The Alligator

In February 2008, Senator Barack Obama wrote an “Open Letter to the LGBT Community”. Penned weeks before the Senator’s historic speech on race, the open letter is as eloquent and nuanced as that speech and he thoughtfully addresses the issues of discrimination faced by LGBT Americans as he did with the issue of the racial divide in America. Senator Obama doesn’t just offer platitudinal promises to the LGBT community, but talks honestly about the uphill battle it will take to achieve equal rights- how difficult it could be to change the hearts and minds of many Americans.

He also addresses with remarkable understanding how stigma often tied to homophobia is a factor that must be addressed in order to steam the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

There is little I can add to the reason why the LGBT community should support Senator Obama than to quote the eloquence of the Senator’s own words as written in his letter to the LGBT Community.

I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans. Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation.

In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.

We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia – that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached. Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary. Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country.

To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard about the letter that was sent by some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors and Clinton supporters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with a veiled threat that she better watch her step or else…  The letter stated “We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August.”

Among the signees of the letter were prominent Democrats all of whom are Clinton supporters like Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television; Bernard Schwartz, former chairman of Loral Space and Communications; and venture capitalist Steven Rattner. Remember Robert Johnson’s choice remarks before the South Carolina primary? He raised the specter of Barack Obama’s past drug use. He also compared Mr. Obama to Sidney Poitier, the black actor, in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” After Senator Clinton’s disastrous performance in South Carolina one would think the last thing she needs is for Johnson to insinuate himself into the campaign again.

It was only 11 days ago that I pledged to a moratorium among some of us in the blogosphere who have a vested interest in seeing that there isn’t a McCain presidency (translation- a third Bush Presidency). But after this outrageous bullying tactic, I cannot remain silent. I will not make comments about Mrs. Clinton, but I will attack these big wig supporters. After all we do not have “proof” that her campaign was behind this outrageous threat so I will not speculate. However, sometimes the Clinton look like they are campaigning for John McCain- could they really want to see Obama lose the race should he be the nominee so that Mrs. Clinton has one more shot at the nomination in 2012? No one really knows for sure and as I said I will not speculate. But I think everyone is free to draw their own conclusions.

“The New York Daily News” reports that the “brazen move by Camp Clinton stunned veteran Democrats, particularly because at least eight of the letter’s authors have not donated to” the DCCC since Pelosi became speaker. One unnamed Democrat is quoted saying Clinton “looks desperate. There is no way they should have threatened to do this. It is terrible. … I am sure Obama is raising money off of it already.”

Messrs. Rattner, Schwartz and Johnson have nerve. Are they threatening to decimate the Democratic party in order to shore up Senator Clinton’s political career? And do they really think that they matter anymore? Look at Senator Obama’s fundraising power. There is not nearly the need for these rich fat cats as there was just four years ago. Their style of politics is “so yesterday”. Don’t these folks realize that so far this race has shattered every conventional metric and strategy that have been used in politics for decades? The work has changed folks.

My favorite comment was that of Chris Matthews when he decided to be kind to these donors and instead of calling them “fat cats” he decided to call them “ambassadors in waiting”.

Indirectly responding to a threat made by these “ambassador want to be’s”, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged Friday to “do whatever it takes to protect” Democratic House candidates from falling victim to the exceedingly nasty and protracted Democratic presidential primary.

In an email that I received, as a Democratic donor to the DCCC:

Dear Randy,

Here’s what you and I can’t let happen. We can’t allow the tension and pressures of a spirited Presidential contest to spill over and harm hard-working Democratic candidates running to strengthen our Democratic majority in the House.

I will do whatever it takes to protect our candidates and make sure their campaigns to drive change forward don’t skip a beat. I need you to do the same. Please support our candidates now with a donation to the DCCC before the critical March 31st deadline hits by going to www.dccc.org/deadline.  

Throughout the Presidential nominating process, I have been so proud to watch Democrats turn out in record numbers and demonstrate enormous grassroots energy. And soon we will have an exciting presidential nominee who will make our entire party proud.

She or he will lead our energized and united Democratic Party in the larger fight against John McCain, and his plan for 100 more years of war in Iraq. Now is the time to capitalize on the excitement that is sweeping the nation to ensure that our next President has a strong Democratic majority in the House to work with as we undo the damage from President Bush’s failed economic policies.

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Sent Wirelessly Via Blackberry

Thank you Madame Speaker! Thank you to standing up to bullies! And thank you for speaking your mind and being gracious, strategic and timely in how you responded to this outrageous threat. Do these idiots not realize that a divided party could self destruct and lose? Do these morons not realize that even if we have a President Clinton or President Obama, they will be able to accomplish very little of their agenda without a Congress that has a comfortable Democratic majority and one that is friendly to the administration?

I would normally ask if these people were just stupid, but they are all too successful to be stupid. I guess it’s just hubris. When you have wealth and power you sometimes think that you can control the strings. Guess what- they can’t. It seems that in this election, the regular person is the donor to be wooed, not the wealthy party “movers”.

What a lovely world it would be without the influence of the wealthy and the lobbyists trumping the will of the vast majority of our country. Isn’t that exactly why I am supporting Senator Obama?

For more than a week the nation has been analyzing the incendiary words of Reverend Jeremiah Wright that are short snippets of sermons- a few minutes of years worth of sermons made throughout his career. Reverend Wright’s comments were offensive and have been roundly criticized and condemned including Wright’s own parishioner Barack Obama.

