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Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama

The Choice 2012 intimately follows the odyssey of young Barry Obama from near-poverty in Indonesia to his marijuana-smoking “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, then to college in California and New York, where he moved inexorably toward finding a home in Chicago’s black community.

Consumed by youthful angst, Obama’s own journals and letters reveal a confused young man on an identity quest. By the end of his journey, Barry becomes Barack, and a political method is born.

“He comes from a multicultural background. He has a black father and a white mother and the experiences of Indonesia and Pakistan and California, New York, all of that,” says Obama’s college friend Phil Boerner. “At that time that I knew him, he was trying to say let’s unite around what we share, not what’s different about us.”

Mitt Romney grew up in an entirely different milieu, in a childhood defined by stability. The son of a powerful automobile executive and moderate Republican governor, young Mitt lived a privileged life of private schools and carefully guarded ideas.

A Mormon, Romney spent more than two years as a missionary in France, fulfilling his obligation to the church while trying to complete the Sisyphean task of making abstinence from alcohol palatable in Bordeaux, of all places. While Mitt didn’t make many converts on his mission, friends and family say that after almost dying in an automobile accident, he was reborn as a more serious man with a strong faith and a belief in his own life’s purpose.

“He made a commitment to himself to work hard,” says his brother, Scott Romney. “And I think part of that comes from that experience of going overseas and seeing other people, and having life-threatening experiences and deciding what you’re going to make out of your life. ”

Despite his success in business, Romney believed his destiny was in politics. He would eventually sell himself and his evolving political identity to voters. Lengthy interviews with family, close friends, colleagues and political associates reveal a fuller picture of the real Mitt Romney.

“It sort of mirrored what his dad had done. His dad had become a successful executive in American business and then served in public service as governor. So there was definitely a parallel there,” Romney’s political adviser Charley Manning tells Frontline.

The Choice 2012 also probes the divergent leadership styles of Obama and Romney, focusing on the signature achievement of both men: health care reform. Frontline investigates their approaches to this hot-button issue and what those approaches tell us about how they govern. The film also explores how, while in office, both men were confronted with a reluctant legislature dominated by political opponents. How they each handled that situation reveals much about their distinct political styles.

“Every four years, we always hear from politicians that this is one of the most important elections in our lifetime. In 2012, it really is,” says The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza.

I'm starting today with Congress, although I could just as easily start with Glenn Beck. Because both

1. talk a lot; and 
2. taunt a lot, while they're talking. 

About Congress . . .

A shockingly humorous study came to light yesterday in the waning hours of funded Federal government. As members of Congress postured and squabbled over a tiny fraction of the federal budget, Harvard Professor Gary King announced he's discovered that these people use 27% of their written communications to taunt colleagues. Members with so-called "safe" seats are the worst (best?) taunters.

From the Washington Post:

Prof. Gary King

“It’s jarring and surprising,” said Prof. Gary King, an expert in using computers to find patterns in large amounts of data. And, King said, probably counterproductive if we want Congress’s members to trust one another enough to make deals. 

“The entire government may go bankrupt, I guess. This week, right?” King said in a telephone interview. “We probably want our representatives to be listening to each other rather than calling each other names.”

There's really no need for me to comment on this. I'm sure you can come up with plenty of pithy observations of your own. And maybe, heaven forbid, a few taunts, as well!

On to Glenn Beck, arguably the Grand Master of Taunting ...

As David Folkenflik reported last night on All Things Considered and writes on NPR.org:

At long last, we have an answer to the enduring question: Is it possible for someone to be too incendiary, even for the Fox News Channel? 

And the answer is yes. 

Glenn Beck's daily spot on the nation's leading cable news station is coming to a close little more than two years after his start on Fox News. While his contract runs through December, his show is not expected to last that long. . . .

Photo credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP

It was about ratings and revenue, rather than about ethics or anything to do with ignoring that pesky journalistic mandate for confirming the truth of one's assertions. The LA Times writes:

... Less than three years after joining Fox News from CNN's Headline News amid a burst of publicity, Beck is being booted off the air. His sinking ratings certainly didn't help — they fell 32% for the first three months of this year, to 1.9 million total viewers, according to the Nielsen Co. 

And after months of reported friction between the host and Fox News as well as an aggressive advertiser boycott after Beck dubbed President Obama a racist, analysts professed little surprise. ... 

"The ratings drop was significant and couldn't be ignored," McCall continued. "The advertiser boycott didn't hurt the program or FNC as much in terms of dollars as it did in terms of bad publicity. Beck was no longer just a personality with a show on FNC. He became an easy target for Fox News critics to characterize him as representative of the entire channel."

Calling President Obama a racist certainly qualifies as taunting, don't you think? Does this mean that Glenn Beck, in effect, taunted himself off the Fox News air?

If so, does this mean that Americans, across the board, are finally tired of people constantly and unproductively na-na-na-ing away at each other?

Perhaps it would behoove our elected representatives to use Glenn Beck as a role model for how not to keep a job -- no matter how "safe" it is considered.

President Obama announcing tax-cut deal

Does the Man look tired, or what, in this picture released last night by the White House?

