[POLITICS] The "Bleeps" Are Redacted

Patrick Fitzgerald is my hero. He has just been kicking ass and taking names, and he has a clean-cut, Elliot Ness demeanor to boot. At a press conference a few days ago he read portions of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich's expletive-spiced phone conversations, and concluded one such quotation with the statement, "...the 'bleeps' are redacted."

Gov. Blagojevich's behavior is appalling, and indicative of a sociopathy that is all-too common among the political and corporate leadership classes (for an example of the latter, look at the Big Three CEOs, who flew their private jets to DC to ask Congress for their bailout – that was not merely a PR blunder). When sociopaths finally get their comeuppance, they look completely clueless; their lack of awareness of other people, which is often what enables them to rocket forward in their careers, is also a type of stupidity, and, when they finally get nailed, they shrink, in our eyes, from intimidating figures to little idiots.

In Illinois, Fitzgerald comes out a hero, further raises his profile, and moves that much closer to his ultimate career goals, whatever they may be. While we can talk about the two men's ethics from a strictly moralistic perspective, I prefer to point out that this scandal is a lesson in short-term vs. long-term gain: the fat-cat pol demanding illegal cash vs. the hard-working US Attorney steadily building a case. Who comes out on top in the end? And I don't mean to ask who wins in this case; imagine that Fitzgerald and Blagojevich are completely unrelated. Nor do I mean to ask who gains in a karmic sense. Rather, the two men's different approaches to life can show us that we gain in the here and now by doing the right thing. Doing the wrong thing is a result of limited intelligence and imagination.

I realize that this may be a rather idealistic proposition; for one thing, as Mr. Rogers said, "good people do bad things," especially in difficult circumstances. For another, there are plenty of Blagojeviches in the world, and they distort the "doing well by doing good" input-output loop. I say this assuming that Gov. Blagojevich is not an example of a good person who did a bad thing, in which case it's troubling to think about what else Gov. Blagojevich has done that we will never know about. Reminds me of what they say about cockroaches: for every one you see, there are 10,000 others.

[POLITICS] "If Obama Wins, the Black [sic] Will Take Over"

This is profoundly sad and disturbing. I don't like it when people equate a politician's supporters with him, and I don't mean to do that here.

[HUMOR] Spoof of The New Yorker's Cover

This is for anyone who saw The New Yorker's cover showing Michelle and Barack Obama doing a fist bump in the Oval Office and wondered, "Uh, why?" I like The New Yorker, but sometimes it's just too clever by half.

Stephen Colbert wearing an Afro. I love this country.

[POLITICS] BarackBook: Part of a Maverick's Campaign?

The Republican National Committee's website offers rich material for comment. Take, for instance, the red bar on the homepage that displays a clock that counts down from "Biden's Last Gaffe." The other day Sen. Biden "again mixed up military 'battalions' with 'brigades.'" (*Snicker* Again!) There's also the website's "Audacity Watch," which might be more appropriately titled "Uppity Negro Watch."

I mentioned the rotating graphics on the homepage in another post. One of them is a link to "BarackBook," which initially appears to be a relatively innocent dig at Sen. Obama's popularity on Facebook. But it's actually an attempt to smear Obama based on associations – both real and imagined.


Many of the people in Sen. Obama's "social network" are yawners. Others are included because, say, they protested the Vietnam War – they're just there to kick up the culture war embers.

Then there are the people that the GOP is clearly using to scare voters – people with scary names. Take, for instance, Ali Abunimah, founder of the online publication Electronic Intifida. This American author's BarackBook page details all the times he has talked about Obama or talked about talking to Obama.

Mr Abunimah says that Israel is the result of "Zionist colonization" – an inarguable fact – and that the Israeli government has demolished Palestinian homes (also true). He also uses the term "Jim Crow" when describing the daily lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and, in general, describes the daily hardships that ordinary Palestinians endure.

In other words, Mr Abuminah talks and writes about incredibly complicated issues from a perspective that is barely heard in the United States. But the implication on his BarackBook page seems to be that he's a terrorist, or at least a terrorist sympathizer, and this then seems aimed at raising the question in the reader's mind, "What does that make Sen. Osama?"

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We should, of course, dig into politicians' associations, and asking about Tony Resko is certainly fair game. (I actually think The Chicago Tribune's editorial about the affair was pretty poorly written and unconvincing.) The thing to which I object is the innuendo.

Whatever your opinions about Ali Abuminah, he's not an explosives-vest-wearing psycho – he's a commentator and writer whose pieces have appeared in Ha'aretz, the Israeli paper, as well as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. But what can be the intent of including Mr Abuminah in BarackBook other than to lead some people who are not familiar with the Middle East to believe that Obamah is a terrorist sympathizer?

