Thursday night's Colbert Report on Comedy Central featured four political guests: Senator Hillary Clinton (D–NY), Rep. Patrick Murphy (D–PA), Senator John Edwards (D–NC), and Senator Barack Obama (D–IL). The appearances by the three Senators were clearly scripted, but they still may have some impact in the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday. Clinton endeavored to show both her competence and her humanness by "fixing" a technical problem with Colbert's big video screen. Murphy, the only Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran in Congress, gave an interview about why he has endorsed Obama. Edwards spoke about why he has not yet endorsed a candidate, and what either would have to do to get "this white male vote." Lastly, Obama showed up to put "manufactured political distractions" On Notice. Although neither Stephen Coal-bear (the on-screen persona) nor Stephen Coal-burt (the man behind the façade) has publicly supported any candidate currently in the race, on balance the episode seemed tipped slightly towards Obama.
At the beginning of the episode, Stephen tries to show a clip from Wednesday's Democratic debate on the big video screen, but the screen goes to a test pattern. The technicians are back in New York, though, leaving Stephen to ask:Colbert: Are you telling me there's no one in this theater who can fix the mess we're in?
After reviewing some footage from Wednesday's debate, Colbert drew an analogy to the questions trying to attach Barack Obama to the controversial views of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former revolutionary Bill Ayers.
[Hillary Clinton walks onto the stage]
Clinton: I can! I can, Stephen!
Colbert: Senator, thank you so much! Thank you, Senator.
[prolonged applause and cheering]
Clinton: Well, let me handle this. Jimmy?
Jimmy: Yes, Senator Clinton?
Clinton: About the screen: how are you feeding this? Through the router or the Aux bus on the switcher?
Jimmy: Uh ... it's an Aux.
Clinton: Try toggling the input.
Jimmy: O-kay.
[video resumes]
Colbert: Holy cow!
Clinton: You know what, Stephen? Your forehead is a little shiny. Makeup, Makeup, powder, please. [makeup person touches up Stephen's face]
Colbert: Wow, Senator Clinton, you're so prepared for any situation! I just don't know how to thank you enough!
Clinton: That's okay, Stephen; I just love solving problems. Call me any time.
Colbert: Really?
Clinton: Sure! Call me at 3 a.m.
Colbert: Senator Clinton, everybody. [applause] Wow. I am gonna call her at 3 a.m.; I'm sure she left her cellphone number.Colbert: Consider this: Senator Obama has been endorsed by Ted Kennedy, Ted Kennedy is a Catholic, Catholics are led by the Pope, the Pope was a Nazi Youth — ergo, Barack Obama loves Hilter. Check ... mate!
Just before the commercial break, Colbert played a clip of George Stephanopoulos, one of the moderators of last night's debate and a former Clinton White House staffer, saying in 1992:Stephanopoulos: What we're going to do in this campaign is focus on what's important to the American people: on the jobs, on the education — that's what the American people care about. They want to move into the future; they don't want to be diverted by side issues.
Next up is Congressman Patrick Murphy, D–PA, an Iraq War veteran gone to Washington to try to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.Colbert: Congressman, thank you for joining us.
Later, Colbert discussed the conventional wisdom that this year's Democratic nomination rests in the hands of an unusual group of swing voters — working-class white men — as shown in this clip from CNN:
Murphy: Great to be with you.
Colbert: Now, you are the only member of Congress to have served in the present Iraq War.
Murphy: That's right: I was a Captain with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Colbert: All right, first of all, obviously, thank you for your service. Second, I don't want you to think that just because you have served and fought in Iraq, you have a better idea of what should happen there than me, okay? That is elitist thinking. Now, you're endorsing Barack Obama?
Murphy: That's right. That's right.
Colbert: Why are you supporting Barack Obama? He says he wouldn't've voted for the war that you volunteered for.
Murphy: That's right, and maybe we would've focused — continued to focus on Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is and Al Qaeda. Barack Obama, though, Stephen, he is the most inspirational leader I have ever met in my entire life. He gets Democrats and Republicans working together.
Colbert: It seems to me, though, that you're much more like Senator Clinton: you volunteered to go to war, and she volunteered to vote to send you to war, and both of you think the war is now a mistake, correct?
Murphy: Well, I'm a fan of Senator Clinton — I think she's very capable and I'm a fan.
Colbert: She's extremely capable — she fixed my screen!
Murphy: That's right. But I'm tellin' ya, I believe Barack Obama is a once-in-a-generation kind of leader, Stephen.
Colbert: Let's talk about the war for a second. The surge is working, correct?
Murphy: No, Stephen, the troops are heroes; they're doin' a great job, but it's the Iraqis that aren't working. In fact —
Colbert: But the surge is working.
Murphy: The surge is not —
Colbert: The surge is working. Those are three positive words: surge, is, working.
Murphy: But the surge was supposed to have the political reconciliation — they're sittin' on the sidelines. You know, Stephen, Prime Minister Maliki, elected in '05, says I'm gonna share the oil revenues with the minorities, the Sunnis. '06, said it; '07, said it; '08, said it. Has not done it. Actions speak louder than words.
Colbert: Let me ask you this, sir, in all seriousness. If there may be governmental chaos there, there might be bombing in the streets, the Iraqis might be leaving their posts in the military, but if we leave, wouldn't there be chaos?
Murphy: No. No, Stephen. You know what? That type of thinking, that's fear-mongering that the Bush Administration is trying to do. It's the same type of fear-mongering that the Nixon Administration said in Vietnam. The fact is, we need to bring our troops home.
Colbert: What is Baghdad like?
Murphy: It's hot. 138° heat [59°C]. I was in Al Rasheed, Baghdad, the same size as the city of Philadelphia, 1.5 million Iraqis.
Colbert: Really?
Murphy: Now, when you look at how short-handed we were, my father served as a cop for 22 years here in Philly, 7,000 police officers. There was only 3500 of us, in a combat zone, where we didn't speak the same language. And maybe if they would've gave us enough troops to begin with, maybe 19 of my fellow paratroopers would've came home, but they didn't.
Colbert: How long do you think the troops should stay in Iraq — 100 years or 1,000 years?
Murphy: I really believe Barack Obama has it right: call for a 16-month timeline, a phased redeployment to bring our troops home, and it will send a message, Stephen. It will send a message to the Iraqi government, they can't take any more summer vacations. Actions speak louder than words. Get them off the sidelines and start bringin' our troops home.
Colbert: Representative Murphy, thank you so much for joining us.
Murphy: Pleasure, Stephen.
Colbert: Patrick Murphy. His book is Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress. We'll be right back.Wolf Blitzer: In the past, it's been Soccer Moms, Independents; this year it could be white males who decide the race for the White House.
That led Colbert to talk about the candidate who most represented the concerns of the working class, John Edwards.Colbert: Finally, America's white men are being heard! And the candidates are attempting to address the issues important to the male Caucasian demographic: issues like drinking [clip of Hillary Clinton drinking a shot of whiskey 2008-04-12], bowling [clip of Barack Obama bowling 2008-03-29], and napping [clip of John McCain dozing off in the Senate 2008-01-23]. But who — who can really speak to them? Barack Obama has got a "lock" on African American votes and the young, Hillary Clinton has carved out her niche with older working-class women, but there is no one who truly speaks to the male white working-class voter. There was John Edwards, but let's face it: he's out of the race. Politically, he is no longer a factor to be reckoned with.