Yes, President Obama and Congressional Republicans reached tentative agreement last night that, among a few other less important items, extends all tax cuts, extends unemployment benefits, and slightly boosts tax cuts for workers. It also renews (and at a lower rate) that bête noire of the Bush II era, the estate tax. So the rich will get richer, the unemployed will keep getting benefits, and the rest of us will get a slightly bigger paycheck courtesy of the Federal government.

"I am not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington," our President said last night. "The American people didn't send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories."

Or did they? That's my real question.

It's 8 o'clock in the morning, and already there are 863 comments made about the Washington Post front-page article reporting the tentative compromise between the White House and Republicans.

Among them this one from someone who tags himself StevenK3:

I voted for Mr. Obama

I respect and admire his intelligence and his compassion for others.

But he has brought a pop-gun to a knife fight one too many times now.

Too many times now he has cost this country dearly because he is a lousy negotiator.

And last night he gets up and has the nerve to say, well, I had to compromise, because the other guys wouldn't.

The New York Times begins its editorial disapproving of the compromise by saying,

President Obama’s deal with the Republicans to extend all the Bush-era income tax cuts is a win for the Republicans and their strategy of obstructionism and a disappointing retreat by the White House.

Okay, gang, let's cut to the chase . . .

It's no secret that Republicans took control of the House by claiming to hate the growing deficit while, at the same moment, clamoring for the Bush II tax cuts to continue for everyone. And that, my friend, whether you like it or not, is the fiscal mindset that will control the House for the next two years. Enough of us voted our confidence in it to make that control happen.

Now think back for a moment, please, to 2008. We knew President Obama was a pragmatist when we elected him, didn't we? And pragmatists do believe in compromise, don't they?

Again, Mr. Obama said of last night's tentative compromise, "The American people didn't send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories."

So, my question for you is, has Mr. Obama got that right or not? It does sometimes seem to me that we rail against the Federal government for failing to negotiate compromises...until they do.

In your opinion, was our President right to negotiate this particular compromise? Is it principle or policy that guides your opinion?

image from website Thump and Whip: Whack Liberalism

Okay, I've said it. Does that make it so? Absolutely not. 

But evidently some person, somewhere, has the power to turn lies into credible facts, for according to a new poll done by the Pew Research Center, 1 in 5 Americans now believe our President is a Muslim.

Not, of course (as Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer would say), that there's anything wrong with that. Being a Muslim, I mean. But in difficult times, we Americans do love our clearly-defined enemies, and  we seem to be increasingly willing to lump immigrants and Muslims into the enemy category, willy-nilly.

Chuck Norris is one of the pundits some of those eighteen percent might be listening to. The website Bible Paths has a long quotation from Mr. Norris in which he presents his reasons for believing that President Obama is actually a Muslim missionary. He begins. . .

"More than they have been at any other time in U.S. history, our First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion are in jeopardy. As if recently passed “hate crime” laws and a politically correct culture weren’t bad enough. Now our president is using international pressure and possibly law to establish a prohibition against insulting Islam or Muslims. . . ."

There's chatter on the internet that President Obama is not only a Muslim, but is the Twelfth Imam, whom Twelvers (the largest branch of Shi'a Islam) believe will one day return with Christ to reestablish the rightful governance of Islam and replete the earth with justice and peace. Rush Limbaugh recently referred to our President as Imam Obama.

Who, I wonder, thinks this stuff up? And who is the first to believe it and pass it on as the truth? What's wrong with the real truth: that this is a complicated, scary, confusing time, that requires all of us to calm down and focus on real solutions for real problems?

All this Muslim branding puts me in mind of the Boston Police Strike of 1919, when the rank and file policemen went out on strike and management's most effective weapon against the strike was innuendo and name-calling.

1919 was a time of wide-spread labor unrest in this country. There were not enough jobs, inflation was out of control, immigrants and blacks were flooding the cities, taking jobs away from Real Americans who grew increasingly angry and fearful.  The designated enemies of the day were Communists, a term which was applied more and more to anyone who thought workers deserved better treatment than they were getting.

The fledgling union movement was gaining strength; one-fifth of American workers went out on strike that year. After all attempts at negotiations for better pay and working conditions failed, the Boston Police, through their organization, the Boston Social Club, decided to do the same.

There is no doubt that Boston's police had grievances, which they expressed as early as 1917. New officer pay had not risen in sixty years, since 1857 when new recruits received two dollars daily. Officers worked seven days per week, with a day off every other week during which they couldn't leave town without special permission. Depending on duty, officers worked between 73 and 98 hours weekly, and were required to sleep in infested station houses kept in deplorable condition.

The Boston powerful back in 1919 had prepared for the possibility of a strike by painting anyone in the police department who advocated better working conditions for the police as un-American, traitorous, and  "Bolshevistic." The press willingly carried this message to the public, and masses of underemployed, underpaid, worried Americans were convinced that the Boston police strike was a communist plot. It is one of the most skillful propaganda campaigns I've ever heard of.


The Boston  police struck on September 9, 1919. The next morning the LA Times wrote:

"...no man's house, no man's wife, no man's children will be safe if the police force is unionized and made subject to the orders of Red Unionite bosses."