Many preachers have said things that make their congregants cringe from time to time. But should a preacher be judged by a few words said at a time of heightened emotion, the days following 9/11 rather than a body of pastoral work that stretches a lifetime?  Reverends Falwell and Robertson made comments equally offensive blaming the “morals” of the United States for the wrath that was wrought to the nation when the nation was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. I was offended by their remarks and felt that Reverend Wright’s incendiary comments were offensive to many in this country and the language he used was inflammatory and wrong.

In the days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 there were many things said by many people that surely are regrettable. There was anger, grief and a sense of vulnerability that was being voiced in a variety of ways. Sometimes expressions of these highly volatile emotions can come out in very ugly ways and they did from many people. Reverend Wright was not the only one- but to hear the story told today you would think that Wright was the only one who felt that our foreign policies in the Middle East and throughout the world since we had become the only super power fomented some of the emotions that lead young angry men to be recruited by radical jihadists.

Reverend Wright used some questionable language to express the viewpoint that the United States needs to examine its own policies when hatred towards our nation is expressed in such a heinous way, but many people, privately and publicly, had those views and were asking difficult questions. At the time however- it was considered un-American to question previous American policies having some part of why radical jihadists might have been successful in recruiting men and women into their cause.

However Reverend Wright’s comments that day have only come to light because one of his congregants is a Presidential candidate. Reverends Falwell’s and Robertson’s comments were parsed long ago.

Falwell’s and Robertson’s careers have been defined by divisiveness, vilification, and no interest whatsoever in tending to the social ills of the poor, the disabled and the elderly unless it has been tied to the coffers of their churches and their own political interests. The difference for me is that Reverend Wright has a lifetime of work of social activism that is admirable and Christian at its very core.

Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. is one of the most widely acclaimed black preachers in the United States. Combining social concern, spiritual growth, and political activism, Wright, who preaches in a black traditional style, brings a message of hope, redemption, and renewal. In 1972 he became pastor of a small United Church of Christ congregation in the inner city of Chicago. After over 30 years in the pulpit, his congregation has grown to 10,000 and is the largest United Church of Christ congregation in the United States.
According to Wright, the Christian call extends in two directions: upward to God and outward to the community. As a result, Wright takes seriously the need to reach out to others, especially Chicago’s inner-city residents. Trinity has 70 ministry programs, 22 of which target youth. Half of the programs target the community, including adult education, literacy, computer, child care, and education for unemployed or low-income families. For Wright, religion, social outreach, and political activism go hand in hand. He vocally opposed the U.S. involvement in Iraq beginning in 2003 and has tackled such previously taboo issues such as AIDS from the pulpit.

While I do not come from a tradition of a black church and cannot judge some of the rhetoric that comes from past racial inequities and the nation’s original sin of slavery and the legacy of Tuskegee, I can understand Mr. Obama’s draw to Reverend Wright’s church and his message of social activism; a strong message to a community organizer.

I grew up in the Episcopalian Church and during my high school years my life was one that was searching for faith, God, morality and justice. The Episcopalian Bishop of New York, the Right Reverend Paul Moore was a hero to me. Moore was the personification of a priest who took his pastoral duties seriously into the realm of social activism.

After Seminary, Moore was named rector of Grace van Vorst Church, an inner city parish in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he served from 1949 to 1957. There he began his career as a social activist, protesting inner city housing conditions and racial discrimination. He and his colleagues reinvigorated their inner city parish and were celebrated in the Church for their efforts. In a recent article in “The New Yorker” by Honor Moore, the Bishop’s daughter, she writes eloquently about a Christmas Eve sermon that her father gave in Jersey City where he talkled openly about racism and poverty- rather gutsy preaching for the early 1950’s

In 1957, he was named Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, Indiana. Moore introduced the conservative Midwestern capital to social activism through his work in the inner city.

Moore was appointed as Suffragan Bishop of Washington, D.C., in 1964. During his time in Washington he became nationally known as an advocate for civil rights and an opponent of the Vietnam War. He knew Martin Luther King, Jr., and marched with him in Selma and elsewhere.

In 1970, he was named as coadjutor and successor to Bishop Horace Donegan in New York City. He was installed as Bishop of the Diocese of New York in 1972 and held that position until 1989. Bishop Moore was widely known for his liberal activism. Throughout his career he spoke out against homelessness and racism. He was an effective advocate for cities, once calling the corporations abandoning New York “rats leaving a sinking ship.”

He was the first Episcopal bishop to ordain an openly homosexual woman as a priest in the church. His liberal political views were coupled with fierce traditionalism when it came to the liturgy and even the creed. In his writings and sermons he sometimes described himself as ‘born again’, referring to his awakening to a fervent Christocentric faith as a boarding school student.

After the US of invasion of Iraq, Paul Moore, a retired Bishop gave a sermon at New York’s Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on March 23, 2003, four days after the United States invaded Iraq, where he said “Your fate will be determined by the power of millions of people of all faiths against the war and one solitary Texas politician being alone with Jesus. . . . This has to do with two different kinds of religions, it seems to me. The religion that says ‘I talk to Jesus and therefore I am right,’ and millions and millions of people of all faiths who disagree.”

Would these words be considered unpatriotic to some? At the time the former Bishop Moore gave this sermon, speaking out against the Iraq War was considered by many Americans and many of the media to be akin to treason.

Another one of my pastoral heroes was Reverend William Sloan Coffin, Jr.- the minister at New York’s Riverside Church, an interdenominational congregation affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and American Baptist Churches, and one of the most prominent congregations in New York City. Before his minsistry at Riverside he was the chaplain at Yale University.