That brings us nearly to the end of the program, with just time for one more surprise guest:
Edwards: I beg to differ, Stephen. [cheers and applause] And that brings us to tonight's EdWørds:Valued Voter. You know, Stephen, you're right about white males playing an important role in this election. Their votes are being courted as an important tie-breaker between these two tough candidates, • Valued Voter and no white male's vote is being courted more vigorously than this one. [cheers and applause] It is no secret that both campaigns have sought my support. • No Offense, Al Gore So far, I haven't decided which of these excellent candidates I'm gonna endorse. On the one hand, I don't want to be seen as anti-hope; • [photos of Obama and Clinton] on the other hand, I don't want James Carville to bite me. So, who?, who am I gonna vote for in the next-to-last primary, North Carolina? • Carville Hasn't Had Shots Well, I'll support whoever presents a platform that's consistent with my values. I'll support the candidate who'll raise the federal minimum wage, somebody who'll fight for the 37 million Americans who wake up in poverty every day, somebody who'll protect the interests of working families. • Universal Haircare Also, I'd like a jet ski. They are so much fun, • [photo of a jet ski] and I don't really care which kind, [turns to look at bullet points] but those are pretty sweet. You know, Elizabeth and I love to go to the lake house in the summer, and it would sure be fun to go jet-skiing together. So I guess we'll actually need two jet skis, which reminds me: • Kawasaki 800 SXR there are two Americas: one which does the work and the other reaps the reward. [turns to bullet points] Hey! Hey! [cheers and applause] • And a Third One That Gets Rich Suing The Second On Behalf Of The First I understand! I understand what working folks go through. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, • Sorry, Had To Do It but my father was a mill worker. So, you know what? Let's get him a jet ski! Now, before anybody starts goin' out there saying All John Edwards cares about are jet skis, that is not true — I am deeply concerned about the lack of affordable healthcare in this country. The fact that we need to insure every single man, woman, and child in America, • 1,000,000th Mention [balloons and confetti] goes without saying. But what does need to be said is that I will only support the candidate who promises to make me a spy. That would be so cool. • Especially By McCain I get to have all those high-tech gadgets. I want to go on at least one mission a month, and it should be some place awesome, like Prague or a moon base — although I'm willing to settle for Tahiti or the Riviera; anywhere there's a chance for a jet ski chase. But America should never settle for allowing so many to live in economic hardship. • Pen That Launches Child-Care Tax Credits If we put our minds to it, we can end poverty within thirty years. • Bush Ended Middle Class In 8 I want my grandkids to be born in a world where true economic equality is no longer a goal for the future, but a reality of the present. Oh — and I want my face on money, Secret Service protection for my dogs, and three new national holidays: Cate Day, Jack Day, and Emma Claire Day. • Grandkids Born In "Second Life" Okay, kids, you can go to bed now. So, Barack, Hillary: if you want this white male vote, • Or Else Daddy Won't Get You A Jet Ski. you're gonna have to show that you care just as much about the things that really matter to me as I do. And that is the EdWørd. • [photo of jet skis] Colbert: Folks, that is it for the Report this week; I only wish Senator Obama could've joined us.
It will be interesting to see if either Clinton or Obama picks up Edwards' challenge to address issues of poverty, job losses, and universal healthcare, in order to win his endorsement, either for Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, or more likely in the run-up to North Carolina's primary on 2008-05-06. With Barack Obama scheduled to appear on Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, it will also be interesting to see if Comedy Central's late-night duo has a discernible effect on the outcome.
Obama: [on the giant video screen] So do I, Stephen.
Colbert: Senator Obama! Won't Senator Clinton be happy that she fixed our screen!
Obama: I'm sure she will, Stephen, I'm sure she will.
Colbert: Now, I enjoyed the debate last night, sir, though I have to take issue with you[r] calling some of the questions "manufactured political distractions."
Obama: Well, Stephen, I think the American people are tired of these games and petty distractions.
Colbert: Well, sir, speaking for the news media, I can tell you, we are not tired of it. It allows us to ask the same questions over and over again, and we don't do any more work.
Obama: Stephen, these distractions, they won't help fix our economy, they won't help people get healthcare, they won't help us get out of Iraq — Stephen, I would go so far as to say, I want to put these political distractions "on notice."
Colbert: What??
Obama: Boys, bring out the On Notice board.
Colbert: Senator, I have to warn you: I probably don't have a card for Distractions. Let me check here. Let's see, I've got Dimetapp®, Dionne Warwick, Deion Sanders, Dion-comma-Céline, Dirigibles — well, what do you know? Distractions: I actually have that. Okay, Senator, something's gonna have to come off; what should I remove?
Obama: Well, it can't be Grizzly Bears: they are the #1 threat to America.
Colbert: Good man! Good man.
Obama: So I think we should take off James Brady; he's a good guy.
Colbert: All right, all right, all right. All right, Brady, this is your lucky day! [removes James Brady from the top slot of the On Notice board] Okay, here we go. [inserts Distractions to the On Notice board] Distractions, I hope you're paying attention! WHAM! How does that taste?! [cheers and applause]
Obama: Manufactured political distractions, you are officially On Notice.
Colbert: Thank you, Senator Obama. Thank you, Philadelphia! I want to thank Ben Franklin, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. I want to thank the good people at Doritos®. I want to thank you, Pennsylvania. We told you how to think, now go vote! Good night, everybody!
Technorati tags: Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert, Hillary Clinton, Patrick Murphy, John Edwards, EdWords, EdWørds, EDWØRDS, Barack Obama, 2008 Election, Transcript
Transcripts and embedded video clips below the fold...
Friday, April 18, 2008
Colbert, Clinton, Murphy, Edwards, Obama
Friday, March 21, 2008
Jack Kemp rebukes Hannity on Obama-Wright issue
You know, it's almost enough to give you faith in democracy in our republic. Jack Kemp is a former NFL quarterback who became a Republican Congressman from upstate New York and who was Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 Presidential election. He appeared tonight on Fox News Hannity and Colmes, not normally a bastion of intellectually well-founded political discourse. Jack Kemp was appearing on behalf of John McCain, trying to persuade Sean Hannity that John McCain is a candidate worthy of his active support. That much is par for the course. However, it seems he has been taking Hannity to task for the way he is mischaracterizing the situation with Rev. Wright as it relates to Barack Obama's candidacy.
A portion of the video in question, ©2008 Fox News, via YouTube.com:
Here is the exchange I found most noteworthy, starting at about 2m43s into the video clip (about 40%):Sean Hannity: I want to go back to your comments about Reverend Wright, because —
In closing, let's just highlight a couple more points of what Sean Hannity said. Barack Obama has never said that he was not present for any of Reverend Wright's controversial sermons. He has said — and in at least one case the claim has been corroborated — that he was not present for the specific sermons that have been so popular on YouTube. Obama did in fact disinvite Rev. Wright from the official announcement of his candidacy. Barack Obama played no role in the decision by the church to give an award to Minister Farrakhan, nor did he have any role in Farrakhan and Wright's trip to Libya. At least Hannity didn't harp on his foreign-sounding name or try to pretend he is or ever was a Muslim.
Jack Kemp: Okay. [slight chuckle]
Hannity: This is really important here, though. I don't know — should I call you Quarterback or Congressman? I never know what to say, but, ah —
Kemp: Sir.
Hannity: Sir.
Kemp: Recovering politician.
Hannity: Okay, but there you go. Here's what's important: this comes down to — and you've seemed willing to give Barack Obama a pass that I'm not willing to give him, and let me explain this. This was his pastor for 20 years, the most incendiary anti-American language you would ever hear from the pulpit. He claims that he didn't know, but that he did know, but that he disinvited him to the invocation when he was announcing he's running for President here. Jack, I don't believe him, number one, and secondly, I question the judgment of this man.
Kemp: He denounced the racism. He denounced the anti-Israel statements of Rev. Wright. He denounced the off-the-wall belief that America is the worst killing machine —
Hannity: Yeah, but he sat there twenty years; do you really —
Kemp: He didn't believe that. I don't believe he — The Wall Street Journal, no "soft on liberals" editorial, said they don't for a minute think that he believed any of that stuff. So, look —
Hannity: No, no, no, no, that's not the question. [Barack Obama] is saying he didn't know. Now, this church, his pastor went to Tripoli with Louis Farrakhan —
Kemp: [loud sigh]
Hannity: No, Jack, this is important. They gave him a lifetime achievement award and said Farrkhan "epitomized greatness," and he didn't know any of this?
