Greed is Good

There was an editorial by Elizabeth Edwards in The New York Times yesterday, entitled "Bowling 1, Health Care 0," where she criticized the press for focusing on Barack Obama's bowling score instead of more worthwhile subjects like Joe Biden's health care plan. She seems to be saying that the press is more inclined to chase stories that it deems exciting rather than stories that are more substantive. An example of press-think: Barack Obama is much more interesting than "just another old white guy" Chris Dodd so we will act like Chris Dodd doesn't even exist. I agree with Mrs. Edwards' observations completely except for one thing. She thinks this is a bad thing and I think it is inevitable.

Should we be surprised that newspaper companies want to sell more newspapers? We shouldn't be. Newspaper companies want to make money first. Of course they will tell us stuff like they are in it for the public good. If they think this line of b.s. will sell a few more newspapers, why not say it? By all accounts, fewer and fewer newspapers are sold every year. I kind of feel like every newspaper I read will be the last one I will ever read. Just like people a hundred years ago took one last ride in a horse-drawn carriage before they disappeared forever. If Barack Obama's picture on the front page sells a few more newspapers, can you blame the newspaper companies for highlighting him over other so-called "boring" presidential candidates like Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter and Mike Gravel?

We hear conservatives constantly bemoan the "liberal mainstream media" and "liberal elites out of Hollywood." The strange thing about this argument is that the media and Hollywood are both pretty pure "supply and demand" institutions. (I remember a day when conservatives talked about "supply and demand" and "free markets" and it was almost believable. Now they make me laugh when they talk about such things.) The media and Hollywood don't create a product and hope the public likes them. They aren't pushing any kind of agenda. The media and Hollywood think about what the public wants and then tries to create a product to satisfy them. If this is done right, there is a whole lot of money to be made. Money is it. That is what media companies and Hollywood studios care about. They aren't trying to push a liberal agenda. If pushing a conservative agenda sold, I think they would sell that too. But that just doesn't sell these days. They are looking out for their bank accounts. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money, I guess.

Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Most of us are doing the same thing on a smaller scale. Heck, I daydream about how much money I am going to make as a lawyer so that I can retire to Italy. Elizabeth Edwards is criticizing the press for not being serious about covering the presidential campaign. I wish I existed in a world where the press existed to inform a public wanting to be informed in a substantive way. But that ship has sailed. Maybe the press never existed to serve the greater good.

I also doubt if the public wants to know much more than Mr. Obama's bowling score or which campaign volunteer Hillary Clinton chewed out today. Sadly we are a nation of Jaywalkers. Have we become a country led by elites? Yes we have.

Family Guy

I find the term "family values," as appropriated by Republicans, to be highly, highly offensive. Because what it is really saying is if you are not with the Republican program 100% of the time then what could you possibly know about family values? I highly, highly disagree with this statement.

Let's talk about social issues for a moment. In my own family, in many instances, people are on different sides of the same issues. Does that mean that some of us have family values and some of us don't? Does that mean that I am better than my sister because I hold the correct opinion on an issue? Does that mean I should stop talking to my sister because, obviously, she has no family values? Does that mean that my niece and my nephew are fated to have a sucky life because my sister might have a wrong opinion here and there?

The answers to all of the above questions are no, no, no and no. Families can be beautiful and heartwarming but also complex and complicated. Families fight and make up and then fight again. We disagree about stuff but, you know what, that is okay with me. I love talking to my relatives who I don't agree with. In a way, I like talking to them more because I already know how I think and I might not necessarily know how they think.

I have relatives who love Rush Limbaugh and I have relatives who worship Hillary Clinton. What I do know is that all my relatives are good family people. I have seen my conservative relatives go out of their way to help me out personally. But my liberal relatives have done the same too. I love my family and I wouldn't change a thing about them.

When Mitt Romney comes out and talks about his "family values," I do not recognize any of my family in what he is saying. He is talking about drawing a line in the sand with acceptable people on one side and the unacceptable on the other. White people, okay. Brown people, not so much. Rich people, we like you. Poor people, don't even notice you.