While at Yale and by 1967, Coffin increasingly concentrated on preaching civil disobedience and supported the young men who turned in their draft cards. He was one af several well-known intellectuals who signed an open letter entitled “A Call to Resist Illegitimate authority”, which was printed in several newspapers in October 1967. That same month, he raised the possibility of declaring Battell Chapel at Yale a sanctuary for resisters, or possibly as the site of a large demonstration of civil disobedience. School administration barred the use of the church as a sanctuary. Coffin later wrote, “I accused them of behaving more like ‘true Blues than true Christians’. They squirmed but weren’t about to change their minds…. I realized I was licked.”

Coffin’s words in the Viet Nam era were considered by some to be anti-American as they were again when, like Bishop Moore, he spoke out against the US Invasion of Iraq.

While at Riverside he openly and vocally supported gay rights when many liberals still were uncomfortable with homosexuality. Some of the congregation’s socially conservative members openly disagreed with his position on sexuality.

Although many conversative members of Riverside Church disagreed with Coffin, they didn’t leave the congregration- because the work that the church did was larger than an issue or statements with which they disagreed.

Does that sound like a familiar contemporary scenario? However now we eviscerate Obama for continuing membership in a church where there was some incendiary rhetoric coming from the pulpit when there is a long history of congregants staying in the house of worship because of the bigger picture of what the minstry accomplishes.

Social activism always has political overtones- when there are issues of social justice, war and peace, attention to poverty and prejudices politics inevitably gets into the mix.

Social activists- like Moore, Coffin and Wright spoke to very different audiences but they had the same Christian message- take care of those in need, tend to the poor, the sick and the elderly, and expose inequity in society.

I find social activism an essential part of what Christian’s are called to do by faith and the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. Sometimes this activism in itself is viewed as a political statement and can seem to some as a partisan view. But at its essence it’s a moral view- it’s based on doing what is fundamentally morally right.

No one minister, rabbi, imman, monk, priest or other leaders of faith in infallable. They are human- filled with anger, hope, love, greed, grief but they are called to lead people fundamentally in a faith centered world. Like with all humans, words come out wrong and angers get expressed in the heat of a moment and often displaced grief comes out as vetriole. And sometimes centuries of opression get expressed in terms that are offensive to many ears – as offensive as the oppression seemed to those expressing their anger.

That is why our politics should not have a litmus test for religion. It isn’t just that we have a freedom to be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Theist or Athiest in this country- it is that a man or woman keeps his own conscience with God and how that faith has grown or has been influeced has no place in the public square.

Unfortunartely since the 1980s when the Moral Majority came to power there has been an increasingly problematic blurring of faith and politics. We should not be questioning a candidate’s faith or how that very personal relationship with faith was reached. We shouldn’t be judging a candidate by sound bites of his pastor- a pastor with a lifetime of experience fighting for social justice and also serving this nation in the military. Wright, Sloan Coffin and Moore have all made statements and held positions that maybe unpopular with their congregants. I believe that through their work on social issues they have in fact given the words of Jesus Christ life in the current world.

However each one of us has our own complex relationship with faith, those that have led us on our spiritual journey, and our own failings as humans and our divine spark as people of spirit.

Judging a man by a morsel of statements from his/her spiritual guide is misguided and certainly has no place in politics. Faith and the one’s own journey of faith is deeply personal, nuanced and complex. In the end, what should be judged in politics the moral courage, judgement, fairness and integrity of a candidate. How one’s personal journey with faith or without faith got them to their endpoint is not the question.

The person who stands before us – the character, leadership, judgement and integrity that he/she now possesses is appropriate fodder for the realm of politics and are qualities that must be judged by the voters when making their decision.

After Senator Barack Obama made his historic, intelligent, mesmerizing and frank speech about race in American this week, I mused about whether the American people are able to live up to the Senator’s expectations of us to be adult, intelligent and engage in loftier debate in politics rather than the usual down and dirty politics of destruction. Of course the jury is still out and I hope the American people are ready for some intelligence.

This week they didn’t get it from the heir apparent to the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain. Three particularly egregious gaffes that made his campaign seem offensive, out of touch and not well educated on Iraq- the issue that is the cornerstone of his campaign.

Senator John McCain mistakenly said Tuesday that Iran was allowing al-Qaeda fighters into the country to be trained and returned to Iraq; he expressed concern about Iran’s rising sway in the Mideast and said, “Al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.” Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country and has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaeda fighters of the rival Sunni sect. The Senator’s comments made no sense. Iran has been accused by the United States of funding, training and arming Iraqi Shiite militants in their uprising against the U.S. But there has been no evidence that al-Qaeda has benefited from Iranian assistance.

He made the comments Tuesday at a news conference in Jordan; he made similar comments earlier to Hugh Hewitt, an American radio talk-show host.

But what was more embarrassing was that at a press conference it was only after Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who was traveling with McCain, stepped forward to whisper in the candidate’s ear, McCain said: “I’m sorry; the Iranians are training the extremists, not al-Qaeda. Not al-Qaeda. I’m sorry.”

“Not only is Senator McCain wrong on Iraq once again, but he showed he either doesn’t understand the challenges facing Iraq and the region or is willing to ignore the facts on the ground,” said Karen Finney the Democratic National Committee’s communications director.

Senator Obama, in a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, criticized Senator McCain, saying the Republican presidential candidate had confused Iran and Al Qaeda and Sunnis and Shiites and maybe that confusion led him to vote to go to war in Iraq. A senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama, Susan Rice, yesterday told the Sun, “It’s very bizarre.” She noted that Mr. McCain had “made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don’t know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?”

