Like It Or Not

The right wing blogosphere was apoplectic a few weeks ago after President Obama said at the nuclear security summit he hosted in Washington, D.C., "It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

The reactions of the 2008 Republican ticket to President Obama’s comments were interesting. Both Sarah Palin and John McCain spoke out about President Obama’s statement and, not surprisingly, both misinterpreted what President Obama meant. Sarah Palin’s misinterpretation was the more benign of the two, (she being the member of the ticket dangling her very expensive shoes at the high end of the intellectual seesaw). Governor Palin said, "I would hope that our leaders in Washington, D.C., understand we like to be a dominant superpower. I don't understand a world view where we have to question whether we like it or not that America is powerful."

Soon-to-be-Ex-Senator McCain’s misinterpretation also demonstrated a lack of understanding of what the President was saying, as well as showing McCain’s belief in the myth of American Exceptionalism. "That's one of the more incredible statements I've ever heard a president of the United States make in modern times," McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, told Fox News. "We are the dominant superpower, and we're the greatest force for good in the history of this country (sic), and I thank God every day that we are a dominant superpower."

I don’t have a direct line to the Oval Office, but when I stopped to think about what President Obama said, it became clear that he was saying, “We are a dominant military superpower and because of this, for better or for worse, we are automatically involved in any conflict anywhere in the world.” His statement was a description of reality, not a regret of American power. For better or for worse, we have to have an opinion. For better or for worse, we have to take sides. For better or for worse, these conflicts often cost American lives and treasure.

President Obama was expressing the truth that being powerful brings with it responsibility. Sarah Palin’s response gives evidence of her inability to see the nuances of life as a superpower. She thinks, “power: good” and that is as far as she takes it. John McCain takes it several steps further. He believes America is the best country in the world and God has had some role in making this true. Therefore, it is our right and duty to exercise our power in pursuit of our goals. This sort of belief in American Exceptionalism had its fullest recent expression in the foreign policy of George Bush. He believed the American version of freedom was the best thing in the world and therefore all countries should have it, too—even if it we had to force it on them.

This belief--that America is God’s instrument for all that is right and good and holy—can, from a slightly different perspective, be seen as arrogant self-interest. Barack Obama is able to walk in the shoes of the people of the other nations of the world. His perspective is not as narrow as that of George Bush, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. Because of this, his mind can hold onto the idea that with power comes responsibility and headaches sometimes.

John McCain seems to think that if America takes an action, that action is automatically good because we are “the greatest force for good” in the world. Barack Obama understands that there is more to it than that. He takes American power seriously and wants to exercise it in a way that makes the world a better place, but he understands that God and exceptionalism have nothing to do with it.

John Calvin preached the “doctrine of election” hundreds of years ago. It stated, in part, that God shows whom he has favored through the accumulation of wealth and power. Those who believe in American Exceptionalism have taken this idea and applied it to countries. To them, America’s wealth and power are obvious signs that we are God’s elect among nations. To me, our wealth and power are an historical accident based on our geographic isolation and surplus of natural resources.

It is simply an extraordinary claim that God has chosen the United States to be His instrument of foreign policy on Earth. I do not believe in God. And the God I do not believe in doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the economic dynamism and military might of various countries. The God I don’t believe in wants people and nations to exercise their power with reluctance, humility, and the utmost deliberation and care.

So, yes, Barack Obama had it just right. Like it or not, one way or another we get pulled into conflicts. I am not happy about this, but I find it far preferable to launching wars of choice in the mistaken belief that we are right simply because we are the United States.

Show Us Your Papers

Arizona’s Governor today signed a law requiring, among other things, that “local police officers question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.”

Right away this forces the question, “Just what would make a person suspect another person of being an illegal immigrant?” I am not a trained law enforcement officer, but even if I were, I doubt I would have special training in how to recognize an illegal immigrant.

Though apparently, such training does exist. Just ask California Republican Representative Brian Bilbray. He says, “trained professionals" can identify undocumented workers just by looking at their clothes. "They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there is different type of attire, there is different type of -- right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Representative Bilbray went on to add in his Palinesque syntax, “It's mostly behavior, just as the law enforcement people here in Washington, D.C. does it based on certain criminal activity," he told Matthews. "There is behavior things that professionals are trained in across the board, and this group shouldn't be exempt from those observations as much as anybody else."

On Bill O’Reilly’s Fox program, Senator John McCain added his two cents. He claimed that illegal immigrants will be recognizable to law enforcement officers by their behavior behind the wheel. McCain said, “It's the drive-by that -- the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.”

