England for Obama

Yes, it’s this weekend’s slightly-off-topic post!

On Thursday, Sarah Palin called it the “Palin and McCain administration” - how very Freudian! - and well, who knows, it might be her administration one day, eh? Although not with McCain as VP, of course. But I digress. Because following John McCain and Sarah Palin reiterations that she’s qualified on foreign affairs because you can see Russia from Alaska - and the revelation that as governor, Palin hired an old school friend for the top, $95,000 job at the State Division of Agriculture because she had a childhood love of cows - here are my…

Suggested qualifications for cabinet posts in Palin’s administration - should someone want to be Secretary of:


Agriculture - Visited a petting zoo when a kid.

Commerce - Likes shopping.

Defense - Once hit a man.

Education - Graduated from High School.

Energy - Knows how to change a lightbulb.

Health and Human Services - Used to watch ER. Big fan of Grey’s Anatomy.

Homeland Security - Owns a gun.

Housing and Urban Development - Owns seven houses. Would like to own more.

Interior - Loves picking out wallpaper.

Labor - Once worked for their dad for the day.

State - Has never left their state.

Transportation - Owns a car.

Treasury - Has a change pot on their mantlepiece.

Veterans Affairs - Once slept with a soldier.

Attorney General - Reads John Grisham novels.

oops! And I nearly forgot:

President - Was a POW.

Vice President - Has ovaries.

Apparently, Obama’s decision to give a “rock-star” acceptance speech at a stadium seating over 75,000 people is not only designed to associate him even further with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - he will be speaking on the anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech - but has a precedent, set by none other than John F. Kennedy.

Although the occasion he is marking is highly appropriate - the nomination of an African-American candidate is an important step towards fulfilling MLK’s dream - it is also a high-risk move in two ways: Obama’s speech will have to avoid paling in comparison with King’s, and the venue could provide an opportunity for some nutcase to make Obama “emulate” MLK and JFK (and lest we forget, RFK) in the worst possible way. For some reason, the idea of it is frightening - I have visions of Icarus flying towards the sun, the wax in his wings slowly melting…

I wish Barack Obama well, and sincerely hope he will not disappoint his legions of supporters, including me. But I fear the effects of hubris. Like Caesar, he should always have someone on hand to whisper: “Remember, you are only a man.” Michelle Obama, perhaps?

I’ve been struck how segments of the Muslim community - particulary the courageous Muslims against Sharia - are enraged with Obama for his failure to add a “so what if I were?” to his denial that he is a Muslim. He has changed the accusation on his “Fight the Smears” site to “is a secret Muslim,” but that has done nothing to assuage the fury.

First, I believe that Muslims against Sharia are absolutely right - Barack Hussein Obama should and could have taken a firm stand from the very beginning. If blacks and women have a right to be elected President of the United States, then so do Muslims - there is nothing in the US Constitution to the contrary.

Branding someone a terrorist because he or she is a Muslim - or is a Christian with a Muslim name - is just as absurd as it would have been to call everyone with an Irish name a terrorist when the IRA were setting off bombs in Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK. That would have included every Kyle, Kevin and Connor in the US of A. (I’m also reminded of the time when Kennedy’s opponents railed against him because he was a Catholic, claiming that he would be controlled by the Pope.)

Although Obama should have said “I’m not a Muslim, but even if I were, there would be nothing wrong with that,” the Muslims’ worst enemies are Karl Rove and all those who use Rovian tactics, Fox News commentators and conservative bloggers and emailers who fuel and pander to prejudice and bigotry by sending out scurrilous libels of Obama and, by association, the Muslim community, such as emails and comments about 99% of terrorists being “Muslim males between the ages of 18 and 40″ (try Googling the words in quotes or variations thereof). The injustice to the Muslim community is so staggering that the fact that Obama is 46 and a Christian seems hardly worth mentioning. Even NY Mayor Bloomberg has denounced the “whisper campaign“. In this regard, it is worthwhile reading this NY Times article on how lies live and grow in the brain.

If Senator Obama is elected President of the United States, I hope he will feel secure and confident enough to take a firm stand in favour of the peaceloving Muslim community and start the healing process. They, too, have a right to fight off slurs and live the “American dream.”

The ease with which smears and innuendo are spread through the Internet have intensified the power of what are now known as ‘Rovian tactics’. A column by Paul Krugman published in today’s New York Times makes a point that is well worth repeating and reflecting upon - how quickly the media and public jump to conclusions, and how easy it is for spin-meisters like Karl Rove to manipulate the opinions of those who either don’t bother to read or watch the news (and are content to have it relayed to them second-hand) or don’t pay close attention.

For example, Krugman writes: “Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service.” In other words, the Obama campaign may have lost yet another valuable player and possible VP candidate - General Wesley Clark (Ret.), a man with impeccable military credentials - due to an impolitic remark that was blown out of all proportion.

However, as a comment in The New Yorker pointed out in 2007, there is another secret to Rove’s success that goes well beyond the Internet: “He was consistently better than the other side at reaching the groups that felt shut out of politics, usually through local organizing. There are plenty of these groups on the left as well as on the right, but Democrats have let the muscles needed to reach them grow slack. Organizing is hard, unglamorous work; the language it requires is combative, self-interested, and non-seigneurial.”

As a former community organiser in Chicago, Obama is well qualified to do this ‘hard, unglamorous work’ without resorting to Rovian tactics.