when Senator Lautenberg decided to run again, Congressman Andrews decided that this was his chance to jump over the rest of the pack, and claim the Senate nomination for himself. Here's one problem with that -

Rob Andrews defends his Iraq war vote as the right decision:
As a co-sponsor of the resolution, Andrews concedes he did talk to other Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution and defends the vote, saying the intelligence presented at the time made it a "responsible vote."

"I think I made the right decision" at the time, said Andrews ...

This is the problem with that reasoning. To be blunt about it -

NO, IT WAS NOT THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE TIME, OR AT ANY OTHER TIME.

It would not be inappropriate to add the word "doofus" to the end of that sentence.

We can't select candidates who fail to understand that the Iraq invasion decision, and even the vote that enabled that decision, was the wrong choice. Trying to pretend otherwise is the wrong road. So, we don't need to give Congressman Andrews the keys to the Senate from our state.

Sunday Night Springsteen

I have a particular fondness for the song "Thunder Road". This video turned up today on YouTube - from the 1992 MTV "Plugged" performance, back when Mr. Springsteen was away from the E Street Band. I always liked this reading of the song, since it has a sense of wistful looking back, which the lyrics always contained.

One Last Random Thought On The Post Below

Last night, someone at the New York Times was doing a web search for "Edward N. Luttwack and Daniel Pipes" (resulting in a visit to the post below, according to my Sitemeter). Seems that somebody there realized that they should find out if they were sold a bucket of recycled right-wing dung.

You’ll Try Just One More Time

Today, the New York Times published an Op-Ed which makes the unsupported and unsourced assertion that Barack Obama, as a “former Muslim”, would be viewed as an “apostate” and the target of violence in the Muslim world.

Or, in other words, “here we go again”.

This time, it’s Edward N. Luttwak, who does not appear to have any education or other background qualifying him to opine on Muslim religious law, with a column entitled “President Apostate?” The claim is familiar (or, at least should be familiar) to anyone who has been paying attention (or at least should have been paying attention, such as, oh, I don’t know, how about the Editors of the New York Times?) to right-wing smear campaigns about Senator Obama.

This was all debunked last year, when Insight Magazine and Fox news were spreading their stories about Obama in a “madrassa”. At the time, the claim was that he was secretly a Muslim - and that claim was thoroughly debunked.

Then the argument became more refined. Daniel Pipes (who has never been know for being overly concerned about anyone who was a Muslim) expressed his "concern" in two columns (this past December and in January)that some harm might befall Senator Obama, because he was an “apostate”. This is how the Politico website (which called it “The Muslim Smear, Version 2.0") described Pipes’ methodology and intentions –

The piece that follows is pretty stunning in the twists of its logic, and comes in two steps.

First, Pipes — best known for his hostility to much of Islam, and to many prominent American Muslims — decides that Obama's faith should be judged by Muslim law, and makes that case, quibbling with inconsistencies in aides' accounts of exactly how little contact with Islam Obama had as a child in Indonesia. (Options range from very little to none.)

Then, Pipes — whose hawkish wing of the conservative movement isn't exactly known for its profound concern with making Muslims love America — starts wringing his hands at the notion that Muslims won't like Obama.

"More significantly, how would more mainstream Muslims respond to him, would they be angry at what they would consider his apostasy? That reaction is a real possibility, one that could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world."

(He has only one precedent, Carlos Menem of Argentina, who took no flak. But that doesn't stop him.)

I don't mean to read Pipes' mind here. Perhaps his intentions are as pure as Bob Kerrey's. But if you consider anonymous e-mailers the utter fringe, Pipes is a big step toward the mainstream.

But the political impact of the piece isn't the tortured argument. It's branding Obama a Muslim, by a subtler means. And it's a way for his Republican enemies, if he's the nominee, to pretend to be in good faith.

Robert Spencer, a reliable source for crazy talk, was pushing this same argument over a year ago. Interestingly, he seemed to downplay the “apostate” part –

So is Obama under a death sentence? Probably not – particularly if he left Islam while still a child. This is a crucial point, for according to Islamic law an apostate male is not to be put to death if he has not reached puberty (cf. ‘Umdat al-Salik o8.2; Hidayah vol. II p. 246). Some, however, hold that he should be imprisoned until he is of age and then “invited” to accept Islam, but officially the death penalty for youthful apostates is ruled out.

