An Exchange of Words: David B. Coe’s Weblog

BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award time again, and as always, we have no shortage of nominees.

First on our list of possible winners is Bob Johnson, founder of BET (Black Entertainment Television) and a Hillary Clinton supporter, who said this week that Geraldine Ferraro was right in saying that Barack Obama had an easy path to the White House because he’s black.  (Some of you may remember that Ferraro won a BOW Award for her comments.)  Here’s what Johnson said: 

“What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called ‘Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90% of the black vote? And the answer is, probably not.”

What’s wrong with this you ask?  Well, first of all, I don’t care who you are or what color your skin is, making broad race-based generalizations is just a bad idea.  But it’s a particularly bad idea when you have your facts wrong.  If you’ll remember, Obama didn’t start with 90% of the black vote.  He didn’t even start with 50% of the black vote.  Early on, Hillary Clinton was attracting overwhelming support from the African-American community, which still thought of Bill Clinton’s Presidency as a high water mark for racial enlightenment in the White House.  (One has to wonder if Bill’s legacy has survived this campaign.)  People were asking (ridiculous though this might seem) whether Obama was “black enough” to win over African American voters.  It took his victory in Iowa and his strong finish in New Hampshire (both of which are overwhelmingly white) to convince black voters that he could win.  That’s when African American voters started supporting Obama in big numbers.

Our second nominee is none other than George W. Bush, who admitted in an interview given last Friday that the next attack on the United States was probably being planned by terrorist networks in Afganistan and/or Pakistan.  This despite the fact that his Administration has been neglecting the war in Afganistan so that it can pursue its failed policy in Iraq.  I refer you to http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/16/president-bush-probably-true-that-next-attack-will-come-from-neglected-afghanistan/ for more on this one.

Third, we have Senator John McCain, the GOP nominee for President, who unveiled his “economic plan” this week.  Turns out his economic plan should have been listed in the papers with an “(R)” around it for “Repeat.”  His plan consisted of preserving the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (which McCain once characterized as “irresponsible in a time of war”) and instituting a Federal gas-tax holiday (which would encourage people to drive more, thus adding to greenhouse gases which he claims he wants to reduce, increase demand for gas, thus further increasing the price, add billions to the budget deficit, and deny much needed funds to Federal infrastructure repairs).

But this week’s winners (and really, this time around it wasn’t even close) are the goons at ABC who gave us the Debate-from-Hell the other night.  Yes, I speak of Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.  I blogged about the debate on Thursday and will not go back over that material again, except to say the following:  Not only were their questions irresponsible, not only did they play to the worst aspects of our political system, not only did they demean the candidates, the voters, and the process, several of the questions were based on false reasoning (the capital gains question) or, in the case of at least one of the questions from “real voters”, they were utterly contrived.  I urge you to go to www.crooksandliars.com for more on this.  And for those of you so inclined, please go to www.MoveOn.org to register your disgust with ABC by signing MoveOn’s petition.

This week’s BOW Award winners are Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.  Take a BOW, boys.  You’ve earned it.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Imagine being held responsible for the actions of every person you’ve known.  Imagine applying for a job and as part of that application having to justify the stupid things every person in your life has done and said.  Sounds pretty hard, doesn’t it?

Okay, let’s make it easier.  Same suppositions, but this time it applies only to your family, your work associates, and the people you consider close friends.  That makes it a bit easier, but not much.  I know that I wouldn’t want to have to answer for all the things my family and friends have done.  I love these people, but still, I have enough trouble meeting my own obligations and not making a fool of myself.

But if you watched the Democratic debate on ABC last night, you saw Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos (whose name I now know how to spell) and, of course, Hillary Clinton, trying to impugn Barack Obama’s character based on the associations of his past.  Personally, I thought it was ridiculous, and I was appalled by the questions from Gibson and Stephanopoulos that dominated the first hour of the debate.  We are a nation at war.  We face a global environmental crisis.  Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse by the day.  And Chuck and George are asking questions about lapel pins and whether Obama thinks that Rev. Wright loves America?