I consider myself half-immigrant. My mom came to the United States for the first time when she was 30 years old. She did not know a single person here other than my dad. The year was 1970. As I was growing up, I was ambivalent about where I lived. It was just a place I was born. But my mom would have none of that. She loved the United States. She was a patriot. And I think she was happy with the life she made here.

My mom was from the Philippines. You know what? Them Filipinos have some good values and I should know because I would hear about them when I strayed a little. (I got a C in science once.) I know the United States was just a bit better for having had my mom live here from 1970 to 1993, the year she died. Her legacy is three pretty good kids, two really cool grandkids, and the countless time she spent helping new immigrants from the Philippines get used to their new country.

My mom loved to help people immigrating to the United States. She would help them find places to live. She would tell them where the Catholic churches were. (Most Filipinos are Catholics.) She would have parties to introduce new immigrants to the ever-growing Filipino community in Houston. A big part of the reason I became a teacher in an inner-city school in a poor Hispanic neighborhood in Houston was to model myself after my mom a bit. (My mom was also a teacher back in the Philippines.) She was a welcoming face for many people moving to the United States for the first time from the Philippines. I was the same face for many people moving to the United States for the first time from places like Mexico and Guatemala and Costa Rica.

The arrival of my mom to her new family probably shook things up a bit back in 1970. But the family was the better for it. In fact, America is a better place for having had my mom live here for a short time as well. My family really is a diverse lot. We bitch and moan a lot. Sure. But there have been countless instances in my life where they stood up to help me out. I totally trust my family and their values. We are a different version of American than the version Mitt Romney talks about.

And you know what? His loss, not mine.

Sweet Little Nothings About Tom DeLay

When I was a little kid, I noticed that my mom was really into politics. She read both of Houston's local papers. (Back then we still had The Houston Post. Give me a second to compose myself, okay? I loved The Houston Post.) She watched the local news and the national news. Sometimes she would bring a small television into our den and place it by our big television so she could watched Dan Rather alongside Peter Jennings. ("That Peter Jennings...so handsome," she would say from time to time.) She read National Geographic and Reader's Digest. I didn't know the term at the time but she is what we would now call a "political junkie."

My mom died in 1993. A year or so later, we got our first internet connection at our house. One of those mostly text-based things. I remember loading a single picture overnight and thinking, "Man, that's awesome!" The internet connection at our house became faster and faster and eventually we got high-speed. After I became interested in following politics and other current events around 2000, I saw that there was just so much stuff out there. I don't think my mom would have ever got off the computer.

In the early days of my politics addiction, I would be on the computer constantly. I knew there was always just a little bit more to read about the George W. Bush-Al Gore election. I would be reading stuff during my off-periods from teaching high school history. And during lunch. And during the detentions I held after school. ("You know what real detention is? Four years of a President George W. Bush, that's what!") The Gore v. Bush decision made me realize that if yahoos like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas could graduate from law school then it couldn't be that difficult. Thus I was off to law school.

The Bush-John Kerry election in 2004 was a replay for me. I really got into that election too. That was when I started blogging. (I think my anti-Bush blogging helped explain why John Kerry lost Texas by a smaller margin than one would expect.) I loved those little delegate maps that you would find on the websites of The Washington Post or The New York Times. I was also all about NPR and The New Yorker as well. Did my law school grades suffer a bit? Probably. But I considered myself a student of life. And I had the best teacher anyone could hope for. Myself.

After the disappointment of the 2004 election, I dropped out of following politics for awhile. Oh sure, I took secret joy in President Bush's incredibly shrinking approval ratings. (I had a t-shirt that said, "I don't like to tell people 'I told you so.' I'd rather just imply it.") Another thing that made me lose interest in the news was the departure from the scene of some of my favorite enemies: Tom DeLay, George Allen, Bill Frist, and Karl Rove. I saw that most of my interest in politics was in seeing the personal destruction of people I detested. Did I want to be that person? I can't say that I didn't like who I was because I did. But to think about people I hated all the time did get to be a bit much. I mean I talked about Tom DeLay on dates. Whispering sweet little nothings about Tom DeLay into a potential paramour's ear definitely does not work. I would not recommend you trying this at home, aight?