Whatever the case, Senator McCain’s confusion leads one to believe that he really doesn’t have a very good grasp of the international tension the complexities of the Arab world and the millennial old dynamics in this part of the world. It was precisely this lack of understanding, in addition to lies and deceit that got us into this mess to begin with.

I truly hope the American people do not mix up the experience of being a war hero with that of being commander in chief- which requires not only an understanding of the military, but an understanding of the world, international relations, and diplomacy. It is clear that Senator McCain doesn’t understand this more inclusive role for the President- and defines it in terms that are purely military each time that he says that the current surge is working. True there may be less violence (it does seem odd to measure success in terms of levels of violence from horrific to horrible) but the whole point of the surge was to give the Iraqi government breathing room to make political progress. That has failed. Simple logic tells one that if the reason for an action has not occurred, the action has in fact failed. But Senator McCain can only look at this in the prism of military success not political and diplomatic success. That is troubling.

Next is the issue of Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of Senator McCain. While Senator Obama has had to endure a firestorm over remarks of his pastor Jeremiah Wright- remarks taken out of the context of decades of a ministry that has been universally respected in religious and secular circles. Many prominent Chicagoans attend Trinity United Church of Christ including, Senator Obama, Oprah Winfrey and many Chicago politicos- white and black. Wright’s comments were despicable and I rebuke them, but they have unfairly tarnished a ministry praised for its work on behalf of the homeless, the sick, those that Christ told us to minister to. The ministry as a whole has not been examined and there would be little to criticize if the media examined its history.   Besides many of the leaders of the religious right said that the American people brought 9/11 onto ourselves- there wasn’t a great uproar aimed at Mr. Falwell or Mr. Robertson.

But Mr. McCain has sought endorsement from a man who has called Catholicism the “Great Whore” and who, while being a staunch supporter of Israel and is supportive of a war with Iran, has very disturbing motives for both of those positions. Of course any action against Iran is totally absurd. Our military is stretched and we have done enough damage in the region- it is a time to work diplomacy in the region not empire militarism.

Reverend Hagee’s reason for supporting Israel and a war with Iran is based on his desire to bring on biblical Armageddon. Hagee wants the United States to facilitate and fast track taking the world to “end times” and bring on “the rapture” where, according to fundamentalists, true believers will be literally raised into the sky and heaven while the non-believers will be left on earth to live through a hellish nightmare with some antichrist.

Mr. Hagee has become somewhat a folk hero to some Jewish Zionists who seem not to look behind the curtain to see the real man. the persecution of Jews throughout history, and even the Holocaust, was caused by their own “disobedience”. Hagee has written,
“It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day… Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come…. it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people.”

This is a man that Senator McCain sought out for an endorsement. According to a piece to be published in tomorrow’s “New York Times Magazine” and already available on the newspaper’s website Mr. Hagee did not seek out Senator McCain, but instead Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee. This is either poor judgment, a colassal lack of research on this man and his dangerous theology and/or shameful pandering to the religious right in the Republican party.

Mr. Wright may have been a problem for Mr. Obama’s campaign this week, but Mr. Obama superbly and intelligently used the fracas to frankly address the issue of racial divide in this country- a necessary step towards unity. Besides Reverend Wright’s ministry as a whole has been one of social welfare and activism. But Mr. McCain seeking out a hateful man as a supporter with sinister theological motivation for his political leanings is scary at best and naïve at worst.

Finally there was Senator McCain’s comparison of the Jewish holiday Purim to Halloween. Maybe not the biggest mistake he has made- but it sure is worrisome when you look at the litany of gaffes made recently by Senator McCain.

Lieberman once again intervened when McCain made an incorrect reference about the Jewish holiday Purim — by calling the holiday “their version of Halloween here.”

McCain made the incorrect statement during a press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak after touring the Israeli city of Sderot to view buildings damaged by Hamas rocket fire. McCain was discussing the numerous rock attacks on the city. “Nine hundred rocket attacks in less than three months, an average of one every one to two hours. Obviously this puts an enormous and hard to understand strain on the people here, especially the children. As they celebrate their version of Halloween here, they are somewhere close to a 15-second warning, which is the amount of time they have from the time the rocket is launched to get to safety. That’s not a way for people to live obviously.”

Purim is not the equivalent of an Israeli Halloween. The holiday — although a joyous one — commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from mass execution. Halloween was traditionally a celebration of the end of the harvest and one where pagan rituals to scare away evil spirits by dressing in costume became part of the tradition. Later the Catholic Church took it on as All Hallows Eve – the evening before All Saints Day and linked the pagan rituals with ridding evil spirits before the day of the saints.

I think that Esther would have a thing or two about Mr. Mcain’s remarks. Linking a Jewish holiday that commemorates salvation from mass execution to a holiday based in pagan rituals might be somewhat offensive to Esther- and the holiday of Haddassah. Oddly enough Haddassah is Mrs. Lieberman’s name.

Haven’t we seen enough buffonary on the national stage since President Bush took office. Do we need four more years of this sort of international embarassment and shocking lack of understanding the world of diplomacy.

Mr. McCain has no personal understanding of religion- and while his lack of religion doesn’t bother me at all, he is tip toeing through a world where religion matters very much to the dynamics at play in the world- especially in the complicated world of the middle East.

We cannot survive another four years of such colossal misunderstanding of the dynamics at play in the world. We do not need a warrior, even a heroic one, to lead this country to a better place; we need a President who intuitively understands these complicated dynamics and how to address them thoughtfully.

We do not need another President who is constantly misspeaking, doesn’t undersand the real world, and values politics over pandering.