The Massachusetts state guard was called in. The strike lasted almost a week. The thousand or so officers who struck lost their jobs. The men hired in their place got higher salaries, pension plans, and free uniforms. So the strike was, and wasn't, a success.

But what seems relevant to me in terms of America today is how, back in 1919, the moneyed and empowered interests manipulated American citizens into believing something that wasn't true simply by stating that it was. 

For heaven's sake. When are we going to grow up?

Your thoughts?

Day before yesterday President Obama told a group of Disabled American Veterans that American's military involvement in Iraq will end, as scheduled, by the end of next year. Our involvement in Afghanistan, however, continues.

The veterans group's most vigorous applause sounded in response to President Obama's promise of the nation's continuing support of wounded soldiers; which, if done as promised, will be terribly expensive.

President Obama:

We’re directing unprecedented resources to treating the signature wounds of today’s wars -- traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  (Applause.)  And I recently signed into law the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act.  That’s a long name, but let me tell you what it does.  It not only improves treatment for traumatic brain injury and PTSD, it gives new support to many of the caregivers who put their own lives on hold to care for their loved one.  (Applause.)

And as so many of you know, PTSD is a pain like no other -- the nightmares that keep coming back, the rage that strikes suddenly, the hopelessness that’s led too many of our troops and veterans to take their own lives.  So today, I want to say in very personal terms to anyone who is struggling -- don’t suffer in silence.  It’s not a sign of weakness to reach out for support -- it’s a sign of strength.  Your country needs you.  We are here for you.  We are here to help you stand tall.  Don’t give up.  Reach out.  (Applause.)

We’re making major investments in awareness, outreach, and suicide prevention -- hiring more mental health professionals, improving care and treatment.  For those of you suffering from PTSD, we’re making it a whole lot easier to qualify for VA benefits.  From now on, if a VA doctor confirms a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that is enough -- no matter what war you served in.  (Applause.)

Back in the late 60's and early 70's, I was a full-blown hippie peacenik. I was also a person of great passion and less sense, who identified the warrior firmly with the war and demonstrated against both. And who served in Vietnam, I'm sure, thought just as highly of my actions as I did of theirs. It was not until I stood in line at he Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall that I understood that Vietnam soldiers had done what they'd done either because they had no choice (there was a draft in those days) or because they loved their country, or both.

Vietnam Vets, as nearly as I can tell from those I've know well, came home with physical injuries, disease, PTSD, depression, drug addiction, sleep disorders, etc. They also came home to a mixed welcome; little help, less public support, and a strong message that they should just get over their war experiences and get on with ordinary life. Those of us on the home front either lacked the perceptiveness, the will, or the information to spot how many of them were in real trouble.

The experience was largely the same for Gulf War veterans.

U.S. Army soldiers from 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division are seen on board a C-17 aircraft at Baghdad International Airport as they begin their journey back to the United States, July 13, 2010. (AP)

The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are a complicated issue for Americans. A lot of us, including evidently some who are fighting over there, are not sure why we're there, and what we're supposed to accomplish. On Point yesterday had a stunning first hour discussing the war from the perspective of the American soldier -- all of whom did, after all, volunteer to serve. They joined up for a mix of reasons -- personal, financial, patriotic. But they went where our policy makers told them to go; did what our policy makers told them to do. And if they didn't get killed, they eventually came back home to the rest of us, deserving what from the rest of us?

Yesterday while listening to On Point, I finally got that anyone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan goes over there as one person and come back as a different one. Which means it is foolish of us to expect  returning soldiers  simply to pick up where they left off in their own lives. We can either abandon them or ante-up what it costs to give them the help that a lot of them need.

It is so easy to stick a "Support our Troops" sticker on one's car and feel a swell of patriotism. But how we feel does not help these returning soldiers. This is a democracy, after all; a majority of us elected the people who sent them to war. Does that or doesn't that make these men and women's iffy emotional and physical future our national responsibility?

The kind of help these soldiers need will span decades and cost billions. It seems to me that as a nation we have a somewhat spotty history of looking after our veterans. I would argue that anyone who supports the troops with a bumper sticker, but isn't willing to have our government ante-up financially to help those same troops after they stop fighting, should remove that bumper sticker.

I know daytime talk TV almost exclusively from the gym; from the row of suspended flat-screen TVs mouthing soundlessly at me while I trundle away atop an elliptical.

I usually ignore all those chatting heads and read a book, but this Thursday, if I'm trundling away at 11 AM, I may just watch. That's when my local ABC affiliate, WHSV, broadcasts The View.

This announcement from The View's website, got a lot of buzz yesterday:

Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie, executive producers of The View, announced today that President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, will be the featured guest on Thursday, July 29th. This marks the first time in history a sitting United States president has visited a daytime talk show. . . .

President Obama joined the ladies on the couch in March 2008 before the history-making election.

Hmmmm...

Of course, President Obama's "unprecedented appearance" is not really without precedent for him, personally-- Candidate Obama (as well as Candidate McCain) appeared on the show back in 2008. But it is unprecedented for President Obama, or, to repeat what I just posted above, for any President of the United States.