What drew me back to politics was the purchase of an iPod I made last year. There were a lot of political podcasts that I listened to occasionally through my computer. But I didn't really like listening to stuff while I was doing stuff on my computer. I found I liked listening to political podcast when I was going for a walk or going to the gym or driving around in my car. I got addicted to the Slate Political Gabfest podcast and the Bloggingheads.tv podcast in particular. I guess I can thank Steve Jobs for restoring my interest in politics.

The upshot of all this is I can get overwhelmed with all the sources of political news out there. I sample a lot of sites. I go through phases where I am all into The New Republic then I don't read it for months. I wonder sometimes how other political junkies get their news. If you are reading this modest blog, you likely are a fellow political junkie. Where do you get your political news hits, yo?

The Case Against McCain...and Obama...and Clinton

The Wind Beneath Hillary's Wings

Hillary Clinton has been criticized for her decision to continue to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. I don't know if her decision is the right decision or the wrong decision. But if it is the wrong decision, she is not the only party guilty for keeping this nomination fight going. Other people to blame include undecided superdelegates and voters in primary states (like Pennsylvania) who continue to vote for Mrs. Clinton. These sets of people have kept hope alive in the Clinton campaign. Mrs. Clinton would have quit a long time ago but for the continuing support of voters in the so-called big states (Ohio, Texas, California, and Pennsylvania) and the seemingly inability of superdelegates to make up their minds.

I suspect that Barack Obama has deemed it impolite (and probably stupid from a political point of view) to criticize voters for dragging out the primary battle he is engaged in. He will need these same voters in the fall if he wants to have a chance of beating John McCain. But a case can be made that Mrs. Clinton has millions of people supporting her candidacy. Heck, near 2.5 million voted for her yesterday in Pennsylvania. I wonder how these people would feel if they felt that their ability to choose a candidate was taken away from them just because a long drawn out primary season is bad for the party. I suspect they would think a lack of choice is bad for the party too.

Millions of people in these primary states have at least some reservations about Mr. Obama. His scolding them for keeping the primary race going would just feed into the image of Mr. Obama thinking he is better than the average voter. Mr. Obama needs to think of the remaining primary states as small laboratories when he can continue to strengthen his message. Most people agree that he is getting better and better as a candidate. That is because he has been forced to by continuing competition from Mrs. Clinton. But much work remains on his part. Some weaknesses have emerged. Mr. Obama's so-called elitism needs to be debunked. I rather we work on this problem now rather than in October. But a problem that doesn't exist is that this primary season is going on way too long. Mr. Obama should just let it ride. Concentrate on fixing any perceived problems his campaign have. If anything, stop talking about Hillary Clinton and start talking about John McCain. John McCain never really talked about Mike Huckabee. He acted like a front-runner when he became the front-runner. Mr. Obama has been the front-runner for awhile now. He should start acting that role.

As things stand now, we have the constructed fiction that Hillary Clinton is alone in wanting her campaign to continue. This is obviously false. People in the upcoming primary states haven't got the memo saying this race is over. Mrs. Clinton is at least getting a look-see from voters in those states. Mr. Obama does control his own destiny though. If he would just beat Mrs. Clinton in one state that she is supposed to win, this race would be over. He hasn't done that yet. He will need to beat Mrs. Clinton to prove that he is a strong candidate for the fall. Her just dropping out could have the effect of showing that he could not beat someone who has proven to be a rather ineffective national candidate.

On a related note, since a long and drawn out primary season is supposedly such a terrible thing for the Democrats, why do we even have all these primaries and caucuses scheduled for after Super Tuesday? Super Tuesday was supposed to be the day that decided who the winner would be, either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton. That didn't happen. Why wouldn't the Democrats put all these primaries and caucuses early, early, early if they were so worried about a primary battle "taking forever"?

Lawyers Are People Too

I will admit to not only being a lawyer but knowing lots of lawyers. I think I am an okay guy and most of the other lawyers I know (dad, sister, family friends, cousin, friends from law school) are okay people too. I don't feel like an elitist. Also, my bank account definitely shows I am not an elitist.

