Just Another Congressional Bigot From Virginia

This story from the NYT reports that yet another Republican Congressman from the land of Jefferson is hopelessly confused about the values of the country in whose legislature he sits. The only good American - yet again - is a god-fearing right-wing Christian, and anything less means our civilization’s destruction.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat to the nation’s traditional values.

Mr. Goode was referring to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a college student and was elected to the House in November. Mr. Ellison’s plan to use the Koran during his private swearing-in ceremony in January had outraged some Virginia voters, prompting Mr. Goode to issue a written response to them, a spokesman for Mr. Goode said.

In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode said that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

Of course, at least one right-wing nutjob, who inexplicably continues to enjoy media exposure for his emotional poison masquerading as thought, weighed in with the eminently reasonable commentary one’s come to expect from his ilk.

The fracas over Mr. Ellison's decision to use the Koran during his personal swearing-in ceremony began last month when Dennis Prager, a conservative columnist and radio host, condemned the decision as one that would undermine American civilization.

"Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal - the Islamicization of America," said Mr. Prager, who said the Bible was the only relevant religious text in the United States.

"If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress," Mr. Prager said.

Religious freedom in the legislature of the country first settled because of people seeking relief from religious persecution? In spite of the Constitution, that’s too much to ask, it seems, from Virginia’s right-wing political blowhards. Although it might just be wishful thinking, let’s hope it’s at least part of the reason one’s now out of a job. There’s clearly some house-cleaning left to do.

Who Will Clean Up The Decider’s Mess?

Maureen Dowd’s column in Wednesday’s NYT did an exceptional job of capturing the essences of the two Democratic frontrunners for the 2008 presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It deserves a full read rather than a summation. And it’s nice to see Dowd writing something more substantial than snarky, throwaway one-liners for a change.

Maureen Dowd: Will Hillzilla Crush Obambi?

Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, December 13, 2006

MANCHESTER, N.H.- So the question of the moment is: Which would be a
greater handicap in a presidential bid, gender or race?

The answer will depend, of course, on how manly the woman, and how
white the black.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama both straddle two
worlds, trying to profit from both.

Despite her desire to seem far more experienced than her rival,
Hillary's role in high-level politics has been mostly that of a spouse
- a first lady who felt that she got elected too. The Yale-trained
lawyer had one foot in the "The West Wing" and one in "Desperate
Housewives," one foot in the world of hotshot alphas ruling the globe,
and one in the world of middle-age women humiliated by their husbands'
dallying with office cupcakes.

She won her Senate seat only after becoming sympathetic as a victim.
And she still struggles with the balance between her Mars and Venus
sides, sometimes showing her political steel and other times fetching
coffee for male colleagues.

Senator Obama glides between the black and white political worlds. In
New Hampshire on Sunday, speaking to nearly all-white audiences, the
Harvard-educated lawyer looked utterly at home, dressing like a Wall
Street banker on casual Friday and sounding as white as Lou Dobbs.

He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and Louis Brandeis with equal aplomb
and wryly noted that when he worked rebuilding a black community on
Chicago's South Side, people there couldn't pronounce his name and
called him "Yo Momma."

He admits that he talks to black groups with a different cadence, but
says that's because he's picking up a different rhythm from the
audience. He rejects what he calls the expected script for black
politicians, "that for them to be authentically black they have to
somehow offend white people," as he told Jeff Zeleny in The Chicago
Tribune. Mr. Obama rejects complaints from blacks that he's not black
enough; but as Mr. Zeleny noted, Hawaii, where the senator's white
mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya met, and where he grew
up and went to prep school, is not exactly the 'hood.

While Bill Clinton's campaign pollsters used to worry that Hillary was
not coming across as maternal enough, Senator Obama peppers his talks
with remarks about being a father and husband. "I don't miss diapers,"
he confided to some parents at a book signing in New Hampshire, and
later told reporters that he would decide whether to run with his
wife, Michelle - "the smartest, toughest, funniest best friend that I
could ever hope for."