But then, you know, this is the Information Age, we all get our information in different ways, and President Obama may be the first sitting president to really, really come to terms with this. Just think back to his effective use of the internet during the campaign.

Which is beginning to seem like a long, long time ago.

President Obama was embraced warmly at his inauguration, but, despite the passage of landmark health care reform and tough financial regulations, his approval numbers as president continue to decline. Julian E. Zelizer, Princeton professor of history and public affairs, addressed this seeming paradox in a CNN op-ed piece last week. Dr. Zelizer cited several factors as reasons for President Obama's sinking numbers.

The first factor has to do with President Obama's decision to focus on controversial issues that he felt were important to the nation, even if they were not the most beneficial issues for his party. In other words, Obama selected issues such as health care and financial regulation that were sure to stimulate conservative opposition and cause concern among moderates.

At the same time, the president is a pragmatic politician who has been willing to cut deals to survive a notoriously difficult legislative process. In making those compromises, he has often angered many of his supporters on the left. The strategy of going big, yet doing so through big compromises, has resulted in an energized conservative movement, uneasy independent voters and a frustrated liberal base.

Given that Barack Obama ran a primary campaign in which he promised to pursue transformative politics and avoid the kind of compromises embraced by President Clinton, this has caused disappointment. Recent comments by the administration dismissing its liberal critics has only intensified bad feelings.

Dr. Zelizer goes on to talk about the nature of the political process and the fact that no president has been able to figure out how to focus the public's attention on what he'd like it to focus on. And that last factor appears to be the reason for President Obama's upcoming daytime talk appearance.

“Given the difficulty of reaching people in this hyperactive media environment, we look for opportunities to reach people in environments that are not traditional forums for political newsmakers,” Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said in an e-mail message quoted yesterday in the New York Times blog ArtsBeat . “That’s why we have been willing to have the president on Leno, Letterman and ESPN.”

And now on The View. Which, like everything else a sitting President does, has drawn criticism.

Fox News pointed out yesterday that, while taping his appearance today, the President will miss a chance to speak before 45,000 boy scouts at their annual Jamboree. This revelation unleashed a flood of comments, either very witty or very snarky, depending on your point of view.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell suggested on MSNBC's Morning Joe, that The View (which he compared to Jerry Springer) may not be an appropriate venue for a sitting President of the United States. "I think the president should be accessible, should answer questions that aren't pre-screened, but I think there should be a little bit of dignity to the presidency," Rendell said.

Howard Portnoy, however wrote on examiner.com/Philadelphia: 

So how bad a miscalculation is it for the president to appear with Whoopi and company?

I'm inclined to agree with Laura Ingraham, who as a guest host for Bill O'Reilly last night, opined "not at all." Ingraham's contention is that viewers who tune in to The View are probably not likely to vote in the fall midterms anyway and that if Obama were somehow to present a charming and rousing version of himself (as he is capable of doing), he might actually persuade some of these people to turn out at the polls.

If the medium is the message, perhaps The View is not the most presidential of podiums. However, if the medium gets the President's message out to people it hasn't gotten to before, The View then becomes the bulliest of pulpits.

So, what's your reaction? Do you plan to watch?

I keep a row of wounded plants that need extra tending on the lip of our garage. This year one of them, a snapdragon whose roots were attacked by a vole, didn't make it. But as I didn't need the pot for another struggling garden resident, I left the dead plant and its pot where it was.

Charlie, however, did need the saucer under it. And when he went to pick it up, a piece of the dirt in the pot blinked.

Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian. 

Georges 2:  I'll try to make it simple for you. Americans are sick and tired of their traditions and their values being maligned and trampled on. They're sick and tired of people like you trying to change everything from Christmas to Father's Day to Easter. This country was founded by Christians, htruman1, and we're not backing down. . . .

37thand0street   Time for the gays to just STOP PUSHING THEIR AGENDA ON EVERYONE ELSE.

AND CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE TAUGHT ANYTHING ABOUT THE GAY AGENDA - the GAY AGENDA SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE SCHOOLS.
This stuff has to stop.
The leftists are way out of line on this issue.

logicprevails:   What is this idiot who doubles as the Mainstream Media's President up to now?

I did find one post by someone who welcomed the president's reference to gay families . . .

kecooper23:  As a 24 year old lesbian who plans on having children with my partner of 6 years, this was such a great moment for our country. The thing is, whether people like it or not, gay people are in this country, and they have families. Either we can talk about it and try to understand, or we can be totally hush hush about the matter. But no matter what, it is still happening and it is going to keep happening. If you have questions, ask, but please do not judge because you don't know or understand. And for those of you who keep bringing religion into this matter, I appreciate how worried you seem for the GLBT community, but please just worry about yourself. Thank you!

Worrying about ourselves, now there's a real challenge. Why are we humans so eager to judge each other? What the heck do we get out of it?

Charlie says it's a reach to compare human and toad lifestyles, but I'm less sure of this. A useful metaphor is a useful metaphor is a useful metaphor.

I crouch down beside the toad in the pot whenever I wander out into our garage. I look at toad; toad looks at me.  I can't for the life of me see that either one of us needs to spend a second being uncomfortable about the other's ways. . .