Now, the New York Times turns over a sizable chunk of its Op-Ed page today to Mr. Luttwak, who recycles the whole story again. It’s just that he’s concerned, you see, and simply is noting that somehow Muslim governments couldn’t protect him from someone who wanted to kill him as an “apostate” –

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

I have a problem with the fact that the New York Times decides to run this piece, given the background of this “argument”. They shouldn’t have accepted something which recycles old arguments that are just meant to make people think, “Hey, he’s a Muslim!” At least, they should not have run it without some context, information on the earlier debunkings, or at least a companion column pointing out the erroneous assumptions.

Instead, we can look forward to lesser lights of the right-wing using the phrase, “As was pointed out in the New York Times, Obama used to be a Muslim.” You can email complaints to the Times’ public editor at public@nytimes.com.

[Edited at 8:00 p.m. to add] Just because it's nice to see so many people coming down hard on the New York Times on this one, these are two of the better comments.

Matthew Yglesias says:

I'm no expert on Islamic law, but if this were any kind of real issue, shouldn't The New York Times be able to locate an actual Muslim who sees things this way?

Which, of course, says in one sentence what I wasted many more words on.

And Mr. Yglesias then directs us to Ali Eteraz, who has a more informed and more devastating comment on Mr. Luttwak's bloviations -

Luttwack and the other fake experts promoting this new smear do not understand Islam. Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.

No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian.

Those who actually study Muslims see that there are millions of inter-religious marriages -- between Muslim men and Hindu women for example -- in which the children are being raised as pantheists, or even, Hindu. When these children grow up, they aren't killed for being apostates (though some Muslims do thumb their noses at the father for "allowing" his children to be raised non-Muslim).

By the way, Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London, who has a Turkish grandfather, is often smeared the same way Obama is in Luttwack's article ... . In the case of the UK, the smears come from the ultra-right BNP party. Great to see that the New York Times has followed suit. I recommend that we begin calling the Islam smear what it really is: smearing immigrants.

And, finally, a succinct summary of exactly what's wrong with the New York Times' decision to present this Op-Ed (courtesy of Jason Linkins at Huffington Post), we have this observation (please click and read the whole thing) -

So we have Obama's Muslim-by-birth-atheist-in-practice father giving birth, by an American Christian, to a son who is in every sense a Christian, but Luttwak is sure that to real Muslims, Obama remains forever a Muslim.
...

I wonder if it would have been too much to have an actual Muslim cleric opine on the status of Barack Obama's soul in Muslim eyes. But, as I keep telling my serially outraged mother: get used to it, we've got several months like this, and much worse, to go.

Indeed.

Sunday Night Springsteen

It's Mothers Day, again. We visited the my Mom and Dad today. About a month ago, Mom executed a spectacular fall on an escalator at one of our finer shopping malls. She managed to break her shoulder; however, like the Bionic Woman, the doctor was able to rebuild her with a new one. My Dad is learning new skills, such a the laundry. He's not up to the cooking, yet, so we went over this Mothers Day and brought the full Sunday Dinner.

And for this Mothers Day edition, a repeat from last year - "The Wish", in which our hero does something that no self-respecting rock 'n roller is supposed to do - sing a tribute to his mom.

A Time Comes When Two People Should Think Of These Things ...

Apparently, people are wondering why President Bush's daughter decided to get married at the Bush ranch, instead of at the White House. I think the reason is a simple one, and one that shows some forethought on the part of Ms. Bush and her new husband.

Years from now, their wedding pictures won't be a reminder of what a miserable failure her father was as president.

You Got To Understand The Rules

My goodness, Senator Clinton said something that, well, rather than characterize it -

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There’s a pattern emerging here," she said.

And you can listen to it -



Links courtesy of Oliver Willis.

Now, some may argue that it's unfair, to assume that Senator Clinton actually meant to imply that the white voters (the ones for her) are the ones who are the "hard-working Americans" (making the others the, I guess, "lazy and shiftless Americans"). However, as we all know, it's emminently fair to read every statement in the most negative manner possible, if we're using "Clinton Rules". That's how Senator Clinton won Ohio, and arguably how she won in Pennsylvania. So, if anyone complains about the criticism, tell them that we have the Clinton campaign's Imprimatur.

The corollary to Senator Clinton's assertion, of course, is that her voters are the kind of Democrats who won't vote for a Democrat who is not 100% Caucasian. In other words (to repeat something used before), she is saying that her voters should be viewed as being people like this -

Glory Days

First of all, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that there is now a New Jersey Hall of Fame. It's not a building yet, just a website. The first class of inductees were honored the other day. They include Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Clara Barton, Buzz Aldrin, Frank Sinatra, Toni Morrison, Yogi Berra, Vince Lombardi, and that guy, from down the shore - Bruce Springsteen.