Many of those who read this blog don’t share my political beliefs.  I think that’s great.  We’ve had some wonderful dialogues in recent weeks and I hope they’ll continue.  But I’m wondering if we can’t all agree that our political candidates ought to be talking about issues rather than gaffes, about solutions to our problems rather than something that Obama’s pastor or Clinton’s husband said, or, for that matter, about the “plagiarized” recipes that Cindy McCain posted on the campaign website.  This stuff is meaningless.  It doesn’t give health insurance to one child.  It doesn’t take a bit of carbon out of the atmosphere.  It doesn’t save a single soldier from an IED.  We deserve better than this, and we ought to demand more of the media.

Why is it that white politicians only get in trouble when they tell a lie, and even then it’s only 50-50 that they’ll be caught, but African-American politicians get in trouble when they tell the truth?

Anyone who doesn’t think that Barack Obama was speaking the truth when he referred to the bitterness in rural small-town America, is either hopelessly naive or cynically seeking political advantage (Senators Clinton and McCain take note).  The economic dislocations of the past few decades have engendered resentments that manifest themselves in a variety ways including not only closer ties to religious communities, but also racism, homophobia, and hostility toward hispanic immigrants.

Did Obama phrase his statement perfectly?  No, probably not.  But war rages in Iraq (did anyone happen to notice that 17 American soldiers died in Iraq this week?), we are in the midst of a global environmental crisis, our economy is in shambles, our health care system desperately needs reform, and dozens of other important issues beg for our attention.  And instead, our political leaders and televisions talking heads are parsing the meaning of the word “bitter.”

I am SO sick of this process.

After going on a bit yesterday about how glad I was that I no longer had a dog, I was reminded this morning that dog ownership does have its benefits.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we’re caring for our friends’ dog, Violet, a medium-sized, short-haired mutt. She’s sweet as can be, but because she’s just barely out of puppyhood she has A LOT of energy.  So this morning, instead of going to the gym for my usual workout, I put Violet in the car, drove out to a trailhead at the edge of the plateau, and took her on a hike.

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We’re actually getting snow today!  Yes, all you northerners and midwesterners, I know.  You don’t want to hear about it.   But down here snow has become so scarce that it’s always a treat when we get any at all.  This is a very light snowfall — a faint dusting on the leaf litter in the woods around our house; a thin coat on rooftops and cars and the swingset out back.  It looks beautiful.

Today’s music:  “Studio 360″ on NPR

Kudos to newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who yesterday followed through on one of his main campaign promises.  Rudd, the leader of Australia’s Labour Party, which swept to power in November’s national elections, ousting the utterly misnamed “Liberal Party” and its leader, John Howard, vowed throughout the campaign to add Australia to the list of signatories of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming.  Yesterday in Bali, at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, only a week after he took office, Rudd delivered the ratification papers.

In many ways, it was a symbolic act, since Australia was already basically in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon emissions targets.  But it was a powerful statement nevertheless; an acknowledgment that the previous government had been wrong to keep Australia out of the agreement, and a none-too-subtle reproof of the Bush Administration’s continued refusal to sign on to Kyoto or to pledge support for the treaty that will eventually emerge from the current meetings.

Look, before my friends to the right jump all over me, let me say that Kyoto was not a perfect document.  Not by a long shot.  And we can only hope for the sake of the entire planet that whatever agreement comes out of Bali will recognize that China and India can no longer be considered “emerging nations” when it comes to manufacturing or carbon emissions caps.  But the failure of the current U.S. Administration to take the lead on global climate change should be an embarrassment to every American.  We are sacrificing the future of our children and grandchildren, and risking the survival of the entire planet, all out of concern for corporate profits and the preservation of un unsustainable way of life.  News flash:  if we continue to lay waste to the planet, corporate earnings and the price of the newest Hummer model will be the least of our concerns.

Today’s music:  Michael Hedges (Breakfast in the Field)

On Saturday, the voters of Australia finally voted Prime Minister John Howard out of office.  

