Category Archives: Politics

Color Commentary

Roger ClemensI’m not sure how this happened, but I’m now a pretty dedicated follower of baseball, having recently got into the habit of checking the American league standings nearly every day to see if the Yankees can hang on to their precarious lead over the Boston Red Sox. This is unremarkable except for the fact that professional sports in general, and team sports in particular, have left me cold for most of my life. But as I’ve mentioned before, there’s a real soothing quality to this sport, and what’s more I’ve been seduced by the endless depths of its statistical undercurrent.

On the other hand, my progress has been slower in developing an appreciation for the somewhat lackluster personalities of baseball’s ‘stars.’ These guys generally don’t have a particularly interesting message to communicate to the world beyond the expert feats of athleticism they commit on the field. After watching ball all season, I’m at a point now where I’m pleasantly indifferent to the worldview of most major league players, which isn’t such a bad way to enjoy the sport, really. Until, that is, one of them opens their mouths and says something substantially uninformed about the world beyond the ballpark.

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On This Day

A year ago today, we informally closed our office on the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, from fear of some recurrence of terrorist activity and, at least on my part, out of a sense of confusion. It wasn’t clear to me how we as a nation should act or behave, how we should honor the dead, and what bearing my personal enmity for the way that the Bush administration had been prosecuting the war on terror should have on the way I conducted myself on 11 Sep 2002. It seemed best to sit out the day quietly, abstaining from anything remotely inappropriate.

There was a lead-up of anxiety to that one year anniversary, but this year, the milestone seems to have practically snuck up on us without fanfare or expectation. I’d wager that today, much more so than last year, so many of us woke up this morning and headed off to work with virtually no compunction or sense of danger, even those living in or heading to lower Manhattan. Now that it’s here, we still mourn the day’s historical loss, but otherwise we feel a kind of detachment from it, too. To some degree, we seem to feel safer, or to be willing to resume our illusion of safety.

For me, what’s saddest about that day, beyond the tragic deaths we shouldn’t ever forget, is the lasting damage that the attacks have had on the fabric of our life, principally taking the form of a government run amuck, one bearing less and less resemblance to the America that our forefathers envisioned with each passing day. The attacks have, in many ways, achieved their effect of undermining democracy by essentially brokering a willing exchange of civil liberties — the defining trait of American character — for an illusion of safety. I wouldn’t even describe it as safety, but rather a kind of comfort in which danger is displaced to more convenient locales. The attacks effectively installed a regime of mendacity at the helm of American government, and they have led us dangerously off course. We need to replace George W. Bush in the 2004 election for President of the United States.

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Dem Dems, Round Two

Sharpton and Lieberman at the 2nd Democratic Presidential DebateA lot of my friends didn’t even realize the second Democratic Presidential Debate was being held this evening in Baltimore. In fact, I hadn’t thought that a second debate would even take place until Thu 25 Sep, owing to the fact that the schedule of debates on the Democratic National Committee’s Web site said as much. It took some hunting on the Web to find when exactly it would be aired and where I could watch it.

Conspiratorially speaking, there might be a case that there was deliberate lack of media attention paid to this event when you consider that it was sponsored by the Congressional Black Congress, and held on the grounds of the principally African-American Morgan State University. To be fair though, the debate isn’t even mentioned on the CBC’s official Congressional home page, nor on the CBC Foundation’s own Web site.

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That’s My Bush

D.C. 9/11: Time of CrisisThanks to the handy-dandy new DVR in my cable box, tonight I was able to watch Showtime’s dramatization of the Bush White House in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, “D.C. 9/11: Time of Crisis.” Oh man, this thing was a hoot. I would almost say that it’s a completely worthless, clumsy piece of right wing propaganda, to say nothing of its shallow command of scripting, acting, filmmaking and drama… But there is in fact some inherent value to be found in its jingoistic melodrama, and that is a level of camp not seen since the days when Adam West ran around Southern California in a pair of gray tights.

The script for this historical fiction is loaded with groaners so heavy with histrionics (and pock-marked with innumerable dramatic pauses that never seem to want to end) that the final result is gut-bustingly hilarious. Take, as but one example among dozens and dozens, this line uttered by Bush — who has been wildly reimagined as an heroically intelligent, even-handed and profound statesman — utters to the uncharacteristically reserved and deferential Cheney: “I’m going to need you at my side at all times… consigliere.” Truly, this is the stuff of drunken, riotous midnight movie screenings. Good job, Showtime!