I think the point of this video is just plain wrong. This video basically says, "You shouldn't get an education because that means you stop being a real American and start being an American elitist." I sure didn't feel like an elitist last year when law firms didn't even bother to send me rejection letters when I applied for jobs.

This video says that Michelle Obama is an elitist because she said she knew a lot of lawyers. But being a lawyer just means you went to school for a few more years. Every year people in our country become more and more educated. More and more people have graduate degrees. This is a great thing for our country. In 1972, only twelve percent of Americans had college degrees. Today, that number is about twenty-nine percent. A college degree on average doubles a person's annual income. A good thing, I think. The more money a person makes, the less government has to worry about taking care of this person.

So the common argument out there is that Michelle Obama and Barack Obama are elitists. I bet if Michelle Obama had taken a different path and dropped out of school, gotten pregnant, and started collecting welfare checks, these same people calling her an elitist now would be complaining about just another welfare queen on the rolls.

Darfur/Iraq

Something I do not really understand is why us liberals are so willing to support Darfur and so not willing to support Iraq. My opinion is that both places are in dire needs of help. I do not really see the difference between the two situations. But allow me to posit a guess or two as to what is going on here.

My guess is that liberals so equate Iraq with President Bush. That is almost a fair statement. He has made a royal mess of the place. And I think they think being in support of American intervention in Iraq means being in support of President Bush. I can mean this but it doesn't have to. There are ways to get around this big liberal hangup.

Obviously President Bush and his followers do not know how to handle the situation in Iraq. They never did. They did not have a plan for what to do after Saddam's government fell. I always thought that that part would be easy, especially since we have the most powerful military machine ever. What was to come after would require more nuance. A nuance that is still lacking all these years later.

But the choices available should not be limited to either "we stay in Iraq and follow President Bush's plan" or "we leave." Life is way more complicated than that. What about "staying in Iraq but not following President Bush's plan"? What about "coming up with a whole new plan"? This is also a choice. A choice that I don't ever hear people mentioning.

As to what this plan should be, I have no idea. But what about getting Iraqi experts and Iraqis themselves in a room together and not letting them leave until they have something that we can work with? Seriously, it can't be worse than the incompetents we currently have running the show.

The upshot here? Darfur definitely needs our help. But so does Iraq. We are Americans. Let us think big again.

The First Lady of Hotness

"What can I do to get you to vote for my husband for president?"

On a post I wrote on November 3rd of last year, I relayed the story of how a disastrous case of food poisoning stranded me in Albany for a week which led to me canceling a planned trip to New York City. As luck would have it, the 2000 Republican National Convention was on the telly that week. As you probably can guess, I cried myself to sleep every day of that drea

I was staying with my fraternity brother C in Albany. C is a great guy. He never complained about having a weak-stomached friend around for a week. He even watched the Republican National Convention with me. Our commentary of the events turned out to be pretty entertaining. Whenever Governor George W. Bush was shown, I was like, "Whaaaaat an idiot!" Some of the resulting commentary, while surprising at the time, turned out to be quite prescient. When Laura Bush made her first appearance, my friend C said, "I bet she was a hot piece of ass in her time. No way is she a conservative."

Fast forward seven years later. We all know about the George W. Bush presidency and its "effectiveness." Filmmaker extraordinaire Oliver Stone is going to weigh in sometime later this year with his movie "W.," about the life and times of George W. Bush. In the role of Laura Bush, Stone has cast Elizabeth Banks. You probably know her from "Scrubs" and "Fred Claus" and "The Forty Year Old Virgin" and "Spiderman 3." I phoned my friend C up before I wrote this and asked if Banks has the right amount of hotness to play his old paramour Laura Bush. He said, "Hell yes!"

Don't worry, ladies. Oliver Stone is thinking about y'all as well. To play George W. Bush, he has cast that most rugged of men, Josh Brolin. And Ioan Gruffudd will play the dreamy Tony Blair.