Kemp: Barack Obama didn't do any of that. Barack didn't do that.
Hannity: His church did. He didn't know his pastor was like this?
Kemp: [sigh] Sean, I can't do this every night with you. I mean, you and I disagree with this. I think he's denounced it. I disagree with so many of his positions. For instance, he blamed the lack of economic opportunity that young black men and women have. You know what? I agree with him. We have not done enough to democratize our capitalistic system, to make more capital available to start businesses. He wants to raise taxes on capital gains, dividends, income tax by 52%. He's gonna squeeze — not me, I'm already wealthy at 72. He's gonna squeeze the young black entrepreneur. He's hurting them.
Hannity: Let's go down this road, because I think this is important, and I know I'm pressin' ya —
Kemp: I don't want to stay on ad hominem attacks.
Hannity: I don't want an ad hominem argument here. I find it — I'll use the term that Hillary Clinton used about General Petraeus — this, for me, is the willing suspension of disbelief. And what I mean by this is, if he really didn't know his pastor had these associations with Farrakhan, he went to this church for twenty years, the pastor was saying these controversial things, as he would have us believe — We discovered and broke the story last night that he's friends with another pastor who has used "the N-word" repeatedly, talked about the mayor of Chicago as a "slavemaster" — It's very — I'm hard-pressed to think maybe he has some agreement with this, which is a scary scenario for a President.
Kemp: I don't think he does. He's in a tight spot, 'cause he's gotta answer this, again and again and again, particularly in the general. Having said that, I told you on your radio show this week that I hope that, if he is defeated, it's on the basis of bad economic policy, raising taxes, waving a white flag to our enemy in the Middle East, and things like that, not what Pastor Wright said.
Hannity: I think you've taken on the role of the "external conscience" of Sean Hannity. Boy, you've been after me a lot lately.
Kemp: I'm not "after you"; I'm a fan of yours, but I want to hold you accountable!
Hannity: I am accountable. I know my facts.
I don't agree with Jack Kemp's reasons for not supporting Barack Obama, but I do agree about — and I salute him for speaking out against — some red herrings that are not reasons to oppose Obama. If Barack Obama, the golden-throated orator, cannot convince the American people that he has the better plan for America, then he does not deserve to be President, and ditto for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. If more Republicans were more like Jack Kemp, we could at least have a civilized national political conversation, and talk about things that really matter.
Technorati tags: Jack Kemp, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, 2008 Election
Partial video embed and partially overlapping partial transcript below the fold...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Laying the Blame for Florida
The Florida Democratic Party officially announced today that it will not hold a re-vote to replace the invalid primary it held in January. There's plenty of blame to go around in this political clusterfuck, but I'll give you my views of some of the more noteworthy targets of my ire.
Well, Florida, your options were crystal clear: re-vote or lose your delegates. You have chosen the latter. Don't you dare whine about it now, 'cause it's your own damned fault.
Technorati tags: Florida Primary, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Party
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Education, Loyalty, and Home
There have been a couple of noteworthy news stories about education here in Northern California the last few days. In one case, a remedial math teacher at Cal State East Bay (the former CSU-Hayward) was fired because, as a devout Quaker, she objected to two items in the loyalty oath that all state employees must sign. Specifically, she objected to the wording "I swear" and to the implication that she would take up arms or other violent means in defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. (A compromise was later reached, allowing her to return to CSU-EB.) The other case involved homeschooling. A state appellate court ruled that parents who home-school their children must have proper teaching credentials for the grade level(s) of their kids. The vast majority of homeschooling parents are not accredited, so if the ruling stands, those kids will legally be considered truant.
Marianne Kearney-Brown is a grad student at CSU-EB, and has a part-time job teaching remedial math to undergrads. Her students are the ones who muddled through high school without mastering the basic math skills needed by anyone who wants to be competitive in the job market. They probably don't like math, find it boring and tedious, and have never really understood it at any level beyond hoping to pass the next pop quiz. She was getting the kids motivated and getting through to them; by all accounts, her teaching was top-grade. However, all employees of the state of California, including part-time grad student instructors, must "swear (or affirm) [to] preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Ms. Kearney-Brown modified the oath slightly, more or less along these lines: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will nonviolently preserve, protect and defend..." The University held that it was unacceptable for the employee to modify the oath in any way, even for her religious beliefs. (Quakers believe that taking an oath is blasphemous, and violence is not acceptable, even in defense of your country.) They cited a court precedent from 1968, Smith v. County Engineer, and told her, "Based on the advice of counsel, we cannot permit attachments or addenda that are incompatible and inconsistent with the oath."
There's just one thing: the "attachments or addenda" in question were in no way "incompatible and inconsistent" with the purpose of the oath. In the end, the University offered a compromise solution: Ms. Kearney-Brown would sign the oath with a statement from the University that her oath does not in any way bind her to take up arms, even in the event of invasion or insurrection. Further, that clarification will be made available to other employees who might have similar reservations. Meanwhile, she is reinstated with back pay. The University clearly saw that it was on shaky legal ground, and faced a public relations nightmare, so it quickly found a face-saving way to back quietly away. All in all, a "win-win" ending.
The other ruling of note was a California appeals court on 2008-03-07, holding that California law requires that children either be enrolled in an accredited school or be tutored by teachers who are accredited for the student's grade level, and that the law makes no exception for homeschooling. The great majority of parents who home-school their children, do not have state-approved credentials, and the court specifically held that it was insufficient to have an accredited school sign off on the parents' lesson plans and make quarterly visits to the home. There are an estimated 166,000 children affected by this ruling, if it holds on appeal. The governor has already announced that if the ruling is not overturned by the courts, he will work with the legislature to change the law.
The issue of homeschooling is complicated. There are many students who "fall through the cracks" in public schools, or even in private schools. Many of them are better served by having the individual attention and round-the-clock supervision of their parents as teachers. However, there are also homeschoolers who pull their kids from regular schools in order to teach that Noah and the Ark is an historical truth, or that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth contemporaneously, or that the government of the United States comes from Almighty God. Society as a whole is poorly served by allowing parents to propagate such pernicious disinformation. Kids need to know that science and scientific evidence tell us that the earth is billions of years old and that dinosaurs died out millions of years before the earliest humans, and they need to learn and understand that the United States is and always has been a secular nation. We are not and never have been a Christian nation, despite the fact that a substantial majority of our people are Christians. More broadly, society needs some assurance that the material that homeschooling parents are teaching their kids is accurate and complete, meeting the educational standards that are the bedrock of our future prosperity. It will be a dark day indeed if the legislature turns around and says, "Okay, homeschoolers, you can do whatever you want — we don't care."
Technorati tags: Education, Loyalty Oath, CSU-East Bay, Homeschooling, California
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
George McGovern on The Colbert Report
Stephen Colbert's guest on last night's Colbert Report (Comedy Central) was former Senator George McGovern (D–SD), the Democrats' 1972 Presidential candidate. McGovern managed to win only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, a worse record than 1988's dismal campaign by Michael Dukakis, and only narrowly eclipsed by Walter Mondale in 1984. (Mondale won only DC and Minnesota, which has fewer electoral votes than Mass.) McGovern was also deeply involved in the bitter feud that tore deeply into the Democratic Party in the 1968 election, so his experiences can certainly shed some light on this year's contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
You can watch the show segments here:
Embedded video copyright ©2008 Comedy Central/Comedy Partners, all rights reserved
Transcript:[Colbert intro, reminiscing about "Crushing Democratic Disappointments," specifically focusing on 1972.]