Well, a somber anniversary is upon us.  Today March 19, 2008 will mark the 5th year of the Iraqi War. The war that began with shock and awe and where we were to be greeted as liberators that has broken into Civil War and then into a war where expectations are so low that the administration celebrates because the colossal death toll isn’t as horrendous as it was.

This war that has taken nearly 4,000 American lives (3,990 as of today) and has done untold damage to the credibility of the United States throught the world and has done amazing damage to Iraq and the Iraqis.

It is a war of corruption where “no-bid” contracts go to buddies of the Bush administration like Haliburton and its subsidiaries, Blackwater, and the list goes on. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on an American Embassy in Baghdad- Why? Because we plan on being a mighty presence in the country for a very long time.

This is a war where we the year old surge was supposed to give breathing room for the Iraqis to come together and make political progress. This is something that even General Petraeus agrees is not happening as it should.  But Senator McCain believes we can achieve victory and that we could be in Iraq for a century.  At this point no one knows what victory means because the definition keeps changing based on what is political expedient for the war’s supporters.

This war has been the most colossal blunder that this nation has ever made. It has been an exercise in lies, manipulation, profits for companies with ties to the administration, lost  lives, untold damage to military families, remarkable damage to returning vets with paltry benefits to help them.  No matter what one’s feelings about this war- it is immoral not to support the returning soldiers with decent benefits and the best healthcare available.  We have wasted nearly one trillion dollars on President Bush’s and his neo-con friends’ folly and our esteem in the world has been severely damaged.

In a recent article in “The Nation” by Robert Pollin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier wrote about the not fully recognized economic disaster caused by the war. According to the article “The Wages of Peace”, Pollin and Garrett-Pelier posit that with just the amount of the Iraq budget of 2007, $138 billion, the government could instead have provided Medicaid-level health insurance for all 45 million Americans who are uninsured. What’s more, we could have added 30,000 elementary and secondary schoolteachers and built 400 schools in which they could teach. And we could have provided basic home weatherization for about 1.6 million existing homes, reducing energy consumption in these homes by 30 percent.

But the article points out that the economic consequences of Iraq run even deeper than the squandered opportunities for vital public investments. Spending on Iraq is also a job killer. Every $1 billion spent on a combination of education, healthcare, energy conservation and infrastructure investments creates between 50 and 100 percent more jobs than the same money going to Iraq. Taking the 2007 Iraq budget of $138 billion, this means that upward of 1 million jobs were lost because the Bush Administration chose the Iraq sinkhole over public investment. I also addressed the issue of the wars cost in our treasure in an article linked below- “Not a Mistake? Worth the blood and treasure? The War in Iraq”

There is little more that I can say here that I haven’t already said in articles on this blog before. While many if not most of my articles reference the debacle in Iraq there are 21 articles that address the issue of the war directly.  As my way to mark this very dark anniversary, this article links all the articles I have written over the past few years that directly address the War in Iraq. 

Our military is breaking, We are threatened more by al-Qaeda, Afghanistan is “bumpy” and Our troops support Ron Paul and Barack Obama… But let’s stay the course!

Not a Mistake? Worth the blood and treasure? The War In Iraq

Rendition and American Torture: The Loss of our Morality and our Credibility

Private Security Contractors: Mercenaries Pure and Simple! The Danger in Outsourcing the Military

Iraq: I’m so angry, I could spit

To Impeach or Not To Impeach? That is the question, but what is the answer?

Fear and Trembling

Not A Happy Anniversary- Four Years of “Mission Accomplished”

A Dark Day- 4 Years in Iraq, It’s the economy stupid!

Who doesn’t support our troops? The Republicans -Just look at the Bush administration and the 109th Congress

US saber rattling with Iran- Preposterous? I don’t think so! Fool me once- shame on you. Fool me twice – shame on me!

Bush’s War – Is it in the last throes?

What could he be thinking? The pathology of President Bush

What does Victory mean?

Botched Joke or Botched War- Which is worse?

Civil War- Calling the Debacle in Iraq what it is

Compromising Security in the Name of Politics

Why Iraq and not Sudan?

The Legacy of 9/11

The Iraqi War - longer than WW II

Less Safe Than Ever - Thank you President Bush

I listened to Senator Obama’s speech today addressing the horribly offensive remarks of Reverend Wright but also using it as an opportunity to tell a story about a difficult story in this country; a story that is complicated and rarely talked about.

Mr. Obama is correct; our divisions must be addressed if we are going to thoughtfully tackle issues such as education, healthcare, jobs and a failing economy- we must unite as a people. Without the power of that unity nothing will change- health care will still be out of reach, education will still be abysmal for many in the nation, the economic woes of many Americans regardless of race will never be addressed. The only hope this nation has to battle against the special interest- specifically the well funded and influential lobbyists- is for a huge united voice to come together that can be powerful enough to force the change needed.

However in order to come together we must also admit the history that has divided us and which has been exploited by those in power that benefit from a divided nation. It is important for white Americans to understand the anger, the history, and the injustices that have been a legacy of slavery, Jim Crowe and the distrust that comes from Tuskegee. It is also important for black Americans to understand the anger that many white Americans have about bussing, welfare, and affirmative action. Many white Americans have come to resent what they see as special treatment for blacks due to historical injustice in which they played no part. Mr. Obama recognizes and appreciates these resentments. He also understands the resentments that some have about what is perceived as immigrants coming into the country and taking away their jobs and making their lives worse. Mr. Obama’s speech was addressing that the power elite has in fact exploited these resentments and it has encouraged them to fester and flourish. By keeping us divided the powerful interests keep the dialogue from moving to the issues that we must address and which affect all of us- no matter what our race, creed, gender or sexual orientation.