So, to catch the illegals, Arizona State Troopers need to look for people dressed in a “different type” of attire and driving in such a way as to cause accidents on purpose. No racial profiling required. Which is good, because Governor Brewer said she “would not tolerate” racial profiling as her troopers identify possible illegal immigrants and ask them for their papers.

Do you carry your passport around with you all the time in the course of your everyday movements around your hometown? Given Governor Brewer’s ridiculous assertion that this law will be enforced without resort to racial profiling, this is exactly what many of the citizens of Arizona may feel forced to do.

Will middle-aged white skinned women driving 2009 Cadillacs be pulled over and asked for their papers? Will 75-year old Caucasian golfers pulling out of the country club be asked to show proof of citizenship? Or is it the dark skinned, black haired second generation Mexican-American driving an older pick-up truck with one headlight out who will be pulled over and asked for his papers? If all are equally likely to be identified as illegal immigrants, then they should all be worried.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe people wishing to come to America should follow all the proper steps. I also believe that people caught here illegally should be subject to all applicable laws. What I don’t believe is that charging Arizona police with the mission of deciding in a race-blind way just who might be here illegally is at all possible.

Of course it is the dark-skinned Latino who will asked for his papers at a rate 10 times greater than Caucasians will be asked for theirs. And yes, some illegals will be caught and deported. But how many Americans will also be “caught”, forced to prove citizenship, and then sent on their way? We have a Constitution that protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures and surely this law will be challenged and, in a fair world, found unconstitutional.

Why not take President Bush’s advice and reform our immigration laws? President Obama is pushing Congress to address the issue of illegal immigration on the national level and this misguided Arizona law makes the need for real reform even more pressing.

In the meantime, all you people in Arizona better straighten up, dress better, and drive a little more carefully if you don’t want the police asking you for your papers.

Things that make you say...

I stayed up late last Sunday to watch the health care reform “debate” in the United States House of Representatives as it streamed over my computer. I was on single-father duty and my daughter had finally fallen asleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my MacBook. At first, I watched in my daughter’s room, sitting on the floor, earbuds firmly planted in each ear, as she fell asleep. But as speaker after speaker came to the microphone to bring up a point of order, parliamentary inquiry, or argument for or against the pending bill, I found myself getting more and more angry.

I am not one with an explosive temper, but I soon found myself muttering foul words under my breath and flashing the bird at the computer screen. I grew worried that I was going to wake my daughter with a string of curses she usually only hears when we watch football at our friend Joe’s house, so I got up off the floor and walked down to the living room—away from my blissfully ignorant girl asleep in her bed.

Once I got to the couch, the earbuds came out and I my sense of propriety all but disappeared. The screen on my computer is now a little blistered by the venom spewing from my mouth.

The year-long debate over health care made it all too obvious that the Republicans have lost their way. In retrospect, it has become clear that one of the two major parties that make our laws and control our national priorities (through government spending) cares far more about politics than about the national good.

During the eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency, exactly ZERO health care reform proposals came from the White House. The Medicare Prescription Drug Plan did pass in 2003, but many of the Republicans protesting the “backroom deals” that put today’s health care reform bill together seem to forget how that particular plan passed just seven short years ago.*

Once Barack Obama came to office and started to seriously push health care reform, it was stunning how quickly so many Republicans suddenly experienced a dual change of heart—they became deficit hawks and they began to care about making changes to our health care system. Where were they for years as a Republican President and Republican Congresses ran up enormous debts? Where were they for years as our health care system bled our nation dry AND left us with the 37th ranked system in the world and tens of millions of uninsured? Once Barack Obama came to town they sure did find religion FAST.

The most telling statements in the health care reform saga come like bookends from Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Back in July Jim DeMint said the Republican goal should be to stop Barack Obama on health care. He said, “If we are able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo.” His goal was to fight the agenda of a Democratic President, not to correct any of the many flaws on the current delivery of health insurance and care to citizens of the United States. He was saying, “Let’s not give an inch—let’s say ‘no’ to whatever he proposes.” It wasn’t about what is best for America but instead about what is worst for Barack Obama.

Senator DeMint certainly did not have the best interests of the people at heart. He was thinking about what was best for the Republican Party’s electoral interests.

Newt Gingrich, made it even more clear when he said of the Democrats in an interview with the Washington Post: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. To Gingrich it isn’t about making the system better—it is about who’s up and who’s down, who accrues advantage and who loses seats. When John McCain was running for President in 2008 his slogan was “Country First.” The Republicans have pissed me off so much in this health care debate, (and in their reaction to Barack Obama’s Presidency in general), because it is clear that their unspoken motto and guiding principal has become “F*** the Country--Party First.”