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Hot Donkey Action

Democratic Presidential Debate

What I was thinking during tonight’s Democratic Presidential Debate in New Mexico was mostly that there are a heck of a lot of candidates, and that the ones on stage weren’t even all of them! The Reverend Al Sharpton was a no-show due to travel difficulties, and Wes Clark has yet to end his painful teasing and toss his hat into the ring. I also wondered if anybody could really tell these people apart; I don’t mean political junkies like myself, I mean any average person flipping around on the television and hearing most of these candidates speak aloud about their positions on the major issues for the first time.

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The Devil’s Advocate

Attorney General John AshcroftThe front page of today’s Washington Post features a lengthy article on “Attorney General John Ashcroft. The article covers an incipient trend among politicians from the center and right of the political spectrum who have recently begun to question the A.G.’s approach to combating terrorism in the post September 11th world: “…[Ashcroft] finds himself at odds with some fellow Republicans from Idaho to Capitol Hill who are troubled by the extent of his anti-terrorism tactics and angered by his unwillingness to compromise.” I won’t hold my breath, but I hold out hope that Mr. Ashcroft will emerge as a major issue running up to the November 2004 elections. In fact, I credit the man for inspiring me to get up out of my seat and resolve to do everything within my power to see George W. Bush unseated; in my estimation, there has been no greater threat to the civil liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights for the last thirty years than this failed senator from Missouri.

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Assemble the Deaniacs

Dean in New YorkThis morning at about t 11:00a, the Dean fundraising monitor sat at about US$750,000, which left me a little skeptical that it would actually reach the one million dollar target. But here at 05:30p, the total is a robust US$919,482.38. It looks like the goal is well within reach and I’m feeling pretty enthusiastic about the whole enterprise, though the nagging skeptic in me wonders whether I’ve set myself up to be ultimately disappointed by Dean’s evolving platform. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess. For the time being, I’m more or less easing into a commitment to this candidate.

If you’re in the New York metro area and you have even a passing interest in this man’s prospects for winning the 2004 election (and especially if you have an interest in ensuring that George W. Bush does not win another four years in office) then you should come to Bryant Park this evening at 08:00p. That’s where the Dean campaign will be holding the raucous culmination to its “Sleepless Summer Tour.&#8221 It’s going to be a full-scale rally with Dean campaign officials, special guest speakers and live music which I’m sure to find completely cheesey. It’s going to be very rock ’n’ roll, or something. The Governor himself is due to make a speech (the event runs from 08-11:00p, but he has a private fundraising event earlier in the evening so I’m willing to bet he won’t take the stage until 11:00p or even later), and that’s what I’m really going for; I’m hoping that Dean in concert is as good as the records.

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Dollar for Dollar

Howard DeanFormer Vermont Governor Howard Dean is accelerating the pace of his bid for president by trying to raise US$1 million before midnight tomorrow, ostensibly to match the enormous sums in big donor money being raised by President Bush during his highly specious, month-long vacation. This is a repeat of the stunt fundraising that the Dean campaign employed earlier in the year, when supporters unexpectedly raised US$500,000 in response to a challenge to match the US$300,000 then being collected from wealthy special interests by Vice-President Cheney.

It’s no secret that the Dean campaign has been getting progressively bolder as its fortunes rise, but this million dollar gambit is not only an act of political hubris but also a symbolic demonstration that individual donors — and voters — can successfully challenge the monstrous Republican money machine. Hopefully. The results are being posted hourly (or almost hourly) at DeanforAmerica.com, and even if the final total falls short of seven figures, it will be a substantial monetary boost and a nontrivial rally.

When I donated my US$25 this morning, the figure sat somewhere around US$450,000. As of 10:00p this evening, the officially tally is just over US$677,00. That figure is the result of over 11,300 individual contributions of, on average, US$59 each. Which means that, roughly, some three thousand voters donated two hundred grand in the past twelve hours or so — a stunning statistic. A few weeks ago I worried for the flirting-with-disaster quality of supporting Howard Dean, but with each day that worry subsides a bit.

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Look Up

06 Aug Dean 2004 MeetupWhat kind of crowd do you expect to find at a political rally held in a trendy bar located in New York’s too-cool-for-school Lower East Side? It would be a safe bet to guess that you’d come across mostly Caucasian, mostly youthful and mostly well-educated voters, and that’s more or less what I encountered at last night’s Dean 2004 Meetup.

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