What needs to be addressed is that jobs are being shipped abroad to increase profits, that our healthcare system is broken and our educational system is an embarrassment. By using the politics of division- those in power and those powerful interests that they represent- can keep us down and keep us squabbling among ourselves so we blindly allow them to continue to exploit these divisions for their own self interest- profit and power.

It is precisely this narrative that recognizes this nation’s past injustices but challenges us not to use them to divide us and wallow in victimization but to understand one another so we can unite and truly be a force for change.

Mr. Obama’s speech was historic. Nearly every pundit – liberal, conservative and those in between recognize the importance of this speech. Some have said it is the most important speech on race since Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech. This was a speech that challenges us to find the better angels in ourselves and not to revert to our reptilian brains. This was a speech that opened up the reality of race in this country so it can be talked about openly and honestly nationally. This speech challenged us to move forward. Mr. Obama rejected cynicism today and assumed that the American people are intelligent and thoughtful enough to rationally look at these issues, understand the barriers that have separated us and overcome those barriers so we can truly work together to create change.

It was Mr. Obama’s ability to reëstablish hope that would mitigate my disappointment in the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the American people that had been concretized by the decisions voters made in the 2000 and 2004 elections. He made me believe that maybe Americans had moved out of the sleep walk they have been in over the past seven years and are able to pay attention to real issues and begin addressing them rationally and intelligently. He moved me out of my political cynicism.

How the media and the American electorate react to Mr. Obama’s speech in the coming weeks will prove whether my optimism is well founded or misguided. I truly hope the nation has awakened from its long sleep. If I am proven wrong I will be crestfallen and any hope I have in intelligent informed politics and a thoughtful electorate in this country will revert back to cynicism and disappointment.

I am a supporter of Senator Barack Obama. I have made that clear through my pieces supporting him, and some of the pieces I have written criticizing Senator Clinton and defending Senator Obama.

Some Democratic bloggers have suggested a boycott or moratorium of blog articles that fuel the fire between the two Democratic Presidential nominees. Senator Obama has attempted to run a campaign based on a new type of politics- not politics as usual- no sniping, no mud slinging and no attacks. Those of us that support Senator Obama need to honor Senator Obama’s new politics. I pledge to honor Senator Obama’s lead.

I also think that bloggers, those supporting Senator Obama and those supporting Senator Clinton, must stop the sniping and keep our focus on defeating the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

In two days we will mark a dark anniversary- 5 years of a misguided war based on lies with, as of today, 3,990 Americans dead. We are in the midst of a horrible economy that the Republicans have once again created through their misguided economic principles and their dismantling of regulations that would have helped the country not to be in the mortgage crisis where we find ourselves today. We have an administration that is willing to bail out a big bank / brokerage house but is not willing to help the problems that every day Americans have. We have a President that has more interest in saving Wall Street and none in saving Main Street. Gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon. The price of gas isn’t just a hardship for filling up the tank, but it has raised prices on virtually everything like basic necessities such as food.

Senator McCain is running as a 3rd term of Bush’s misguided and destructive policies. President Bush has done amazing damage to this country in a little more than 7 years. Can you imagine the damage a 3rd term of the same policies would do?

Democrats, no matter who we support, should allow the campaigns in the remaining states to play out and try and have faith in the process. The media are feeding our consternation and our intra-party anger and division. We must not allow ourselves to be caught up in the media’s need to fill up 24 hour news channels and focus on the most inflammatory aspects of the primary campaign.

This is an historic election. We have an opportunity to make a change and to make history. The Democrats will certainly make history because our candidate will either be an African American or a woman. We should be proud of that. We should not be encouraging divisions in our party based on identity politics and pandering to our worst inclinations.

If party machinations play out in a way that would not honor a Democratic process, we should certainly speak out about that issue. But we aren’t there. We must not allow Senator McCain to sit back and watch months of the Democratic Party in discord.

When it was clear that this election might be very easy for the Democrats, I was concerned that our party has the knack of being able to lose an election that is handed to us on a silver platter. We must prove that premise wrong.

No matter who we support in the Democratic Primary process we should recognize that it is more important to have our party in the White House and in the majority in Congress. That is the only way real change can happen.

If most Americans were given this question most would get it wrong. Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey released Sept. 11, 2007 by the First Amendment Center.

I’ve written about this subject before, but recent comments by the McCain spiritual advisor- Reverend Rod Parsley- has made the subject important to raise once again.

Mr. McCain himself has said “I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who has a grounding in my faith,” and has also said I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”

It seems that Mr. McCain- must have missed his classes on the United States Consitution when he was at the Naval Academy- an institution where he graduated 3rd to the bottom of his class. You can read more in depth about the United States being a Christian nation in my article of October 2007- John McCain has gone off the deep end- One too many visits to Liberty University!

But it is Reverend Parsley’s words that I mean to address in this piece. Rod Parsley is John McCain’s self-described spiritual guide and the leader of World Harvest Church, a 12,000 member megachurch in Columbus, Ohio. In 2005, Rod Parsley sketched his views about America’s intention in the world and Islam in a book called “Silent No More.”

“I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam.
I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications.

The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

Mr. Parsley needs a history lesson. I’ll bring us back to the Constitution shortly, but first I would like to address an early treaty that was authored by Joel Barlow adopted by the United States Senate and approved by President John Adams in 1797.
The pirates of the Barbary coast in general and of Tripoli (in what is now called Libya) in particular were destroying U.S. shipping and holding as prisoners U.S. seamen in the 1790s. It was a serious problem and a series of negotiators were sent to try to put together an agreement to improve it.