Psycho turned 50 yesterday. And the women of a certain age I know still fleetingly think about Janet Leigh sometimes as they step into the shower. Whoever suspected before Alfred Hitchcock's movie that closing that curtain and turning on the water could place one in the quintessentially vulnerable position?

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

My sister was attending girl's boarding school when Psycho came out. Surely the adult who decided to show it to 500 sequestered girls as their Friday night movie treat was pretty psycho, herself. Paranoia is contagious at boarding school. Being scared is much more entertaining than trigonometry. After the movie, one of my sister's dorm-mates decided to playfully scare a friend who was taking a shower. The friend ended up in the emergency room. It was all very thrilling.

Thinking about Psycho got me to thinking about other scary movies. We do love them, don't we? It's such of a relief to know who or what, exactly, constitutes Big Trouble. Even if it's only pretend Big Trouble, and it's only for a couple of hours.

I remember watching Jaws from the back of a Charlottesville movie theater.When that enormous white fish reared up out of the ocean behind that puny little boat containing Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw, I watched the entire audience jump in unison. I left the theater that night chattering with strangers, bonded with them for life by having experienced together the vanquishing of the Big Bad Fish.

I was interested in the reaction to President Obama's Oval Office speech night before last. David Brooks complained on PBS afterward that it was short on specifics, as though the president should know the specifics of what to do. But then, maybe such knowledge is inferred by giving a speech from the Oval Office. As Dan Kennedy put it on guardian.co.uk,

There was something odd and silly about the idea of Obama's delivering a prime-time, televised address – his first from the magisterial setting of the Oval Office. The oil continues to gush, with estimates about the quantity revised upwards on an almost daily basis. What could he possibly say?

There was also much debate on public radio airwaves yesterday as to whether the war in Afghanistan is going well, what to do about the Gaza blockade, and how could a complete unknown possibly have won the South Carolina Democratic Senatorial primary? People argued and argued and argued, because nobody really knows what's going on, much less what to do about it. And we Americans prefer anything to the unknown, don't we? Or, even worse, the unknowable.

The great challenge of real life these days, as I see it, is to accept that destructive things are out there that cannot be vanquished or even understood in a couple of hours, the time it takes in a cinema. Life is scary; but it is not a scary movie.  We have to keep talking, keep learning, keep trying things. All our arguing, it seems to me, is merely running scared disguised as bluster.


This is Jaws in real life. And the truth is nobody knows what to do about it. The real question is do we, as American citizens, have the guts to face that.

Where is Alfred Hitchcock or Roy Scheider when you need them?

Yesterday in WMRA's weekly news meeting, our conversation centered around tonight's State of the Union address by President Obama. The consensus was that this year's address was, as these addresses go, as important as they get.

After the meeting I did some more thinking about why that is; why it seems extra important that we citizens not only listen to tonight's State of the Union address, but listen civilly. Why it seems so necessary that we discipline our minds to stay open as we listen to what both President Obama and our newly elected Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, the Republican responder, have to say.

It occurred to me that it was so important because an awful lot of Americans have gotten into the habit of reacting to what our elected lawmakers say rather than thinking about it. Shouting "eek!", is after all, much easier than carefully weighing conflicting opinions and arguments.

To test this hypothesis, I opened this morning's New York Times, which is widely read on-line across the country, and checked out the comments on the front page article, "President Plans Own Panel on the Debt."

All (at the time) 850 of them.

And I was hard-pressed to find a comment that I would call truly constructive. Instead there were 850 snide, cynical, indignant swipes at the President, or the administration, or Congress, or other people making comments. Clearly people found it more satisfying to express their personal outrage, rather than contribute anything constructive to the conversation.


Back sometime before Christmas JMU professor Sarah O'Connor circulated a speech given by National Endowment for the Humanities Chair, Jim Leach, before the National Press Club. Sarah called it an excellent discussion of the importance of civil discourse, and to my mind it is just that.

The speech's title is "Bridging Cultures," and I thought this passage particularly relevant today, as we all (hopefully) prepare to hear what President Obama and Governor McDonnell have to say:

At issue today is a world struggling with globalist forces on the one hand and localist instincts on the other. Divisions are magnified at home as well as abroad.

It is particularly difficult not to be concerned about American public manners and the discordant rhetoric of our politics. Words reflect emotion as well as meaning. They clarify—or cloud—thought and energize action, sometimes bringing out the better angels in our nature, sometimes lesser instincts.

. . .Citizenship is hard. It takes a willingness to listen, watch, read, and think in ways that allow the imagination to put one person in the shoes of another.

. . .Civilization requires civility. Words matter. Just as polarizing attitudes can jeopardize social cohesion and even public safety, healing approaches such as Lincoln’s call for a new direction “with malice toward none” can uplift and help bring society and the world closer together.

Little is more important for the world’s leading democracy in this change-intensive century than establishing an ethos of thoughtfulness and decency of expression in the public square.

If we don’t try to understand and respect others, how can we expect them to respect us, our values and our way of life?

To me, the kind of civil discourse Jim Leach is talking about begins with civil listening.