It seems to me that once again the Democratic Party is facing the choice of standing up and being Democrats and fighting for the principles that make us progressives and calling out the neocon Republicans on their slanders, or cowering in fear that "they might call us l-l-l-liberals!" The American people are opposed to the Iraq War. We understand that it was a mistake to go in, that it was an unprovoked war of aggression by the United States, that it has cost us far more blood and treasure than the Bush Administration ever hinted, and that it has reduced rather than enhanced our national security. We need a candidate who will stand up and say that patriotism is not about wearing a lapel pin, it is about fighting for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We need a candidate who will stand up and say that supporting our troops is about giving them body armor and hearing protection, caring for our wounded, and above all not sending our troops into the wrong war, not about mindlessly backing a wrong-headed mission with wrong-headed leadership. We need a candidate who will stand up and say that the United States cannot claim to have the best healthcare system in the world while leaving tens of millions of our citizens without access to routine medical services.
Stephen Colbert: '72, I remember that: the year the Democrats spurned establishment candidate Hubert Humphrey and gave the Presidential nomination to anti-war populist George McGovern. Sound familiar? Well, tonight we take a look back, in a Colbert Réport "Special ReporT": The 1972 Democrats — Alone Again, Naturally.
[Colbert goes on to give a pop culture snapshot of the time: cartoons, rock stars, and...]
Colbert: Democratic politics were more radical than ever, thanks to South Dakota Senator and long-haired hippie freak, George McGovern. Listen to him spew his anti-Vietnam hate:McGovern: We do not understand why it was necessary to continue the war over the past 4 years, but whatever their motives, if the [Nixon] Administration can bring off a settlement of this war, they'll have my full support and cooperation in any effort that can lead to peace. [1972]
Colbert: Allow me to summarize: Viet Cong, take our daughters. McGovern had run previously in 1968, but the party establishment gave the nomination to Hubert Humphrey, even though Humphrey had not won one single primary.Hubert Humphrey: I proudly accept the nomination of our party. [August 1968]
Colbert: "Aaand I accept having my ass handed to me by Richard Nixon." You see, the infighting at the 1968 Chicago convention had fractured the Democratic Party, along with a lot of hippies' skulls. But in 1972, thanks to campaign reforms led by wild-eyed bomb thrower Senator George McGovern, all it took to win the Democratic nomination was to be the voters' favorite candidate, and that's exactly what McGovern did. Leapfrogging establishment candidates Ed Muskie and Hubert Humphrey, just because more people liked him. What kind of people? Archie Bunker: What are you gonna do with your around about $200?
Colbert: Now, if Meathead had sensibly invested that $200 in U.S. Savings Bonds in 1972, today he'd have $250. McGovern was on the wrong side of progress: the progressive side. He was pro-Civil Rights, pro-Women's Rights, pro-Gay Rights, and pro-Seniors' Rights. But at a time when you could buy technology like this [photo of early L.E.D. digital watch] for only $2,000, anything seemed possible. So this "free love acid freak" used his flaming rhetoric to exploit his supporters' sick fetish for not getting killed in Southeast Asia.
Meathead: Well, that I'd like to use for something really important.
Archie: Like what?
Meathead: Like giving it to the McGovern campaign.
[All in the Family, CBS, 1972]McGovern: We've taken all these risks on the side of war, and it's accomplished two things: it's killed more of our people, and the other side has taken more of our prisoners. [1972-05-30, NBC]
Colbert: Two accomplishments, Senator? What about Rambo?? [mouths and gestures "Three."] Luckily, some patriotic Democrats stabbed him in the back. Humphrey said McGovern would destroy America's military, and launched a fight at the convention that left McGovern only 48 hours to find a running mate, so McGovern chose Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton, who, it was revealed two weeks later, had undergone electric shock treatment for depression. McGovern might as well've picked this guy. President Nixon was able to campaign against McGovern, using the exact same charges Humphrey and other Democrats had used, and on election day, McGovern won Massachusetts, but all the American states were won by Richard Nixon. And Nixon was re-elected to an historic 1½-year term. McGovern had been stopped; America was safe.
Colbert: Some say McGovern's story in 1972 has parallels to the campaign today:David Gergen: John McCain's going to go after Barack Obama as sort of the George McGovern of 1972. [Anderson Cooper 360°, CNN, 2008-02-27]
Colbert: It's true: the similarities are striking. [picture of McGovern, overlaid with Obama's tribal costume from his visit to Africa] When we return, my distinguished guest, extremist and possibly Muslim Senator, George McGovern. We'll be right back.
Bob Novak: He is a Leftist, he is another McGovern, he is far to the Left. [Hannity & Colmes, Fox "News", 2008-03-06]
Pat Buchanan: George McGovern got the youth vote, the sort of idealism, the passion, "all things can be done," and we know what happened to McGovern. [Hardball, MSNBC, 2008-02-05]
[commercial break]
Colbert: My guest tonight was a Presidential candidate in 1972. Good thing he lost to Nixon, or he would've been impeached for Watergate. Please welcome Senator George McGovern.
Colbert: Senator, thank you so much for joining us.
Senator George McGovern (D–SD): My pleasure.
Colbert: That kind of accolade, is that what you get when you accept the nomination for President? Does it feel like that?
McGovern: Well, you never get too much of it.
Colbert: You can't overdose on praise.
McGovern: You cannot overdose.
Colbert: Yeah, in punditry or politics. Now, before we go on, I want to offer my show as a forum. Would you care to confess anything about your involvement in a prostitution ring, before we go forward?
McGovern: I think I'll leave that to you.
Colbert: Okay, good. You have a book called Out of Iraq: A practical plan for withdrawal now. You are seen — certainly my memory of you is the ultimate "peace candidate": you were against the war in Vietnam, I assume from this [book] you're against the war in Iraq — unless it's out of Iraq and into Iran? No? Syria? Okay, just checking, just checking. Is there any kind of war you would support?
McGovern: Yes. When I was 19 years old, I volunteered to be a bomber pilot in World War II. I believed in that war then; I still do: Hitler was an incredible monster.
Colbert: Well, Hitler, yeah, I mean, that's easy. That's a gimme. You guys were so lucky to have World War II — it had Nazis in it! It was so obviously the right war!
McGovern: That's why I supported it.
Colbert: These days, we've got these tricky wars. We can't figure out why exactly we're in there, and we have to, you know, "stick by the President."
McGovern: Well, I think the President is wrong. I thought he was wrong to go in there. I opposed this war in Iraq before we went in. So did the President's father [George H.W. Bush-41], so did the President's father's Secretary of State [James Baker] and his National Security Advisor, General [Brent] Scowcroft — the whole team opposed it, except for the youngest son. [apparently intended as a reference to George W. Bush, although he is the oldest son, followed by Jeb, Neil, and Marvin, plus daughter Dorothy]
Colbert: But, you've said that, though you fought in World War II, that you do not believe the United States should be fighting in stupid and unnecessary wars.
McGovern: Yeah, like Vietnam, like Iraq. The one thing those two countries had in common with each other is that neither one was the slightest threat to the United States.
Colbert: Weapons of Mass Destruction, sir.
McGovern: There weren't any Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Colbert: But we did not know that until we went in. We did not know.
McGovern: The international inspectors, who were in there for several years, were unable to find any.
Colbert: Right. They could not find the lack of them, because they could always have been hidden somewhere else. That's accepted wisdom, at this point.
McGovern: That could be true of any country.
Colbert: Exactly — I got my eye on ... Belgium. I guess my point is, if we don't fight stupid and unnecessary wars, isn't that going to cut down on most wars?
McGovern: I think it would. I think it would've eliminated most of the wars of the 20th century, with the exception of World War II: that was a war we had to fight.
Colbert: Now, a comparison is made between Barack Obama's call for us to get out of Iraq and him being perceived as the sort of idealist anti-war candidate, and your candidacy of 1972. Do you think that is in any way a fair comparison?
McGovern: I don't think either Barack Obama or George McGovern are unreasonable idealists. I think we're realists who looked at the facts: a country that was causing us no trouble, there was no particular terrorism in Iraq, people weren't killing each other by the tens of thousands in Iraq. We had it fairly well contained; we should've left it alone.