On 4 November 1796, near the end of George Washington’s second term, a treaty with the “Bey and People of Tripoli” was signed, promising cash and other considerations to Tripoli in exchange for peace. Leading the negotiations for the U.S. at that point was Joel Barlow, a diplomat and poet (he wanted very much to be remembered as America’s epic poet). Barlow was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and of Thomas Paine (Paine hurriedly entrusted the manuscript of the first part of the Age of Reason to Barlow when Paine was suddenly arrested by the radicals of the French revolution).

“The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of the Barbary Coast” directly refutes Reverend Parsley’s assertion.
Article 11 of the Treaty states: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Barlow who authored the treaty was very likely by 1796 a deist, though he had served earlier as a military chaplain. There is considerable dispute about whether the Arabic version of the treaty read and signed by the representatives of Tripoli even had the famous words included (they are not present, as was discovered in about 1930, in the surviving Arabic version). No one knows why.

The treaty remained in effect for only four years, replaced, after more war with Tripoli, with another treaty that does not have the famous words included.

“If” the major claim of separationists regarding the treaty were a legal one, these facts might be fatal. But no one claims that the treaty was the basis for our government being non-Christian–it is the godless Constitution, which calls on no higher power than “We the People,” that is the necessary and sufficient legal basis. What the treaty does is to powerfully reaffirm what the Constitution and First Amendment intended.

Was there controversy in the Senate when the treaty was ratified, or did the language even appear in the version ratified? Or was it buried deep within a long, complicated treaty where perhaps it wasn’t even noticed? Did the public even know the treaty was passed or what it contained, and what was the reaction? Was it possible for the public to know who voted for it, and what price did those supporting it pay?

There are some answers in the official Journal of the Senate. The President (by then John Adams) sent the treaty to the Senate in late May 1797. It was, according to the official record, read aloud (the whole treaty was only a page or two long), including the famous words, on the floor of the senate and copies were printed for every Senator. (It should be noted that the controversy about the Arabic version is irrelevant here: all official treaty collections from 1797 on contain the English version, and all include the famous words of Article XI.) A committee considered the treaty and recommended ratification. Twenty-three Senators voted to ratify: Bingham, Bloodworth, Blount, Bradford, Brown, Cocke, Foster, Goodhue, Hillhouse, Howard, Langdon, Latimer, Laurance, Livermore, Martin, Paine (no, not Thomas Paine), Read, Rutherford, Sedgwick, Stockton, Tattnall, Tichenor, and Tracy. We should ask ourselves whether we should not consider these 23 (and President Adams) great free thought heroes.

In a very public way, they voted to say that “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, . . .” the Muslims of Tripoli therefore need not fear a religious war from the U.S. The vote was recorded only because at least a fifth of the Senators present voted to require a recorded vote. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required. It was only the third time that a vote was recorded when the vote was unanimous! The next time was to honor George Washington. There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty.

President Adams signed the treaty and proclaimed it to the nation on 10 June 1797. His statement on it was a bit unusual: “Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.”

What happened then? Did our heroes pay a heavy price?  The treaty and Adams’ statement reprinted in full in three newspapers, two in Philadelphia and one in New York City and, in one case, held the actual newspaper (the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser for Saturday, 17 June 1797) in my hands. There is no record of any public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.

And what of our heroes? Well, none suffered any known negative consequences, and I’ve read biographies of each. One Senator, Theodore Sedgewick of Massachusetts, went on to become the Speaker of the House (imagine Newt Gingrich endorsing such a treaty! Henry Clay is the only other American in history to be first a Senator, then Speaker). Another, Isaac Tichenor, became Governor of Vermont, and then returned to the Senate for many years. Georgia’s Senator, Josiah Tattnall (Georgia’s other Senator was absent), did not return to the Senate, but he did serve thereafter as one of the youngest Governors in Georgia’s history, and has a county in Georgia and a number of streets, squares, etc., named after him. (His father was a Tory; his son by the same name was a famous officer in the Confederate Navy).

From our perspective these men may be heroes, but in truth the vote they cast was ordinary, routine, normal. It was, in other words, quite well accepted, only a few years after first the Constitution and then the First Amendment were ratified, that “the Government of the United States of America was not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” After a bloody and costly civil war and the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment determined that citizens of the United States cannot have their rights abridged by state or local governments either, religious liberty for all was established. Governmental neutrality in matters of religion remains the enduring basis for that liberty.

Mrs. Clinton is beginning to be pressed for details of specific things that she was involved in, or specific things that she had done, in foreign policy while First Lady. (Earlier, in the Ohio debate, she had not answered Tim Russert’s question on that point.)

Clinton has now responded by claiming that she “helped to bring peace” to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo. She also cited “standing up” to the Chinese government on women’s rights and a one-day visit she made to Bosnia following the Dayton peace accords.

Today Former Northern Ireland First Minister William David Trimble — who shared a Nobel Prize for his peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland — is contradicting Hillary Clinton’s statements that she played an instrumental part in the peace process there, calling her claim “a wee bit silly.” The Daily Telegraph reports Lord Trimble says of Clinton, “I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill (Clinton) going around… being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.”

Thankfully many are questioning this “experience” and her contention that she had any significant foreign policy experience, her trips abroad while First Lady, while perhaps broadening, were hardly the equivalent of managing global crises.