And tonight is an excellent time to do just  that, to begin establishing that "ethos of thoughtfulness and decency of expression in the public square," that NEH Chair Jim Leach talks about.

At lunch on Saturday, I met and liked immensely another woman of a certain age who is a nationally recognized artist. Trailing behind her is a body of work that demonstrates both her great talent and her great ability to focus on putting that talent to use.

I'm not sure which I admire more: raw talent or a strong, consistent work ethic. Combine them in one person and you can expect the results to be magical. Which, in my opinion, this woman's results are.

We, as woman of a certain age are wont to do, got to talking about life; or, more specifically, about what's left of ours and what we want to do with it. Both of us agreed that we had specific goals, that accomplishing each of them took time and focus, and that we were acutely aware that our productive years were limited.

"Five years," my talented, lunch-time companion said. "I figure it will take five years to do each undertaking right."

Somehow this all got me thinking about being president of the United States.

It was long ago, in conversation with a friend of mine who studied history at the University of Virginia, that I first heard about a theory that the President of the United States is the only major head of government who is head of state, as well. This means our current president, Barack Obama, not only has to run an administration and any wars we're engaged in, ride herd on Congress, direct our foreign policy, and keep an eye on politics, he must also find time and energy to do such things as honor the NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers at the White House and host the White House Easter Egg roll.

This in contrast to other systems of government where one person is head of government and another is head of state.  In England, for example, Prime Minister Gordon Brown runs the government, while Queen Elizabeth II handles the egg rolling.

This morning I opened up The Washington Post and read that President Obama is about to propose a three-year freeze on government spending in all areas not related to national security. Oh yes, I reminded myself, not only does the President have two wars going on, a struggling economy, not enough jobs to go around, a health care crisis, and a dysfunctionally partisan Congress yapping at his heels, he has a staggering national debt to deal with, as well. Oh yes, and there are still those Lakers to be honored and those eggs to be rolled.

If I could sit down for fifteen minutes with President Obama (whom I think even his worst detractors would admit is among the brightest, most thoughtful, and well-educated chief executives we've ever had) I would ask him this: How do you maintain your focus? How do you decide what you can get done and what you have to let go? How do you make sure that, at the end of your four years, you will have taken your best shot at accomplishing those projects you most wanted and needed to get done

His day, after all, is the same length as my creative and artistic lunch-time companion.  And she figures on   five-years per project.

I came into contact with Ned Studholme while wearing my “Civic Soapbox" editor’s hat. He was responsible for the Soapbox, "Truthful Trillions" that aired on WMRA last September.

When we met to record "Truthful Trillions," Ned told me that his current fascination was with the way the United States goes about getting itself into wars.

Ned has a BA and Masters degree from George Washington University. He's also had forty years of professional experience in planning civil and military airfields, weapons testing facilities, launch facilities and training installations, as well as the evaluation of the operational effects of related programs on civilian communities. Along the way, he developed a technology evaluation and commercialization process for a major IT science firm with 45,000 employees.

Last Friday Ned Studholme sent me the following reaction to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

I read it with great interest and spent some time thinking over his points, before--duh!--it occurred to me that you  might like to read it as well.

The conundrum evidenced by Mr. Obama’s speech on the occasion of his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize is a reflection of the state of American constitutional laws addressing war powers. To hear the President speak, you would think that he controls war powers and is responsible for the initiation of wars.

The trouble is, he’s not, and Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says he’s not. Hence, confusion, conflict and conundrum prevail.

Congress alone holds those powers, and regularly approves or disapproves of war powers the President requests. However, since World War Two, the last time Congress declared war, the power to initiate wars has gradually been assumed by the office of the president in a process driven by the ends dictating the means.

When we are really frightened, or really angry, we just smudge out a few more lines in the Constitution and give the President more war powers. Hence, the final straw: in 2001 the President was given the authority to “use military force against nations, persons or organizations HE determines” were complicit in the events of 9/11. At last, a tear in place of a smudge: a statute has given the president the power to determine who our enemies are and to commit acts of war against them.

Unlike recent presidents, Obama is a constitutional scholar, and he knows that there is a high wind just waiting to blow across the tightrope he has inherited. He knows full well the Congress can’t just change the Constitution with a statute; incrementalism has a way of eroding even stone. Besides it passed the dumb President test at the time. Can you imagine being President and KNOWING that you have the power to pick a nation, person or organization and initiate warfare against them?

Once inheriting this power Obama goes on the world stage, receives a PEACE prize, and explains that he will use his power, if necessary, knowing that he now decides what is necessary. A lesser man would be heady about this kind of power, but Obama is understandably cautious and perplexed.

Someday, an American President will inherit this power eagerly and put it to good use. Finally, we will be a nation of men rather than laws, but we won’t be America.

That's what PBS News Hour host Jim Lehrer said history will call last night's presidential address. He was talking, post-speech, with his regular dueling pundits, liberal Mark Shields and conservative David Brooks, two people whose usually diverse reactions and opinions I value highly.