Suppose You Started a War and Screwed Everything Up

One of the things that gets me about the Iraq war is that the reason justifying us being over there is ever changing. The one reason that bothers me the most is this one: "If we leave now, then all the soldiers who have died would have died in vain." Following this line of reasoning, we can never leave Iraq. Because unless things are "just so," then soldiers would have died in vain. Following this line of reasoning, Napoleon should still be invading Russia. Because, otherwise, his soldiers have died in vain.

If you are down to using this excuse, that says to me, "Hey, all our other excuses aren't working. Let's trot out ol' reliable." President Lyndon B. Johnson, aka my least favorite president ever, used this excuse during Vietnam. The thing with this excuse is that it does not make sense. It don't work. That dog don't hunt, my friends. If we are down to using this excuse, we are all but admitting that our soldiers are dying in vain. If this is our reason for fighting in Iraq, why did we start fighting in the first place? There was a time when not one soldier had died.

The subtext of all this is that President George W. Bush wants to push this war until January 2009. Whatever happens after that can be blamed on the next guy. Or gal. He thinks this whole "kicking the can down the road" routine will salvage his legacy. Wrong, friendo. We all know this is President Bush's War. It is no one else's.

You're so vain, Mr. President. If you think this post is about you, you'd be right.

Step Up

Since the war started, Iraqis who have worked for the Americans are in an extremely precarious position in their own country. Many Iraqis who work in the Green Zone have had to lie about what they are doing entering or exiting the Green Zone when asked by their "fellow" Iraqis. "I am just looking for my brother who disappeared," is a common refrain. These people are risking their lives to support us and yet when they need help from us, nothing.

Many Republicans continue to support the war because otherwise would be a "betrayal of the Iraqi people." Yet how many of these same Republicans are willing to let Iraqis immigrate to our country? The attitude among some Republicans appears to be, "Whoa, hold on there a minute, buddy. I know you acted as a translator for us in Baghdad at great risk to yourself and your family but, see, you are a little too dark to be allowed into these here United States. Plus, we really can't be sure you are not a terrorist in disguise."

A Democratic congressman from Oregon is sponsoring a bill that would allow more Iraqi immigrants to enter the United States. Damn those Democrats, supporting even more immigration! (Um, sorry, I guess I was channeling my inner-Rush Limbaugh there for a second. Won't happen again.) Currently, an Iraqi seeking to come to the United States has no chance of making it over here without a strong personal advocate.

Wouldn't it show enormous goodwill on our part to allow Iraqis to access our health care and our universities and just the rest of our society? Wouldn't that help win some hearts and minds?

Also, do we really want to be known as a country that fenced Iraqis out in their time of great need?

No Country for Old White Men

Here is an email I just received from my brother-in-law Hector. I assume he is joking:

Regardless of who wins the general election in 2008, this year promises to be of historical significance.

If Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency, we will have our first female President.

If Barack Obama wins the Presidency, we will have our first Kenyan-Hawaiian-American President.

But if John McCain wins, we will have the 44th consecutive white man as President!!! It will be a record-breaking, unprecedented streak for white men holding office in the United States. In fact, never before in the history of the United States have we had 44 white men in a row be President!

Personally I think everyone should vote for the White Man this year. After all, consider this country's progress under White Power. Over 95% of companies in the US are owned and managed by white men. A super-majority of congressmen, governors, cabinet members and military leaders are white, and continue to be so.

You may say "But what about the Iraq war? A white male President brought us into this mess!" Well, you could scapegoat the White Man for this disaster, but if you take a more nuanced view, you would realize that this war started under the watch of the first non-white Secretary of State. (I know its confusing, but Colin Powell is technically not white). And what happened under the watch of the first non-white, non-male National Security Advisor? 9/11, that's what.

Let's look at other examples of white greatness:
White bread continues to outsell wheat, or any other variety.
White appliances hold over 95% of the market
Milk... white
Elmer's Glue... white
Santa Claus... white
Bob Barker... white
Whiteboards... white
Lab coats... white
the paper cup holding my coffee... white
sugar in my coffee... white
person serving me coffee... white
Walmart... white
Disneyworld... white
the Devil... red! not white, red!
The first man on the moon was white... the rocket that took him to the moon was white... hell, the moon is white!
And Jesus Christ himself... white man!
Also, look at the success of the Roman Catholic Church... and they have had even more consecutive white guys... 267!