Howard, for those of you who don’t know, was the dominant political personality in Australia for the past decade.  He led Australia’s Liberal Party (the equivalent of our Republican Party) and continually outsmarted and outmaneuvered the hapless leaders of the country’s Labour Party.  He was, aside from Tony Blair, George Bush’s most reliable ally in the Iraq War.  He refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, making Australia one of only two Western industrialized nations to opt of the treaty.  He was the bane of Australia’s workers, he cynically coopted Australia’s burgeoning religious right for his own political purposes, using their issues when it suited his needs, and he was willing to do pretty much anything else that was necessary to hold onto and consolidate his political power.

In short, if you want to understand who John Howard is and was, imagine George Bush, but with a bit more native intelligence and no term limits.  I know:  it’s not a pretty picture.

Finally, though, after four terms of John Howard as their leader, the people of Australia said “Enough!”  And they said it emphatically.  The lower house of the Australian parliament, majority control of which determines who leads as Prime Minister, is made up of 150 seats.  On Saturday, Howard’s ruling coalition had a net loss of 22, going from an 82 seat majority to a sixty seat minority.  And best of all, John Howard appears to have lost his local parliament seat, as well.  Not only has he been voted out as Prime Minister, he’s been voted out of the government entirely!  The new Prime Minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, has already vowed to sign Kyoto and improve industrial relations (we’d call it labor relations).  It remains to be seen what he’ll do about Australia’s military presence in Iraq.

After spending a year living in Australia and listening to my progressive friends lament of ever getting rid of John Howard, I find these results incredibly encouraging.  I know that George Bush won’t be on the ballot next November, but the fate of his right-wing agenda will be.  And if the good people Down Under can give such a resounding victory to their progressive political party, maybe, just maybe, we can do the same.

Fingers crossed.

Today’s music:  Roy Hargrove (Diamond in the Rough)

Nevermind what it says on the calendar, for those of us in Tennessee, November began last night.  Yesterday was warm — 70 degrees — and it rained, which we needed desperately.  It felt like early April, though the air smelled like fall:  that slightly sweet smell of leaf rot that seems always to accompany an autumn rain.

As darkness fell, a line of thunderstorms swept through the area, followed by a chill fog and winds that raked brown and yellow leaves from the trees and sent them spiraling through the night air.  And when we woke up this morning, it was November.  Our thermometer read 40, but it felt colder.  Gusts of wind still rattled the windows and the air remained damp.  All day long, heavy grey clouds hung overhead, broken in places to reveal patches of palest blue.  Occasionally the sun broke through, but always at that sharp, late-autumn angle, so that it added a touch of gold to bare tree limbs and the occasional stubborn cluster of leaves — warm brown on the oaks, yellow on the redbuds, fiery orange on the swamp maples.

Earlier in the fall, with temperatures remaining unnaturally high, the leaves refusing to turn color, a part of me wondered if the Southeast would ever see a real autumn again.  It’s been a bizarre year here:  spring began in February; winter returned with vengeance in April, killing flowers and farmers crops, blackening the tender new leaves in our forests; and then it just stopped raining.  I suppose a late fall shouldn’t have surprised me.  Actually it didn’t.  But it did disturb me.  Yes, those warm, clear October days were lovely.  But they felt . . . wrong.  Usually, I don’t particularly like November.  It’s cold and windy and damp; it presages the wet, clammy winters that have become typical of Tennessee.  Once, when we first moved here, we could count on a couple of good winter snow storms.  Not anymore. 

This year, though, I’m pleased that November has come.  I’m relieved.  Maybe it will bring a real winter.

People who deny that climate change is real act like the rest of us want it to happen.  They see in our calls for reduced carbon emissions and international efforts to reverse the effects of global warming some sort of twisted, anti-capitalistic conspiracy.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell them without hesitation that I would love to be wrong about this.  I wish it was a hoax or a mistake or anything but what it is:  an frighteningly observable phenomenon.

I just want the world to be normal again.  I want cold winters and hot summers, and springs and falls that carry us gently from one extreme to the other.  But I don’t believe I’ll see that in my lifetime.  And so, when November comes, chilling me with its icy rains and cutting winds, I won’t complain.  Not anymore.  Not ever again.

Today’s music:  Tony Rice again (Church Street Blues)