Colbert: But the reality is, we did go to war, so if you say we shouldn't have gone to war, aren't you living in some sort of ideal world where we hadn't? Aren't you, by definition, an idealist?
McGovern: Well, I don't mind being called an idealist if you will concede that idealists can also be realistic.
Colbert: I will not concede anything. You're on the wrong show. Can an idealist win the Presidency? Who's the last idealist who got in?
McGovern: I would say that the two most famous ones are probably Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln — one a Democrat and one a Republican. I'm doing a book on Lincoln's Presidency, and if that man wasn't an idealist, I don't know what idealism means. He lived by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; to me, those are all ideals that are worthy of a great President.
Colbert: You were in a very protracted Democratic convention fight in '68 and again in '72; did that really harm you, and could it harm Hillary or Obama, if they attack back and forth?
McGovern: It really did harm us in '72, because all of the candidates that I had defeated, ganged up on me to try to take the California delegation away from us, and that hurt. We needed that time to get ready for the convention, to pick a running mate, with plenty of time to look at the various possibilities, and I think that really hurt us a lot. I think it helped deliver the election to Richard Nixon.
Colbert: Are you supporting anybody this time around?
McGovern: I endorsed Hillary last October. I've known her for 35 years; I think she'd be a good President. I want to quickly add, I didn't know Barack Obama at that time, but I've been very impressed with him as a candidate, and —
Colbert: Are you a superdelegate?
McGovern: No, I'm not a superdelegate.
Colbert: Aw, I was hoping to get one of those guys.
McGovern: I'm just a plain old citizen.
Colbert: Last question, sir, and I'm sure you've gotten this before: Are you on acid right now?
McGovern: Am I what?
Colbert: Are you, are you — [to audience:] no, no, I wanna get it right. Are you on acid right now?
McGovern: Well, you may think I need it, but I haven't had any.
Colbert: Senator McGovern, thank you so much. Senator George McGovern; the book is Out of Iraq. We'll be right back.
However, first and foremost, the Democratic Party must avoid the fratricidal (or sororicidal) attacks that so hamstrung the McGovern campaign in 1972. Claims that the Republican candidate is better qualified than your Democratic opponent, do not help the party, especially when in the same breath you say that the Republican is more qualified than you are. Pretending to be unsure whether or not your opponent is a Muslim, does not help the party. Throwing the kitchen sink at your opponent does not help the party. Yes, I'm throwing more blame at Hillary Clinton than at Barack Obama on this issue, because I believe that the record shows that she has engaged in quantitatively more and qualitatively worse attacks than Barack Obama has.
The 1972 campaign offers a tested and proven road map for the Democrats to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Let's hope they have the sense not to take that path.
Technorati tags: , George McGovern, Democratic Party, Colbert Report, 1968, Barack Obama, Iraq War, Out of Iraq, Anti-war
Embedded video clips and transcript below the fold...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Inside Iraq: Kurdistan
Today's Inside Iraq program on Al Jazeera English (repeating through the weekend; see the website) focused on issues relating to the Kurdish region in the north of Iraq. The Turkish military has withdrawn after significant operations against the PKK, the Kurdish Worker's Party, a group dedicated to creating a unified Kurdistan incorporating Kurd-majority areas in northern Iraq, southern Turkey, and possibly western Iran. However, other issues remain, including allegations that the Iraqi Kurdish regional government has tortured dissidents. Today's spirited discussion featured an official from the KRG and a Kurdish critic living in exile in Britain.
Technorati tags: Inside Iraq, Al Jazeera English, Kurdistan
Happy Leap Day
I couldn't let the first Leap Day of my blogging career pass unremarked. A year is approximately 365¼ days long, so about every 4th year, an extra day is added to the calendar. But that number is actually closer to 365.242374 days than 365.25. For that reason, century years are not leap years unless they are divisible by 400; thus, 2000 was a leap year, but 1900 was not and 2100 will not be. That modification — the difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendars — results in an average year of 365.2425 days. At that rate, the calendar will be off by a full day in a bit less than 8,000 years, except of course that the astronomical year is gradually getting a little bit longer, just as the day is gradually getting longer.
The day is slowly lengthening, caused primarily by friction as the moon's gravity pulls on the earth's oceans, causing tides but also slightly slowing the earth's rotation. For that reason, it is occasionally necessary to add a "leap second." On those occasions, determined by detailed and precise measurements of the earth's rotation, the normal sequence is modified slightly. Ordinarily, 23:59:59 is followed one second later by 00:00:00 of the following day; when a leap second is added, 23:59:59 is followed by 23:59:60 and then 00:00:00. The last leap second was added at the end of 2005; it will probably be at least a couple of years until the next one, so you won't be able to use leap second as an excuse for being late to work.
Technorati tags: Leap Day, Leap Second
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
"Greater Serbia" gets ever smaller
Poor Serbia! First, Yugoslavia, which Serbia dominated, disintegrated after the fall of communism. Croatia, Silesia, Macedonia, and especially Bosnia-Herzegovina couldn't wait to escape from under Serbia's thumb. Brutal wars ensued as ultra-nationalists tried to preserve "Greater Serbia," but the effort was in vain: only Montenegro stayed alongside Serbia in the rump Yugoslavia, renamed "Serbia and Montenegro." Then, in 2006, Montenegro, too, decided to go its own way. This week, the Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo declared itself an independent nation. There is yet another semi-autonomous province in the north of Serbia, Vojvodina; however, it shows no immediate signs of breaking away to form an independent state. All the same, Serbia's history over the last two decades suggests that the more tightly it tries to hold onto its sphere of influence, the faster it slips through its fingers — a lesson other nations would do well to heed.
On the other hand, maybe Serbia just needs some new mouthwash and deodorant.
The graphic (adapted from an image in the Wikipedia commons; this image and any derivative work are uncopyrighted under the terms of the GNU Public License) shows Yugoslavia and later Serbia in red, with other chunks changing color as they split off. First, in 1991, Silesia (yellow), Croatia (dark blue), and Macedonia (purple) split off. Then, in 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina (green) declared independence, sparking a particularly bloody war whose atrocities are still winding through the international justice system. In 1995, at the end of the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina created the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, separating the Republika Srpska (Serbian republic; the northern and eastern parts of the green area) from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the center and west, plus two small enclaves in the north). However, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a single nation, both officially and in practice. In 1999, Kosovo gained substantial autonomy, indicated by the dashed boundary. In 2006, Montenegro (gold), the last remaining Yugoslav republic still aligned with Serbia, voted to dissolve the nation now known as Serbia and Montenegro, and declared full independence. The loss of Montenegro landlocked Serbia. Finally, this week, Kosovo (light blue) declared full independence from Serbia.
All of the other breakaway states are fully recognized by the United Nations, Serbia, Russia, and the rest of the world; Kosovo, for the time being, is recognized only by the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and about a dozen other countries, but not by Serbia, Russia, China, or the United Nations. A few nations, including Spain, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka, have withheld recognition due to concerns over the precedent in international law of recognizing the unilateral independence of a breakaway province of a United Nations member state. Although the People's Republic of China does not recognize Kosovo, the Republic of China (Taiwan) does, apparently mostly on the principle of thumbing its nose at Beijing.
Unfortunately, Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence has (predictably) inflamed nationalist sentiment in Serbia. We can only hope that "Greater Serbia" does not erupt into renewed war crimes, atrocities, and ethnic cleansing.
Technorati tags: Kosovo, Serbia
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East Meets West?
I was perusing the headlines on CNN.com, as I often do, and one caught my eye:
with a link to KRXI, the Fox affiliate in Reno. Northwest Nevada is where the Burning Man festival is held. Imagine my shock and amazement on opening the article when I saw the opening sentence: "A strong earthquake shook rural northeastern Nevada Thursday...." Yes, in fact, the quake was in northeastern Nevada, near the Utah line, nowhere near the Black Rock desert. To their credit, they've already fixed the headline, but I still found it amusing. Read More......