Video link courtesy of Backstreets.com. Text of his speech is below, courtesy of the Star-Ledger -

You know, when I first got the letter, I was a little suspicious because . . . a New Jersey Hall of Fame? I don't know. Does New York have a hall of fame? Does Connecticut have a hall of fame? I mean, maybe they think they don't need one. But then I thought like, 'Well, let me see. All right, Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen . . . my mother's really gonna like that part.' So . . . she's here tonight, it's her birthday . . . it's the only time those two names are gonna be mentioned in the same sentence, is right now, so I'm gonna enjoy it.

But when I was recording my first album, the record company spent a lot of money taking a lot of pictures of me in New York City. And . . . something didn't quite feel right. I was walking down the boardwalk one day. And I stopped at a souvenir stand and bought a postcard, saying 'Greetings From Asbury Park.' I remember thinking, 'Yeah, that's me.' I mean, down south there was Patti Smith. And up north, right here in Newark, was George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, great musicians.

With the exception of, I guess, a few half-years in California, my family and I, we've raised our kids here. We got a big Italian-Irish family, and I found my own Jersey girl here . . . And in the end, I just found something that grew deeply resonant, like holding the hands of my kids on the same streets where my mom held my hand and swimming in the same ocean and visiting the same beaches I did as a child.

It was a place, also, that really protected me. It's been very nurturing. I could take my kids down to Freehold, throw 'em up on my shoulders and walk along the street, with thousands of other people on Cruise Nights, with everybody just going, 'Hey Bruce' . . . that was something that meant a lot to me, the ability to just go about my life. I was protected here, by the people here. And I really appreciated that.

So anyway . . . you get a little older now, you get those crisp fall days that come in September and the beginning of October. My friends and I, we slip into that cold water of that Atlantic Ocean. These days, you take note that there's a few less of your friends swimming alongside of you as each year passes. But something about being in one place your whole life, they're all still around you, in the water. And I look towards the shore, and I see my son and my daughter, pushing their way through the waves, and on the beach there's a whole batch of new little kids running away from the crashing surf. Like time itself.

That's what New Jersey is for me. It's a repository, now, of just my time on earth. My memory, the music I've made, friendships, my life, it's all buried here, at this point, in a box, somewhere in the sand, down on the Jersey Shore. And I can't imagine having it any other way.

But let me finish with a Garden State benediction.

Rise up, my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We of the state that will never get any respect, we who bear the cruelness of the forever uncool. A chip on the shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful hall of fame, we know that there's another bad Jersey joke just around the corner.

But fear not, fear not! This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what infused us with our fighting spirit, that we may salute the world forever with the fabulous Jersey state bird (raises middle finger). And that the fumes from our great northern industrial area, to the ocean breezes of Cape May, fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face.

Theory of relativity, anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? That's right. And that is why our fellow Americans in those other 49 states know that when the announcer says, 'And now, in this corner, from New Jersey . . . ,' they'd better keep their hands up and their heads down, 'cause when that bell ings, we always come out swinging.

God bless the Garden State.

One last note - in 1969, my Dad took us to the parade in Montclair, New Jersey, when Buzz Aldrin came back to his home town after being the second man to walk on the moon. I didn't realize it at the time, but "second man on the moon" sounds like something that would happen to a guy from New Jersey. Hey, he went through everything that the "first" man on the moon did, but he gets less of the glory.

God Bless all you Jersey folk.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Okay, so another week has gone by without any posts here. We'll keep trying.

In the meantime, this is a great guest appearance by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, on Tom Joad -

Sunday Night Springsteen

The Danny Federici tribute, at the current concerts. It's appropriate, and the rest of us can only hope to be missed in such a way as this.

It's A Sad Funny Ending

So last night was President Bush's last White House Correspondents' Dinner (that's the one where, two years ago, Stephen Colbert was wickedly funny, except that none of the press were amused). The news reports on what was supposed to be his "joke" about the Democratic candidates -

But it was Bush who received the night's loudest laughter, as he poked fun at Clinton and Obama's absence ("Senator Clinton couldn't get into the building because of sniper fire, and Senator Obama is at church"), and who received a rousing ovation as he and the Marine Band finished.

