"Who would I be a good vice presidential pick for? I don’t know if the Libertarian Party has had, since its foundation—and I say this most modestly—a bigger fish. They’d had Ron Paul and Bob Barr: Two congressmen. Two congressmen do not make a senator. Four congressman, maybe, make a senator, but not two congressmen." – Mike Gravel, in an interview with Dave Weigel.
Face Of The Day
A woman cries after the reading of the not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell shooting trial outside of the State Supreme Court April 25, 2008 in Queens borough of New York City. Bell died during the firing of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens on November 25, 2006. The three detectives were found not guilty on all charges in the shooting death of Bell. By Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
Good McCain, Bad McCain
Maybe I should be less forgiving:
All I can tell you, Jennifer, is that I think it’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare….If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.
Ugh. It’s not fair to tarnish Obama by associating him with a soundbite from Jeremiah Wright; but it is fine to associate him with Hamas.
A Smart Obama Move
He’s unveiling a major voter registration effort.
A Major Clinton Defection
A fundraiser responsible for half a million and a former Clinton-appointed ambassador is switching to Obama.
A View From Pennsylvania
In February I was a 55 year old white woman trying to choose a candidate, feeling drawn to Hillary. Then I listened to Obama speak and I was inspired. I felt as I had not felt since March 16, 1968 (my 16th birthday) when Bobby Kennedy announced he was running for president. So I chose Obama and volunteered to help his campaign.
I canvassed in my local area, Dresher. As I spoke to my neighbors, my heart sank. Several people told me the country wasn’t ready for a black president. One person right out said he would never vote for a black person for president. (Stunned, I stammered that he was only half black.) One person said "the blacks get everything already." Three of my Jewish neighbors (and friends) said that they believed Obama either was a Muslim or had Muslim ties.
More:
"I voted for Hillary," said the first person I ran into, Shelley Goodman, a 53-year-old psychologist walking her coonhound, Blue. "I don’t think this country is ready for a black president." This again.
Goodman has adopted or fostered a household of mixed-race children, and so she is speaking from a giant heart. "In this country, you are not half-black," she went on. "If you are any black, you are all black. We have a very skewed view in the East Coast. We think everyone thinks as open-mindedly as we do."
And so the "open-minded" reward the closed-minded. Go figure.
McCain Gets It
I know that it’s possible to infer cynicism on the part of McCain and the GOP with respect to the North Carolina race-baiting ad. But I don’t share that cynicism and believe McCain is sincere in not liking or appreciating this kind of politics. With a couple of exceptions (the South Carolina moment that McCain himself has regretted), McCain just isn’t a Rove-style sleazebag. That’s why his candidacy remains one that many of us alienated from the GOP in recent years still take seriously. Money quote:
"They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable… I’ve done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue."
Good for him. If Republicans cannot win on the merits of their own policies and are reduced to the guilt-by-association racist smears on Obama, they deserve to lose.
Catholicism And Torture
An orthodox view. From the perspective of Catholic moral teaching, it seems to me that a government that allows abortion to take place is less morally culpable than a government that itself practises and defends a grave moral evil. The silence of the Bush-theocons on this is staggering, but to long-term observers of their political agenda, unsurprising.
Beijing vs The Dish
A reader writes:
I haven’t been able to reach your site for about a week now. I can get to it using a proxy server, but either you or The Atlantic said something that the CCP didn’t find appealing.
Yes, others have told me as much as well. I blame Fallows.
Benedict And Religious Freedom
Scott Appleby notes how far we’ve come since the Second Council.