Monday, February 18, 2008
Happy Presidents Day to Me!
Well, hey — my name is Lincoln Madison, so I've always felt a certain personal affinity for this particular holiday, ever since Madison Avenue invented it. True, this holiday generally commemorates Lincoln and Washington, and it's downright antipodal to my birthday, but I can still call it my own.
I've always taken a keen interest in Presidential politics. I watched hour after hour, day after day, as the Watergate hearings crept forward in Congress, even though I was only 11. Two years later, I watched large chunks of both the Democratic and Republican conventions. I was 17 when Reagan was elected, but I watched my older brother campaign for John Anderson, a Republican-turned-independent who broke from the "Conservative Movement" domination of the GOP. When Bill Clinton was elected, I was living abroad, but I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, watching the returns roll in until a winner could be declared. I was utterly dismayed that the American electorate failed to repudiate George W. Bush in 2004, having had a pretty convincing preview of how badly he could fuck up if given another four years. I shall not stand idly by while my country surrenders yet farther to neo-conservative totalitarianism.
I believe wholeheartedly, more fervently than ever before, that our nation's freedom depends upon electing a Democrat in November. I would prefer that it be Barack Obama, but I will support any Democrat against any Republican.
Technorati tags: Presidents Day
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Now, that's just TWISTED!
I was just reading on CNN.com about the recall of 70,000 tons of beef from a California slaughterhouse — the largest beef recall in U.S. history — because the processing facility did not separate cattle that were unable to walk for closer inspection, required because they are at greater risk of diseases that might be transmissible to humans. One of the sidebars is a list of the products affected by the recall (brief summary: the brand names are Westland Meat Co., King Meat Co., Regal, and Hallmark Meat Packing; details here)
The really twisted part, though: CNN suggested another article I might want to check out — "Create a recipe notebook." Gotta love that artificial intelligence....
Technorati tags: beef recall
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Inside Iraq: Haditha
This week's Inside Iraq program on Al Jazeera English focuses on a docu-drama about the events leading up to the killing of 24 innocent Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha on 2005-11-19. Nick Broomfield, a British filmmaker, has produced Battle for Haditha, an attempt to place the incident in context, showing the perspectives of both the Iraqis and the American soldiers. Host Jasim Azzawi alternates clips of the film with a one-on-one interview with Broomfield. It's difficult to watch, seeing the impossible situations in which people on both sides find themselves, especially knowing the tragic outcome. However, it is a reality from which we must not shy away if we are to have any hope of mitigating the disaster that has followed in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Video clips embedded below the fold.
The Iraq War has been a slow-motion train wreck from the very beginning, but the Bush Administration's response has been "full steam ahead!" The only legitimate questions remaining for the United States are:
The idea that our military presence in Iraq for another decade, never mind another century, will somehow magically transform the country into a peaceful, democratic land of milk and honey is nothing but fantasy. There is simply too much bad blood between the Iraqis and the United States, most especially the U.S. military.
Technorati tags: Inside Iraq, Battle for Haditha, Al Jazeera English, Nick Broomfield, Iraq War, Haditha
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
Giving Michigan and Florida a Voice
The Democratic Party primaries in Michigan and Florida were advanced before Super Tuesday in violation of Democratic National Committee rules. As a result, the party has ruled that the delegates chosen in those two primaries will not be seated at the national convention. Indeed, the candidates themselves agreed not to campaign in those two states, and Barack Obama withdrew his name from the ballot in Michigan. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton won both contests. In a move smacking of deep cynicism and abject political opportunism, the Clinton campaign is now pressing to have the delegates seated from both primaries.
The party is faced with two unacceptable alternatives: seat delegates from primaries that both candidates agreed in advance were "rogue," or leave the citizens of two major states without a voice in the nominating process. There is only one way to resolve this dilemma. The state party leaders in Michigan and Florida must come up with a way to hold new primaries or caucuses, with both remaining candidates competing on equal footing. That's the only fair, democratic solution — fair to Michigan and Florida, fair to the other states, and fair to both candidates.
I support the candidacy of Barack Obama, but more fundamentally I support the democratic process. Even if these flawed primaries supported my candidate, my concern for the Party, in November and beyond, would outweigh that narrow interest. Unfortunately, short-term political advantage is the only argument on the side of the Clinton campaign's position. Indeed, Clinton's willingness to change the rules mid-game is yet another reason that I support Barack Obama.
Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party, Michigan Primary, Florida Primary
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Colbert is BACK! (Huckabee transcript)
Even without his writing staff, Stephen Colbert is unto himself a formidable political force. On Wednesday's show, he interviewed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R–AR), who played along with the host better than just about any politician who's been on either The Colbert Réport or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Don't get me wrong — I will f-word-ing tear my hair out if Huckabee actually becomes President. However, I provide here the transcript of the interview, because I believe it to be of some importance to have a written record of an event of considerable bearing on the political process. For those of you visiting "The Third Path" for the first time, I do actually have a number of things to say of my own accord, but I have also provided transcripts of many interviews that would otherwise be only Comedy Central and/or YouTube clips, including quite a few from sources other than Comedy Central, most notably Al Jazeera English. It is my hope that the political discourse will benefit from the outside perspective — not anti-American, but also not only-American — of a network that sets the standard for journalistic courage in the 21st century, but also that the people will see that America should be embrace Al Jazeera English, not fear it. Al Jazeera English quite simply is what CNN was 25 years ago: serious journalism, with no punches pulled on anybody. But I promise I'm not trying to hijack Stephen Colbert to promote another network, so, without further ado, here are the embedded video clip and the transcript, below the fold.
Stephen Colbert interviewing Gov. Mike Huckabee (R–AR) on Comedy Central's The Colbert Réport, Copyright ©2008 Comedy Central. Original airdate: 2008-01-09.[Colbert chastises the audience for showing up the Pundits who predicted McCain in '08 (two years ago), Clinton and Giuliani in '08 (four months ago), and Obama and Huckabee in '08 (four days ago), by voting for Clinton.]
A few comments on Huckabee's responses:
Stephen Colbert: I mean, if you [the American people] keep voting the way you want, rather than the way we tell you you want, well then, pundits are just gonna stop tellin' you how to think. [audience cheers] No, no, no. I'm mad! You know what? I'm gonna give you a little taste of your own medicine, right now. The next big contest is South Carolina; I happen to be from South Carolina, I happen to know how you'd like to vote there, but I'm not gonna tell you what you want. I'm not gonna tell you who. the winner. of. South Carolina. should be. [pause] Joining me now — live from South Carolina — is the Republican front-runner, and the man who will win, Mike Huckabee!
Gov. Mike Huckabee (R–AR): Hello, Stephen, I hope you're doing well, and I hope you're ready to take it all the way to the White House, 'cause you know, you promised me you would be my running mate.
Colbert: Sir, I am so glad to hear you honor that promise. I was afraid that maybe I was gonna have to let you out of that.
Huckabee: I will keep that promise because, after all, the only reason that I'm the front-runner now is because of the "Colbert bump." If it were not for that, I would not be sitting in this chair, I would be probably somewhere serving hamburgers at a drive-in restaurant.
Colbert: Hamburgers, or Huckaburgers?
Huckabee: They would be Huckaburgers: whole-wheat bun, lean beef, and very carefully selected organic vegetables to go in the Huckaburger.
Colbert: Let me talk about one something for a second here, sir: when you asked me to be your running mate, I jumped on board when you were less than 1%. Obviously, I was thrilled to see you take the whole shootin' match in Iowa, but I gotta say, I'm underwhelmed about New Hampshire: third place? You might have to re-sell me.
Huckabee: Just two weeks ago, we were like in sixth place, so we saw dramatic move and momentum, just in a very short period of time.
Colbert: Umm, McCain: he's got "big mo,"if you pardon the expression. How are you gonna stop him? You're a man of the Faith; he said he will hunt Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell — will you hunt Osama bin Laden all the way into Hell?