Both men are quick-witted, terribly smart, informed, thoughtful, non-reactive, take history more seriously then themselves, and both have fines senses of humor. And yet last night, both Mr. Shields and Mr. Brooks, usually fast on their verbal feet, seemed to me to want time to ponder what our President had said before they offered their full analysis of it.

So did I.

Afghanistan is Afghanistan is Afghanistan; history's savagely recurring problem.

This morning I saw in the NY Times that Republicans had reacted with cautious support to Obama's address while Democrats remained skeptical. The Times editorial asked how are we going to pay for what we are about to do.

One thing I did react purely positively to was Obama's closing line in which he channeled Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union address--made before Lincoln was even his party's presidential nominee. Lincoln, talking about slavery, said:

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

 President Obama ended last night's speech  this way:

America - we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.

I did note President Obama's concise, vivid, clear use of the English language; his complete refusal to rah! rah! war; his lack of need to reduce this deplorable situation to good guys vs. bad guys.

This morning, I'm still figuring out my own reaction to the speech. What about you? Did you listen/watch/read the speech. If so, I do especially today invite you to post your reaction to last night's speech or to e-mail me if that's easier and I'll do the posting.

The insurance industry had been making nice noise since it became clear that the Obama administration was taking a hard look at its practices. Had been making nice noise. And then, early this week, the industry returned to form by releasing a  PricewaterhouseCoopers report (which it had commissioned) claiming that Americans can't afford to reform our current health care system.

I think in images, and the image that arose when I read about this report was of a very big battleship bristling with guns abruptly running down fake friendly colors, running up a Jolly Roger, and then, with no warning, firing a broadside at President Obama and Congress. Reading reaction to the PwC report in a wide variety of sources has lead me to believe that a number of people might be having the same image. For example, Jordan DiPietro of Motley Fool, writing for msnbc.

Today, President Obama shot back in his weekly radio/internet address, "Taking the Insurance Companies on Down the Stretch."  Quite far along in the 6-minute speech was something The New York Times considered worth a front page article, "Obama Threatens Insurers' Anti-Trust Exemption," which said that Obama's

. . . signal of support for reviewing the industry’s anti-trust exemption put him in league with Democratic leaders in Congress pushing for repeal or revision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which was passed in 1945 to keep regulation of insurers in the hands of the states. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate to partially or completely overturn the law.

If that isn't a return broadside aimed at the insurance industry, then I don't know what a broadside is. So, it seems to me (if you'll forgive a cliche or two) the gloves are off, the battle has been joined.

Ben Tillet (1860-1943), British socialist, trade union leader and politician, once said that "capitalism is capitalism as a tiger is a tiger and both are savage and pitiless toward the weak"

Somehow Mr. Tillet's words came to mind this week whenever I read or thought about anyone's effort to reform health care. What we have in America is the tiger of capitalism caged by representative government.

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In my usual morning perusal of newspapers online, I came across this tiny article in the L.A. Times that interested me as both a blogger and a sports-fan. It seems that now that he's expressed an interested in buying the Saint Louis Rams, Rush Limbaugh's oft-voiced racist comments are rankling big-time with some African American players in the NFL.

Hmmm. This set me to thinking, not so much about Limbaugh himself, as  about what the existence of a Limbaugh means. What does it say about us that we, as a culture, give print and airwaves room to someone who makes a living out of being nasty and argumentative and, well, lying. A few people actually believe what he says, I suppose; but many more people claim to find Rush Limbaugh's verbal spewings entertaining.

Abuse and mendacity as entertainment? Now that I find flat-out depressing.

We get what we wish for, as individuals and as a culture. And what we, as Americans, seem most comfortable with is a culture of incivility. We like big verbal sticks--extreme, argumentative opinions that are designed to polarize us, not to make us think. In Sunday's Washington Post, staff writer Ann Gerhart mused about this at length in her fine article "In Today's Viral World, Who Keeps a Civil Tongue."

I had hoped our romance with polarization had ended on election day, but it appears that it hasn't--if, that is, Rush Limbaugh's ratings are any way to take the national pulse. And I don't mean to pick on Limbaugh. He's just such a clear-cut example of the kind of figurehead ranters we Americans spend our time listening to.

We elected President Obama in what appears to have been a brief flirtation with the concept of consensus and civility. Yet how impatient we have become with his efforts at consensus-building, his incessant information-gathering, his unfailing politeness in response to rudeness.

Is consensus-building just too much work for us as a culture? Is arguing and fighting about getting what we want, when we want it, too ingrained in us  to allow serious consideration of reasonable compromise? Could it be that we are actually more comfortable, as a culture, wading through the wake of polarization left by The Decider et al? Can we change our political conversation to one of consensus-building without being willing to change our own conversational tastes?

Please, either comment below or, if that's not your thing, send me an e-mail and I'll post your comment for you.

Yesterday morning, NPR made it an official "slow news day" by e-mailing station reporters that the newscast needed stories; not the shows (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) but the newscasts--those five minutes of spot news we hear at the top (and, sometimes, the bottom) of most hours during the day.