It is now clear to me why I was so mad and so full of vinegar and foul language as I watched Republican after Republican come to the microphone and spread their lies about the bill. They have sunk to the self-destructive depths of the kindergartener at the party who would rather pop the balloon he wants than share it with anyone.

Vice President Joe Biden was right when a live mic caught him whispering to Barack Obama as he was about to sign the health care bill into law, “This is a f****** big deal.” Yes, Joe. Indeed it is. The Republicans have gone all in in their efforts to bring down Barack Obama and they have failed. Their obstructionism and self-centeredness have been made clear to all and that is enough to make even a kind-hearted liberal like me say f***. Only, I am not saying it AT the Republicans in Congress who are so stuck on NO.

As I tell my students when we study grammar and parts of speech, you can’t really tell what part of speech a particular word is until you see how it is used. It can be an adjective, (as in the case of Joe Biden’s f-bomb), or a verb, (as in the case of Dick Cheney on the Senate floor a few years ago), or it can be an exclamation, as in the current case.

When I see what Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and the most of the Congressional Democrats have done, I can only exclaim “f***!”, shake my head, and thank the Lord John McCain lost back in November of 2008.






(*That particular bill came to a vote at three in the morning. The bill was losing 219-215 when Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert began to take Republican members off the floor to try to get them to change their votes. The House Republican leadership decided to break their own rules and hold the vote open for hours as they tried to arm-twist a few, mind-changes. Representative Nick Smith, a Republican from Michigan, said he was offered campaign funds for his son’s election effort in exchange for his “yea” vote. He later changed his story, but not his vote. At almost six in the morning, the bill finally passed 220-215.)

Yes We Did!

Health Care Reform passed!!

I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, but gosh darn it if Obama and Pelosi didn’t get ‘er done.

Sometimes, good things happen.

A Violent Lurch to the Right

Just under a year ago the Department of Homeland Security sent a 9-page document to police and sheriff’s departments throughout the United States. The document was titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The document warned that, among the many threats facing the United States, homegrown terrorism at the hands of both organized and “lone wolf” actors was a growing concern.

The report catalogued the many similarities to the 1990s and its rise in homegrown right-wing extremism. To the economic downturn, threats from other countries and foreign terrorist groups, and perceived threats to freedom from our own government, current times add the election of our first African American President.

Michelle Malkin, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage all criticized the report as attacking veterans and the right wing in general. They often claimed the Obama DHS was being used to attack the right—conveniently forgetting that the Obama DHS had released a report three months before this one warning about left-wing extremists. Another thing they all ignore is the fact that both reports were initiated by the Bush Administration and largely prepared under HIS DHS.

The furor in the rightwing blogosphere about the April report told me that the people who were offended and complaining had either 1) not understood what they were reading, or 2) intentionally misread the report so as to have an excuse to take offense. It is not a long document. If you read it, it becomes instantly clear that the DHS analysts were not saying ALL right-wingers are capable of violence and need to be watched. They were saying an extreme fringe exists and the last time conditions were such as they are today, people died in shootings and bombings perpetrated by anti-government extremists from the right.

The reason I am writing about these nearly-year-old reports is one of them has turned out to be prescient. There has in fact been an increase in domestic terrorism perpetrated by citizens of the United States. And the perpetrators have indeed been of the right-wing variety. I will mention the killing of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas and the murder by a white supremacist of a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. as two examples. The articles linked to here and here list many more instances.

I am not writing to say that right-wingers are more prone to violence than left-wingers. Clearly, those on the fringe of any movement are out there because of their willingness to engage in behaviors others deem out-of-bounds. What I am saying is that those in the mainstream of the Republican Party are playing a very dangerous game when they stoke mistrust and hatred of government in general, (and Barack Obama in particular), in a cynical attempt to pick up the votes of the disaffected angry citizens on the right. It is easy to lob metaphorical grenades at Government. It is much harder to actually govern. The Republican leadership has made it clear that they are much more interested in throwing bombs than in being partners in running the country.


Once that genie of hatred is released, it can’t be put back in the bottle. People like Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin are flirting with forces out of their control. When people take seriously their message that the government is the enemy and that true Americans will arm themselves and take matters into their own hands, it is only far too clear that more violence will come of this. (Sarah Palin, especially, should be aware of the danger in pallin' around with extremists.)

There is an old joke that Republicans claim government is the problem and then every once in a while they get elected just to prove it. Well, I am hoping the Republican Party will find its soul after this mid-term election and realize before much more blood is spilled that extremism isn’t where the answers lie. Government is not the problem right now—the real problem is the Republicans’ refusal to share in the responsibility of governance. Compromise, competence, and commitment to actual governance will put this country back on track far sooner and with far less agony than a violent lurch to the right.