Huckabee: And beyond. I will charge Hell with a water pistol, if necessary.
Colbert: Okay, let's go over some policy things; I want to make sure we're on the same page here. Do we both still feel that Evolution is a farce?
Huckabee: Huckabee: It's all a farce.
Colbert: Good to hear it. Are we the candidates who think that the Devil and Jesus were brothers?
Huckabee: Uh, no. That's not us. But I'll send you a memo on that, and I'll underline the parts in red that we need to believe.
Colbert: You knew that. Where do you stand on global warming?
Huckabee: I do think we've gotta be better stewards of the environment, and, frankly, we need to take better care of this planet.
Colbert: You know what I say? I say we hit the Environment hard, before it hits us. It's payback for earthquakes and hurricanes. [pause] How 'bout outsourcing jobs?
Huckabee: As long as it isn't mine.
Colbert: Ditto! Now, there's criticism of you, that you do not have foreign policy experience. That's how I can balance the ticket for you, because I've been overseas — I've been to Sandals Resort in Jamaica, I've been to Sandals Resort in the Bahamas, I've been to Sandals Resort in Barbados, I've been to Epcot.
Huckabee: That oughta take care of it.
Colbert: Can I take you to task for something that, I gotta say, alarms me. You are being attacked, and I think in this case rightfully so, for not being harsh enough on illegal immigrants. Is it true that you do not support building a pneumatic tube to fire Mexicans back to Guadalajara?
Huckabee: [laughs vigorously]
Colbert: 'Cause I heard that you're not supporting that.
Huckabee: No, I don't support that; I'm not quite that harsh.
Colbert: Let's talk money problems. Do you have the cash to go all the distance here? I mean, Romney's got all kinds of money. If you're trying to raise a little scratch, South Carolina gun laws are so loose, you can go into any gun shop and buy as many handguns as you want, and just ship 'em up here to New York and sell 'em on the streets illegally and raise some serious scratch.
Huckabee: How do you think I financed my campaign for the past 11 months?
Colbert: Smart man! Pick me up a couple?
Huckabee: [nods] On their way. What kind would you like?
Colbert: Something with the serial number scratched off!
Huckabee: Consider it done.
Colbert: I know you're a man of your word — you would never rescind your offer of making me your Vice President, no matter how well you do in the campaign, but I want to let you know, I believe in you, I believe in what you're doing, I'm gonna give you this opportunity to get out of it with honor. Just ask me, one more time, I'll say no, and then, you know, then you can pick somebody else. Go ahead.
Huckabee: Stephen, please, be my running mate.
Colbert: YES! Yes, a thousand times, yes! [audience laughs] I've got my hooks in you, mister! I will see you at the altar.
Huckabee: Uh, we're not taking it that far.
Colbert: Huckabee, good luck down there, stay strong, be brave, and remember, stay a Hucka-be, not a Hucka-was.
Huckabee: Thank you, Stephen.
Colbert: Thank you, sir. Mike Huckabee, everybody.
I hope you've found this transcript, and perhaps even some of my annotations and comments, helpful, and that you'll check out the rest of the blog, including the various transcripts I've done, and maybe some of my own original thoughts. And yes, for the love of America, demand that your cable system carry Al Jazeera English now!CHRISTIANITY: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree... yeah, makes perfect sense. — found on the masthead of the Myth Understood channel on Justin.TV; original source unspecified
It is absurd, and even blasphemous, to suggest that any human could ever have an infallible understanding of "the will of God," if any God worthy of the capital G exists.
Technorati tags: Stephen Colbert, Mike Huckabee, Colbert Report, Comedy Central, Transcript
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I'm Not Dead Yet!
I can't help thinking of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the man bringing his father out to be carted off with the corpses, despite his vigorous protests that he's not dead yet. Hillary Clinton is definitely not dead yet, having squeaked past Barack Obama in New Hampshire (although they actually tied in delegates). John McCain is definitely not dead yet, having convincingly defeated "favorite son" Mitt Romney. What's scary to me, actually, is that so many people take Romney seriously. The Union Leader and the Concord Monitor got it right in their anti-endorsements of Romney.
For purely partisan reasons, I would love to see the Republicans nominate Romney, because I think he could challenge the electoral college tally amassed by the last Massachusetts governor to run for President: Michael Dukakis. (Dukakis lost by 426 to 111, with one rogue elector voting for running mate Lloyd Bentsen.) America needs a landslide Presidential victory, and with Romney on the red side, even a Mike Gravel–Dennis Kucinich ticket could win 40 states. Hell — even Dukakis would have a tough time losing to Romney!
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Two very different views of Deliverance
[not a reference to the 1972 film Deliverance, starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds]
I'm watching MSNBC's coverage of the Iowa caucus, with Chris Matthews (whom I do not call "Tweety") giving a very good summation of the rut in which America finds itself, and comparing this rut to the beginning of the Great Depression.
[The choice of FDR over Hoover in 1932] wasn't an improvement, it wasn't finding somebody smarter than the guy we have in office, it was taking us out of the rut and taking us to a new place. The Biblical term for it, since we're in a Biblical era, is Deliverance. We're being picked up and moved to where we have to be. — Chris Matthews on MSNBCAs he also pointed out, there will be two prominent headlines on newspapers around the world tomorrow: "Obama Wins" and "Hillary Loses." I think Chris Matthews is right that Obama represents Deliverance on the Democratic side, and I think that Huckabee represents the Republican vision of Deliverance. Which vision can capture a clear and convincing majority of the American people?
The gridlock in Congress, with almost all Democratic efforts failing in the face of an unbreakable filibustering minority of Republicans, has resulted in inaction on issues of climate change, energy, Social Security and Medicare reform, the Iraq war, and foreign policy. In a meta-sense, the American people have to decide between picking one side decisively or continuing the near-50-50 paralysis. I'll take a look, with candid and obvious bias, at the two visions for breaking with the Bush legacy.
Mike Huckabee represents a return to the "Traditional American Values." In the stereotype of the 1950's, à la Pleasantville, those Values included second-class treatment for women, passive acceptance of racial inequity, homophobia, and a basically insular view of the U.S. role in the world. What happened in Kuala Lumpur or Nairobi or Caracas was of no particular interest, unless you worked in an industry with a particular connection to that region. Men were men, women were women, no one was ambiguously in between, boys were circumcised, pregnancy led to a shotgun wedding or a life of shame, marriage was an eternal bond shackling one submissive woman to one dominant male, and the rest of the world should do as we say, because clearly God has blessed America and therefore we must be doing everything exactly as He intended, and of course America was a Christian nation — it was silly even to ask. Mike Huckabee softens the edges quite a bit on several of those bullet points, but the core direction is the same.
Mike Huckabee aims to convince the solid majority of Americans who believe that a woman has a right to follow her own conscience in deciding whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, that abortion should be banned in the U.S. Constitution. He couches it as an aspiration rather than a promise, but he says it's what he believes God holds in His Divine Will for the future of this country. He puts a "compassionate" smile on his face saying it, but he believes that two men or two women in a committed, loving relationship have no right whatsoever to any governmental recognition of the intertwining of their lives. He wants us out of Iraq, but he also believes that his years as a Baptist preacher have prepared him to take on the challenge of Islamic extremism. He believes that the same "aw shucks" folksiness that has swept him from Hope, Arkansas, to the national level, will work just as well on a global stage.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, represents a leap into the future. You could picture a President Barack Obama one day announcing the project to build a research station on the moon, if you know what I mean. Obama stands for the teaching of the science of evolution in science classes. He stands for a woman's right to choose whether to complete a pregnancy — and the right of two adults to choose to marry. He has lived a significant portion of his life outside the United States, seeing how it is perceived as a nation from the outside. Hillary Clinton scoffed at the notion that merely living abroad was in and of itself a qualification for being President, but I say it openly and directly. Christian extremism will no more protect us from Islamic extremism than vice-versa. The answer to extremism — Islamic, Christian, Republican, Communist, or White Supremacist — is embracing (not merely tolerating) diversity. In an era in which 19 men with half a million dollars were able to strike a stunning blow against the greatest military power in human history, military power is not the answer. The United States must dry up the reservoir of potential terrorist recruits by becoming popular, because only when the overwhelming majority of the people of the world see us as "the good guys" will we ever overcome a determined minority who despise us to the core of their being.