She was never asked to do the heavy lifting” when meeting with foreign leaders, said Susan Rice, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and is now advising Obama. “She wasn’t asked to move the mountain or deliver a harsh message or a veiled threat. It was all gentle prodding or constructive reinforcement. And it would not have been appropriate for her to do the heavy lifting.”

Mrs. Clinton’s mission to Bosnia was a one-day visit in which she was accompanied by performers Sheryl Crow and Sinbad, as well as her daughter, Chelsea, according to the commanding general who hosted her.

Earlier in the campaign, Senator and President Clinton have claimed that she had been urging him to send in troops to intervene in the genocide in Rwanda.

Whatever her private conversations with the president may have been, key foreign policy officials say that a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda was never considered in the Clinton administration’s policy deliberations. Despite lengthy memoirs by both Clintons and former Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, any advice she gave on Rwanda had not been mentioned until her presidential campaign.

“In my review of the records, I didn’t find anything to suggest that military intervention was put on the table in NSC [National Security Council] deliberations,” said Gail Smith, a Clinton NSC official who did a review for the White House of the administration’s handling of the Rwandan genocide. Smith is an Obama supporter.

Prudence Bushnell, a retired State Department official who handled the Rwanda portfolio at the time and has not allied with a presidential candidate, confirmed that a U.S. military intervention was not considered in policy deliberations.

The one thing that she did that pretty much everyone mentions as a foreign policy triumph was her speech to the United Nations’ Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995. She spoke out forcefully in making a call for women’s rights, and she particularly mentioned forced abortion, a practice in the host country.

So when Senator Clinton derisively says, “With me or with Senator McCain, there is a lifetime of experience, but Senator Obama gave a speech in 2002,” one might counter by saying that her experience amounts to a disastrous vote on the Iraq War, a horrible vote that amounted to American saber rattling with Iran and a speech she made in 1995.

Both Senator and President Clinton have been dangling the prospect of a Clinton-Obama ticket in front of voters recently; the dream ticket that President Clinton says would be unstoppable. To use the well know Yiddish word- that’s chutzpah.

This is political calculus- a way to woo fence sitting voters towards Senator Clinton with a promise that if they vote for her, they will get Senator Obama too. It is clear that by talking about a joint ticket, the Clintons are trying to belittle Senator Obama and have a delusional and presumptuous idea that Senator Clinton will be in a position to “offer” the vice presidency to anyone. Mr. Obama has won more states, more delegates and more of the popular vote thus far. It takes a lot of hubris for the current second place candidate to be so beneficent as to suggest that the current first place candidate should be second on the Democratic ticket.

This implicit suggestion here is that the younger Mr. Obama would be more seasoned by serving as her Vice President. The Clinton’s are clear- this is Mrs. Clinton’s time she is owed the nomination or more precisely- a coronation. How shameful to demean the current front runner.

It is also blatant pandering. Mrs. Clinton never mentioned the possibility of a Clinton-Obama ticket before, but the days leading up to the Mississippi primary election, suddenly she puts forth the idea- vote for Hillary and you’ll get Barack too! Might this be a tactic to appeal to the African American vote in Mississippi- which by all accounts is 70% of the Democratic primary voters? I think it is clear that this pandering to African American Mississippians is exactly what is behind these statements. That is cynical politics.

But is it smart politics? I don’t think so. The Clinton campaign has had a mantra that Mrs. Clinton is ready to be President on Day 1 and Mr. Obama is not ready. I always thought that when one considers a running mate one of the criteria is “would this person be able to take the reigns of the Presidency”. It seems odd that Mrs. Clinton would on one hand say he is not capable of being “Commander In Chief” but on the other hand he is capable enough to be a heart beat away from the “Commander In Chief”.

That’s the sort of schizophrenia that has recently been the hallmark of the Clinton campaign. In debates with Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton has made a point of what an honor it is to be in this campaign with someone of Mr. Obama’s caliber. In stump speeches she eviscerates him as a neophyte who has oratorical flourish but little substance.

Which Hillary Clinton will we see today? Which Hillary Clinton will we see tomorrow?  I feel like I am watching Joanne Woodward in ”The Three Faces of Eve”.  There seem to be three people in this race: Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton’s alter-ego.

Today Mr. Obama not only shot back about how ludicrous and arrogant it was for the 2nd place person in the race to deign to offer the number 1 person in the race the Vice Presidency.

Rightly, Mr. Obama is beginning to ask questions about Mrs. Clinton’s claim to experience. Is 8 years as First Lady adequate experience? If so- Laura Bush is as ready as Mrs. Clinton. Yes she visited 80 countries and was asked to speak at the first women’s conference in Beijing China- but she wasn’t an organizer of that event nor was she visiting countries to broker treaties or conduct foreign policy. I am pleased that Mr. Obama has finally raised this question.

I am also pleased that Mr. Obama is pressing the Clintons to release some of their papers as well as detailed financial information. It is important to know who are the big donors to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library and his foundation. Who is the former President doing business with? What sort of influence might these individuals, corporations or governments have in a Hillary Clinton campaign.

It is bothersome to me that Mr. Obama has been pulled into this sort of conversation by the Clintons. This is exactly the sort of behavior that Mr. Obama’s campaign detests and that Mr. Obama has been campaigning against. It seems clear to me that Mrs. Clinton represents the partisan and bickering politics that has been plaguing Washington for decades that has gotten so bad that there is constant gridlock and nothing much gets done.

Every day I am more convinced that Mr. Obama has the ability to move this country to a less divisive and more unifying nation. Mrs. Clinton shows me that she is definitely the old guard. We need something refreshing and exciting in this country.