The NPR newscast unit operates separately from the news shows. The newscast unit's mission is to keep us up-to-date with what's going on during the day--some of which turns out to be not that important in the general scheme of things; some of which gets covered in greater depth by the news shows. For example, when Norman Mailer died, that was reported on a newscast, but Mr. Mailer's life and career were then thoroughly examined on the next Morning Edition or All Things Considered.

The newscast unit is another example of NPR working efficiently and effectively as a network of stations. If I hear about something happening in the WMRA listening area that I think has national news interest, I can do one of two things: 1)pitch it to a desk editor for development as a feature story; or 2)call the newscast unit and ask if they would like a "spot" for the newscast. If either unit says yes, then I work directly with an NPR editor in my reporting of the story.

For example, when then-candidate Obama came to Harrisonburg last year, NPR's Don Gonyea, who was traveling with the campaign, did the feature on his visit. But Tom DuVal and I, who were there to cover the event for WMRA, hooked Don up with JMU Political Science professor Bob Roberts, who put Obama's visit in historical perspective, Virginia-ly speaking, which (according to a note I got from Don) made the national piece.

I, however, did the NPR newscast spots, which meant I hustled back to the station after the event, wrote and voiced a couple of 45-second wraps (me talking, sound from the event, me talking), and then sent them to NPR over the internet. After that I went to work putting together a feature piece for WMRA's Morning Edition.

About that "sound from the event" that shows up in a news spot. When I'm spotting news, I look for a different kind of sound (called actuality in broadcast news speak) then I do for a feature piece. In spot news, I don't have much time, so I want sound that will take you directly into the heart of what's happening, rather than sound that will allow you to inhabit a story at the more leisurely pace offered by an in-depth feature.

The point I'd like to make is that, in my opinion, NPR has developed quite a brilliant system for reporting all the news that's fit to listen to!

At the moment, my for-pleasure reading is a 1998 Jane Smiley novel called The All-true Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, which I purchased for a dollar at Book Savers in the Gift and Thrift Shopping Center. The story is set in the Kansas Territory during the turbulent 1850's--the time of the violent Kansas border wars. On page 92, I came across a passage that made me both chuckle and think about the current political derisiveness that swirls around our newish president.

In Ms. Smiley's novel, our heroine's sisters are talking about Marian, a cousin who's moved away to teach the children of freed slaves. Marian is, needless, to say an ardent abolitionist, and our heroine's sisters--who like to confine conversations to discussions of the goings on in their own backyards--find their cousin heavy going conversationally. Here's the passage.

I don't know why she brings these ideas into the family! You sit down to supper and there's ideas there; and then you get up in the morning and make the tea, and there's ideas again. It makes you feel all outside of yourself, looking out the door of your own house, that you look out of a hundred times a day, but there's ideas making it look all different. There's no comfort in it, I'll tell you that!"

Yesterday, as I was intermittently listening to President Obama address the United Nations, I found myself thinking about Cousin Miriam, because it occurred to me that this president--just like cousin Marian--talks about ideas. And by talking about ideas, he's demanding that we think deeply about what he's saying instead of just reacting to it (as we could if he'd just lighten up and stick to talking points!)

Wow! What a lot of hard work President Obama expects us to do! Has he got a lot of nerve or what? There's no comfort in it, I'll tell you that!

Yesterday, while driving back from Charlottesville, I got behind a big, black SUV that sported this command on its bumper: OBSTRUCT CHANGE: SAVE AMERICA. This, just nine months after we'd inaugurated a president who was elected because America wanted change.

I do have to say it saddened me to see that bumper sticker. I had so hoped we'd moved out from under the tyranny of slogans; moved beyond an acceptance of "speak" over substance; moved away from the allure of knee-jerk opposition based on political allegiance. I had hoped, since we'd elected an obviously deeply thoughtful president, that we as citizens would be willing to think a little deeper ourselves.

Instead, it seems to me that although Karl Rove may be gone, he's left us bewitched, for I see his assault style of politics everywhere. Or maybe its just that knee-jerk oppositionists are just so loud that they drown out those who wish to engage at a softer level.

So, where has all our hope gone? I don't buy that we're such impatient people that we expected President Obama to straighten out the gargantuan mess his government inherited in only nine months? Why is a president who tackles health care reform, ethical issues in the age of terrorism, wall street regulation, and diplomatic relations with Iraq and Cuba, being talked of as non-confrontational. Is it because he didn't yell back at Joe Wilson?

An awful lot of people I talk to seem what? cowed? depressed? disheartened? by the new administration's performance. All that inaugural hope seems to have evaporated.

Why, exactly, is that? Anyone got any ideas?

In case you missed Maureen Dowd's latest column in The New York Times, here's a link to it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13dowd.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=dowd&st=Search   

Racism resurgent in America?

Obama as an Other?

I've studied the Tea Party pictures that I've been able to find, and I have yet to see a person of color in them. The rhetoric coming out of these gatherings seems to me to be reactive and fearful. I'm assuming these are good people, confused as I am, by economic forces at play that they don't understand; but that, rather than taking the time to educate themselves and address hard reality, the tea partiers, for the most part, are simply unleashing verbal blasts of discontent. 

So today, I'd like to know what you think: Does the color of our brainy president's skin have anything to do with the level of anger in the protests against health care reform?

What do you think?