We could take our chances with a White Not-Man President or a Not-White Man President, or we could continue to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with a White Man President!

Don't change horses in mid-stream. VOTE WHITE MAN IN 2008!

Storm Cloud

"I feel like raining on some people's parades."

Uh-oh. It seems like Bill Maher is going to talk about world religions in a movie called "Religulous." I don't know too much about Mr. Maher but I do know that he deals in controversy. I also know that many of our religious right leaders feel like they have ownership over religion and that any interpretations that differ from their views are seen as anti-religious. Is it safe to say that sparks will fly when this movie comes out? I just hope that Pat Robertson does not send a hurricane to Bill Maher's house. Maher might want to see if he has hurricane insurance. I'm just saying.

I see Larry Charles directed this movie. It says it right there. See, right there. I loved the last movie he directed, "Borat." Yet I also know Larry Charles directed that Bob Dylan movie "Masked and Anonymous." A movie I hated, hated, hated. I feel like I will never back my $8.50 back even though I attended a free press screening. If you have ever wondered why I don't go ga-ga over Dylan, "Masked and Anonymous" is the reason why.

"Masked and Anonymous." Oh, the horror...the horror...

There They Go Again

I am a big fan of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. I just feel so damn cultured after I get done reading each month's issue. (You should have seen how upset I got when my sister lost last month's copy before I had the chance to read it. Darn her!) I am also a big fan of the Atlantic's cadre of bloggers - Marc Ambinder, Matthew Yglesias, Megan McArdle, and Ross Douthat. These are the bloggers I read first most mornings. They all have unique points of view which makes me think about ideas that I normally wouldn't think about on my own. Which is always a good thing.

Today Marc Ambinder reported that an iPetition appeared on a website called "No Mitt VP." My first question - an iPetition, what's that? The website was created by people who don't want John McCain to pick Mitt Romney as his vice-president choice because Mitt is insufficiently dedicated to social issues such as opposition to abortion and gay marriage and YouTube. Nothing new here as one of the reasons that Mitt Romney cratered as a candidate was because his conservative credentials were always suspect. Reading through the comments of Marc Ambinder's post seemed to favor Romney 3 to 1 however. The message of most of these commenters - if you don't like Mitt Romney, you are a religious bigot.

I think Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate. Many times before the primaries even started, I would tell my friends, "Mitt would be a worse candidate than George W. Bush." Seriously. I said that. George W. Bush was enough of his own man to go against generally accepted conservative beliefs. For example, George W. Bush has been rather welcoming of immigrants to this country. For that, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh raked him over the coals. Could you imagine President Mitt Romney ever going against Rush Limbaugh? I can't. George W. Bush believes he is a conservative which allows him to pick and choose battles with the conservative base. His comfort with them (because he is one of them) means he can try to push them into the direction he wants. Family squabbling is okay. We all do it.

Mitt Romney is the equivalent of someone marrying into the family. Most of us guys would not argue with the mother of our fiancée right before the wedding. We would probably go along with whatever our future mother-in-law wanted. This would be the prudent course. Why make waves? Mitt is this person. He knows he is not a conservative but he wants all the benefits that he thinks being a conservative would get him. Heck, he is pretending he is a conservative already so he might as well go all the way into Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly Land. The ironic thing is that 2008 just wasn't the year to be a conservative. Romney gambled and lost. Yet his followers can't see that.

Romney's supporters can't accept the real reason he lost (the reason stated above) so they come up with the "religious prejudice" excuse. There are always going to be people who don't like Mormons. But then there are people who don't like blacks or Catholics or Jews. Barack Obama seems to be doing fine. Joseph Lieberman was seen as a decent vice-presidential candidate in 2000. And John F. Kennedy is still regarded by many as a good president. People sometimes can't admit that the candidate they picked was seen by many people as insincere and wooden and politically clumsy. To see things this way impugns the judgment of Romney supporters. To impugn the judgment of phantom religious bigots means that Romney supporters won't have to go to sleep at night wondering how they picked such a weak candidate.