He was equally graceful reaching out to the female audience on "Oprah"
and the male audience on "Monday Night Football," when he did the
opening skit this week on the audacity of hype, ending by putting on a
Bears hat and flashing that killer smile. (The Windy City doubleheader
must have made Hillary, a Chicago native, pea green.)

The most politically unproblematic black man to ever dream of national
office, Senator Obama is Senator Clinton's worst nightmare. He is as
comfortable in his skin as she is uncomfortable in hers.

"When push comes to shove, I think gender is going to be a harder sell
than race," said Deb Chase, a teacher from Gilmanton, N.H., who
followed Senator Obama from Portsmouth to Manchester, to see him
twice. "It's not that people don't intellectually believe in the idea
of a woman as president. But look at the schools here - there are lots
of women teaching elementary school and very few women superintendents
of schools."

But, like other Democrats in New Hampshire, Ms. Chase thinks the issue
transcends gender, that the problem is Hillary herself.

In terms of legislative and senatorial substance, it's a wash. So far,
she's Senator Pothole and he's Senator Bestseller List.

But unlike her impertinent challenger, Hillary will have to do a lot
of fancy dancing to explain her opinions about the Iraq war. And we
know that she's not a good dancer.

Built on a cult of personality, her campaign will be ruthless in
stomping on Obambi, as one Chicago columnist referred to the
idealistic pol who was too naïve to steer clear of a sleazy
fund-raiser who wanted to buy his favor with a sweetheart real estate
deal.

Hillary hasn't waited this long and market-tested this assiduously for
nothing. Obambi's message may be mushy communitarianism - we're a
crazy quilt and why can't we all get along? - but her message is
simply the Divine Right of Clintons.

So there is a second question, perhaps one that will trump race and
gender. It's about whether he's tough and she's human.

Barack Obama is exactly the kind of person this country needs to follow the colossal disaster known as The Decider. Cultured, well-educated, and devoid of the typical political hubris that defines the likes of Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich, he’s a Ronald Reagan / John F. Kennedy amalgamation that will use his emotional connections to get elected and his intelligence to repair the damage of his predecessor.

Dowd is mistaken about her comparison of Hillary’s and Barack’s relative intelligence. The only Clinton that’s smarter than Obama has already been president. To be sure, no one takes a back seat to Hillary’s treachery and machinations, not even Lady MacBeth. But having the smarts to attach yourself to Bill Clinton and accept whatever negatives are part of that bargain just to get to orbit close to centers of power only means she’s a good political operator. Our country so badly needs much more than that.

Alas, Obama’s simply too young to get elected as president. He doesn’t have the national organization. He doesn’t have the seasoning. He doesn’t have the political chits to spend to keep people he’ll need to join him from sitting on the sidelines lest they offend Hillary and she wins, and lord knows the last person anyone wants to be is someone subjected to President Hillary’s wrath.

Most importantly, he doesn’t remotely have the necessary experience at the national level to keep from being eaten alive by the various nefarious courtesans who will relish the opportunity to use this boy king’s naivete and lack of established political gravity to push their own narrow agendas. Instead, he’s the perfect vice-presidential candidate, one who would bring twice the feel-good factor that John Edwards did in 2004.

Already, there’s been talk of negotiations between the Clinton and Obama camps to pair the two on a single ticket for the Democratic primaries. While this might look smart on the surface, such a merger would be a tragedy of epic proportions. Hillary Clinton is simply unelectable in November, 2008, and deservedly so. She will do anything, and say anything, that she believes is most politically expedient. She has all the absence of personal ethics of her husband without any of the personal charm. She’s a living, breathing negative self-ad, and the only hope of the Republicans holding onto the White House. She simply can’t be allowed to win the nomination.

Instead, the best person to pair with Barack Obama in 2008 is Al Gore. He’s every bit as intelligent as Bill and Barack. He certainly has the national experience Obama lacks. Even as vice president, he stood in contrast to the Clinton sleaze. He’d be in a unique position to groom Obama for his own run in 2016, having been through exactly the same process himself. And he has the added distinction of having won before.

The race for the privilege of cleaning up The Decider’s mess is on. Gore-Obama in 2008!