Okay, so I understand that it's a joke on Senator Clinton and her Bosnia trip exaggerations, but why is it a joke to say "Senator Obama is at church"? Yes, the press has created a storm with mini-clips from some of Reverend Wright's sermons, creating a false picture of the man, the sermons, and the church he pastored until his retirement. But, these "news people" should be aware that it's a false picture, shouldn't they? More likely, they don't really care.

Senator Obama's membership in Trinity UCC is not the equivalent of Senator Clinton's phony Bosnia stories. And "Senator Obama is at church" shouldn't be a punch line - especially since it's a punch line that says, "Senator Obama is at one of those scary black churches, where a scary black man says scary things in a loud voice."

I don't think that's funny at all. And the press corps is full of a-holes, if they all thought it was funny.

Cherry Tops

Took a walk in the park in Newark on Saturday. Branch Brook Park has a multitude of cherry trees, all in bloom. Took a lot of pictures - this one seemed sort of representative.



And lots and lots of trees like this guy -

Sunday Night Springsteen

The other day, we heard of the death of an original member of the E Street Band, Danny Federici. I heard it Friday morning, before heading for the train. I dialed through the Ipod my kids got me for Christmas, which they had thoughtfully loaded with “The Wild, The Innocent, And The E Street Shuffle”. I listened as Danny’s fingers danced across the keys of his accordion - longingly on “Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”, and playfully on “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” – and again across the keys of his Hammond Organ on songs such as “Incident” and “Rosalita”.

He was truly an “original” member, since he was one of the guys who asked Bruce Springsteen to join their band in those now-legendary days of the New Jersey shore music scene. The New York Times has not one, but two obituaries for him. There’s the first, perfunctory one from news releases, and the one the next day from music critic Jon Pareles, who must have recognized that this passing deserved a little more reflection.

Someone let me know if the term “irony” covers the fact that Mr. Federici succumbed to melanoma – it wasn’t drugs or violence which claimed the first deceased member of our favorite band, but the sun.

So, for this Sunday, some video of Danny in action. First, Danny Federici’s last performance, a guest appearance on the current tour, which his illness made him unable to continue (from the Bruce Springsteen website) –



A complete performance of “Sandy”, from the 1978 show broadcast on the radio from the Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ – the video has great shots of Danny swinging with his accordion.



And, just because this clip captures a sense of the fun these guys must have had together, a performance of “Fire”, with Danny on one side of Springsteen, with his accordion, and Nils Lofgren on the other, on guitar, and all three of them mugging it up.



[Edited on April 21] From Dr. Alterman, I see that Mr. Federici's family has set up the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, which is "dedicated to the research and development of new and effective treatments for melanoma through funding for additional clinical trials based upon Danny's melanoma treatments and other methods headed by Dr. Paul Chapman [at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]. Our other objective is to raise awareness for this aggressive disease."

A Random Thought

I was listening to a news report about the Mass celebrated at Yankee Stadium today, with the Pope presiding.

There was a mention of New York's new governor, David Paterson, and that he was a Catholic.

And I thought to myself, "I didn't know that."

And then I thought to myself, that it's really annoying that nowadays when you say "Catholic Politician from New York", people think of Rudy Giuliani instead of Governor Paterson, let alone Mario Cuomo (remember him, defeated for re-election by an empty suit, because he opposed capital punishment?).

"You Know That Flag Flying Over The Courthouse ..."

I don't usually watch the Sunday talking heads shows.

But the weather today was a little grim, so after coming home from church I plopped down on the couch and surfed around the news shows. And I saw the end of "Face the Nation" where Bob Schieffer delivered a much-needed dose of intelligent discourse to the current political silly season. And, thank goodness, David Kroning at Daily Kos has put the text and the video online for us.

I watched the ABC debate the other night when the question came up, again, about why Senator Obama doesn't wear a flag pin in his lapel.

Since no one asked me, here's my thought on all that.

I think it is a nice thing if people want to wear a flag on their lapel.

But I believe it more important to keep the flag behind our lapel; in our hearts.

I feel the same way about wearing my religion on my sleeve; it fits better for me on the inside.

When I go to see our local baseball team, I do wear my Washington Nationals baseball cap. But am I less a fan if I don't wear it to work?

The truth is I have been known to wear a red, white and blue, stars and stripes tie on the Fourth of July. Am I less patriotic when I trade it for my Santa Claus tie at Christmas?

Patriotism is no more about signs or pins than religion is about reminding others how pious we think we are.

No, the proof in these puddings is not the signs we wear but how we act.

Wouldn't that also be a better way to judge our presidential candidates than by the jewelry they wear?