But instead of coming out and making any serious, fact-based accusation against Sen. Obama, the McCain campaign instead relies on whispers: "Hey, did you know that Barack Hussein Osama wants to wipe Israel off the map?" Insinuations such as this are as insidious as any ridiculous and insulting (not only to Sen. Obama, but also to everyone's intelligence) direct accusations, because they quietly calcify into feelings and hunches and are so hard to shake with clear facts. Even if the any associations with Ali Abuminah don't work, 20 or 50 other such stories are there to take its place – only a few of them need to yield the intended result. And that result, in the end, is black paint slapped on sand to look like a road. Go down that road and you arrive at the inevitable conclusion that Sen. Obama is dangerous. But look down, and look behind you; what do you see?

Meanwhile, we're supposed to believe that this kind of innuendo is part of a maverick's campaign. We're supposed to believe that this is not politics as usual, and that Sen. McCain rises above the partisan, win-at-all-costs furor of typical political discourse.

But ask yourself: Is this is a tactic of an honorable man?

[DESIGN/POLITICS] The RNC's Designs on Obama's Design?

I just logged onto the Republican National Committee’s website. The centerpiece of the homepage is a series of rotating graphics. One of these graphics – the one featuring Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. McCain’s running mate – caught my eye instantly.


Look familiar? Just in case it doesn’t, now look at this:


It’s part of the banner on the Obama campaign website. Compare the fonts, the colors, the poses. Now check this out from the homepage of the Obama campaign website:


In the graphic featuring Gov. Palin the word "from" is italicized, just as is the word "of" above. This is not that unusual a typographical feature, but it's also not that common, and the RNC's use of it is striking.

Similarly, blue is very common among campaigns. Having been proven again and again to be especially appealing to consumers (esp. when compared to red), this is no surprise. But the shade of blue in the Gov. Palin graphic is remarkably close to the one that the Obama campaign uses.

You’d think that the RNC would want to differentiate its design from that of the Obama campaign – that it wouldn’t want anyone to be struck by similarities. What’s going on here?

I have a quick and dirty theory. The Obama campaign’s logo and fonts have been hot topics of blog posts and in the press throughout the past year. Google “obama design” and you get nearly a million pages on the topic (or so it appears). From what I’ve read, the consensus is that the Obama campaign’s graphics – and its control of the visual message – are brilliant; for instance, Newsweek's "Stumper" featured an analysis back in February that included color commentary from Michael Bierut. Could the RNC be trying to get a little of that marketing and design savvy to rub off on it?

[POLITICS] Responding to Distortions About Obama

In his piece on Newsweek’s website, “The Other Side of the Story: Rebutting Sean Wilentz on Barack Obama,” Charles Kaiser (full disclosure: my wife's uncle) explodes the kind of lazy – and often dishonest – criticisms of Obama that have been so prevalent these past two years. He calls out Wilentz for having written "a thinly disguised hatchet-job," and says, in part, that

Wilentz reinforces the canard that Obama's campaign is short on specifics, charging that his rhetoric amounts "chiefly to promising a dramatic break with the status quo"—and arguing that "millions of other Democrats still find his appeals wispy and unconvincing." The truth is, Obama has detailed positions on everything from Iraq and Afghanistan to universal health care and tax reduction—as was made clear by the cover story in the The New York Times magazine last Sunday dissecting his economic program. The Times concluded that of the two major candidates, Obama would be the real "tax cutter" for most Americans—except for the ones making an average of $9.1 million. That group would get a tax cut of $190,000 a year, from John McCain, versus a tax increase of $800,000 a year from Obama. So much for a lack of specifics.

I highlight this paragraph in particular because one of the biggest pieces of "received wisdom" of all this campaign season is that Obama is vague and lacks substance.

Some of Kaiser's arguments include references to other pieces that are also worth reading – esp. Ryan Lizza’s piece in The New Yorker last month, “Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama.” Lizza shows Obama to have sharp elbows and to be incredibly politically tough and astute.

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I have some beefs with Obama myself – his FISA vote among them – but to say that he’s radical, vague and touchy-feely, a tax-and-spender, &c., is to betray willful ignorance. There, I said it.

When friends of mine – people I deeply admire – mock Obama for being an empty suit, throw up their hands and complain that the man is not perfect, or earnestly say they're thinking of voting for McCain, I can only smile uncomfortably. Maybe it's more of a wince?

Even Obama's oratory, which is continually criticized for – get this – being too good, is sloughed off as vague. But anyone who actually listens to an entire speech – i.e., beyond the stuff played in clips the next day – will hear a display of a depth and breadth of knowledge and ideas that completely blow John "You Say 'Sunni,' I say 'Shiite' – Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" McCain out of the water. I'm as sick of hearing Obama's hackneyed "from the shores of [insert name of one state here] to the fields of [insert name of another state here]" lines as the next guy, but listen to a whole Obama speech or "town hall"-style forum, and then tell me that he lacks substance, specifics, or depth.

If you have any doubt about Obama, I encourage you to check these out and/or forward them:

• Obama’s Platform
• A review of Obama’s voting record: “I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype”
• Other pieces about Obama’s track record: “Barack Obama” and “Actually, I Think We Can”
• The "Know the Facts" section on the Obama campaign website