Around the world — even in Chris Matthews' favorite: Rangoon [Yangon], Burma [Myanmar] — the United States has taken a striking step by advancing the candidacy of an American who is a citizen of the world, not just of the United States. It is Barack Hussein Obama who represents the vision of Deliverance from the world of Al Qaeda, Taliban, Tamil, and I.R.A. It is Barack Obama who shines the beacon of Hope around the world. It is Barack Obama whom I want to see as the next President of the United States.
[This article also appeared in my DailyKos diary.]
Technorati tags: Iowa Caucus, 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, Deliverance, War on Terror
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
That's So ... Canadian!
Last month, I flew up to Toronto for a few days, to attend and attest to the marriage of my good friend Howard. Aside from the heaviest one-day snowfall since World War II (the same storm that slammed New England and the Maritimes), it was an interesting peek into life north of the border. It had been ten years since my last visit to the Great White North — and that was in August, when it only barely went below freezing. Howard grew up in Los Angeles, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area his entire adult life, but he despairs for the future of the United States, especially with George W. Bush resolutely marching us in the wrong direction on issue after issue. For him, moving to Canada is a breath of fresh air in many ways. First and foremost, he can legally get married and have that union fully recognized by all levels of the government, but that's not all. As Howard said about one marvel after another, "That's so ... Canadian!"
Coming right on the heels of a snowfall that was heavy by Canadian standards (BRRRR!), the wedding was lightly attended. Almost as many Yanks as Canucks showed up — the Americans had flown or driven up before the storm hit, whereas the locals were stranded until the snow plows came. The actual ceremony was performed by a "certified marriage practitioner," a recent Canadian innovation for people who don't want a church service but find courtrooms unromantic. A couple of days before the big day, we went shopping for a few last-minute items, and every person we told that Howard and Don were getting married, gave us heartfelt congratulations; not one expressed any consternation at the thought of two men marrying. Of course, when your primary concern is "How am I going to shift this mound of snow off my driveway so I can get to work?" it doesn't leave much time for worrying who your neighbor is sleeping with.
We even went into a Wal-Mart, the pinnacle of American retail culture, but even a Canadian Wal-Mart felt somehow different. Maybe it was the patient single-file queue for the express checkout lanes. In America, we demand a separate line for each lane, never mind that it can be proven mathematically that a single line is more efficient. Maybe we get lucky and get a line that moves quickly, or maybe we get stuck behind "Price check, Aisle 666" — but then we get to bitch about it. But beyond that, patience isn't something I see in abundance in places like Wal-Mart, less than two weeks before Christmas.
The pervasive sense of anxiety that has seeped into every facet of post-9/11 American life is shockingly absent in Canada, even though Canada has troops in Afghanistan and has even faced some terror threats at home. As Howard puts it, "Nobody hates Canada." That's not quite literally true, but the United States has the sad distinction of being quite possibly the most hated nation in the history of the world, because the people who are pissed at us number in the billions. Another key point: every time a single Canadian soldier is killed in Afghanistan, the entire country pauses to mourn the loss. Here in the United States, we feel eerily detached from the deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. We never see the coffins coming home. When Nightline devoted an episode to a simple list of the soldiers who have been killed, it was vilified by the neocons as being part of a defeatist conspiracy.
The other day, my TiVo recorded an episode of Degrassi: Next Generation, a Canadian soap opera drama set in a high school in Toronto. Degrassi is a very different place from my high school, and the kids are pretty different, too. There's an earnestness about them, a burning drive to change the world for the better, that kind of makes you think some of them might just grow up to be political bloggers. That's the characters in the script, at any rate, but what of the actors themselves? Well, on Christmas Day, the episode I caught was a travelogue of several of the actors on a trip to a remote village in Kenya, where they built a real school, not just a set on a soundstage. They spent about a week living in the village, hauling water back a couple of kilometers from the muddy river, moving rocks, pouring concrete, putting a roof on the building, and in general giving tangible expression to their concern for humanity. It was all very ... Canadian.
I love my country, and I'm not ready yet to give up the fight to take it back from the neocon cabal that has been in power the last 7 years, but I can't help thinking that I wish the United States of America could be just a little bit more Canadian — minus the record snowfall, of course.
Technorati tags: Canada, Same-Sex Marriage
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Tuesday, January 01, 2008
... and We're Back
Since putting the blog on hiatus in October for the sake of my poor, aching wrist, I've been putting in fewer hours on the computer, and I've also been on the road almost as much as I've been home. However, my travels are complete, with no more wandering at least until spring, and New Year's seems like a good day for a fresh restart.
The Iowa caucuses are only two days away, marking the official start of the Most Important Presidential Campaign of Our Lifetime™. Seriously, though, what is at stake in this election is nothing less than national security, economic prosperity, and our very national soul. Is America the kind of country that spies on its own citizens without judicial oversight? Is America the kind of country that detains people, including citizens, indefinitely, without access to lawyers, much less judges? Is America the kind of country that tortures prisoners, even knowing full well that torture does not produce reliable information? Is America the kind of country that stands idly by as millions of its citizens have no access to medical care? Is America the kind of country that launches unprovoked wars of aggression? Those questions are the backdrop of this campaign, and that's what I'll be talking about here.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Boytech and Girltech in Simpsons TiVo Easter Egg
I'm amazed that I find no references anywhere on the web to this one. I just watched last Sunday's episode #408 (KABF01) of Fox's The Simpsons, "Funeral for a Fiend," original air date 2007-11-25. Of course, I watched it on my TiVo, with remote in hand. The main plot centers on the return of Sideshow Bob to make yet another attempt to murder Bart Simpson, but there's a subplot around the Simpsons' acquisition of a TiVo. Lisa teaches Marge how to skip through the commercials — leading a bit later to having Keith Olbermann denounce Marge as "Worst Person in the World!" for denying paid advertisers their due.
As Lisa demonstrates fast-forwarding through the ads at the cliffhanger of an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, we see the Simpsons' TV screen; a series of commercials flash by in the blink of an eye. With the TiVo, though, I can freeze-frame and see what the commercials are for, including the bouncing Homer head advertising something in Japanese. There's a commercial for "Turbo Diary," enhanced with the ability to emit a blinding flash of light if a boy tries to read a girl's innermost thoughts. As you step frame-by-frame forward through the commercial, you see the logo "Girltech" leaping off the product; if you step backwards, though, you see the logo "Boytech" instead. I suppose one reading of it would be to say that pausing live TV is "girltech," but backing it up to see if there's a different image is "boytech." Call me a happy hermaphrotech.
By the way, I did actually watch a few of the real commercials in this episode. The Zune ad was way cool — as in, "Watch out Apple iPod" cool. The ad for the new Terminator series, though, looked cheesier than a daytime soap opera; it reminded me of the death of another fine franchise: The Never-Ending Story, Part III: The Final Chapter.
P.S. Buy Olbermann's book! [unpaid, unsolicited endorsement]
Technorati tags: Simpsons, TiVo, Turbo Diary, Girltech, Boytech
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Happy Anniversary to "Inside Iraq"
Al Jazeera English just passed the one-year mark. It is finally available on a few U.S. cable systems, but not on the big conglomerates like Comcast, nor on the two major satellite mini-dish systems. Fortunately, it's available on the web site, including a YouTube link of this week's anniversary special episode of Inside Iraq with Jassim Azzawi. As we head into the U.S. presidential primaries, it's a good time to take stock of developments of the last year. Check it out.
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