The Alligator

Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered 40 years ago today just after 6pm as he stood on a balcony of the Lorraine motel in Memphis, Tennessee. A single rifle bullet hit him in the jaw, then severed his spinal cord. James Earl Ray, a white man, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 99 years.

King made a famous denunciation of America’s war in Vietnam exactly a year before his murder, before a crowd of 3,000 in the Riverside Church in Manhattan. He described Vietnam’s destruction at the hands of “deadly Western arrogance”, insisting that “we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor… taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

Within hours of King’s murder, rioting broke out in 80 cities across the country. Dozens of people, mostly black, were killed. On April 6 the Oakland police cornered the Black Panther leadership and when one of the young leaders, Bobby Hutton, emerged with his shirt off and his hands up, shot him dead.

In contrast to Bobby Hutton, the Panthers and above all Malcolm X, slain in 1965, white liberal opinion has hailed King as a man who chose to work non-violently within the system. Near the end, King himself was haunted by a sense of failure. In his last months he was booed at a mass meeting in Chicago and, as he lay sleepless that night, he knew why: “I had urged them [his fellow blacks] to have faith in America and in white society… They were now booing because they felt we were unable to deliver on our promises… They were now hostile because they were watching the dream they had so readily accepted turn into a nightmare.”

As the journalist Andrew Kopkind wrote shortly after King’s assassination, “That he failed to change the system that brutalizes his race is a profound relief to the white majority. As a reward they have now elevated his minor successes into major triumphs.” The night before he was shot, King said in a speech to the striking garbage workers of Memphis: “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.”

Forty years on, history has not vindicated King. America is still disfigured by racial injustice. Militant black leadership has all but disappeared.

To black radicals, the sedate homilies of Barack Obama are to the fierce demands for justice of Malcolm X and of King - in his more radical moments - as muzak is to Beethoven. Obama is caught, even as King was. The moment whites fear (admittedly with scant cause) he might raise the political temperature; he’s savaged with every bludgeon of convenience, starting with the robust sermons of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose sin is to have reminded whites that there are black Americans who are really angry.
“God damn America,” roared Wright, to white America’s consternation and fury. King was just as rough at the Riverside Church in the speech that so terrified the white elites: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

Pundits and others are trying to posit that their obsession with Reverend Wright because they see him his comments as “Anti-American”. Well, maybe Reverend Wright was following the example of Martin Luther King Jr.- speaking out of the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today- the government of the United States.

Is it “anti-American” to speak out and be angry with your government? Do you have to engage in jingoist flag waving to be a “true American”? Is it wrong to discuss some of the problems that infect our society as a result of our nation’s original sin- slavery? Is it “anti-American” to damn America when our government makes a colossal error or swaggers with Bush style hubris? Does being angry with your country mean that you don’t love your country? That’s what Reverends King and Wright did.

It saddens me that Senator Obama’s loyalty to his pastor- a man he speaks out fervently when he is outraged by our nation’s behavior and a man who served it honorably as a United States marine- is being used as a veiled racist wedge by some- both in the Democratic and Republican parties.

I have hope that we can move further towards Dr. King’s mountain top. I hope we can see his dream. In 1967 Dr. King eloquently challenged the nation and its role of violence in the world. He was the same man that spoke these words:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

A man who dreams these dreams for our nation and a man who can be incensed by the nation when its policies are wrong headed, dangerous and are not centered on equality and peace is a man that truly loves his country. Maybe if someone sits back for a moment and looks at Reverend Wright- his life, his work AND his words- they will see a man that loves his country with honesty, not with blind nationalism.

Senator Obama hasn’t done the politically expedient thing and disavowed a man who was complicated but clearly loves his country enough to speak about it with passion when he angry with its actions and serve it honorably- both within the community of Chicago and as a man inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” Wright gave up his student deferment, left college and joined the United States Marine Corps.

I wouldn’t have walked out of that church either.

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.

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.

I think the wheels have come off the “Straight Talk Express”. Senator John McCain has conveniently, and for political purposes begun pandering to the right wing of the Republican party with a vengeance- flip flopping on a number of issues- just to appease the radical right wing nut bags. It’s a sad way for a career marked by integrity and conviction to end. By giving up his ethical and moral standards- guiding principles for him during his military and much of his public service career- in order to get a Presidential nomination- is antithetical to what could have been a remarkable legacy. Instead this hero is turning into a panderer and a colossal joke. He has traded his soul for power. It is truly a Faustian story that would make Mephistopheles proud.

Senator John McCain is a bona finde war hero. On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying as part of a 20-plane attack against a thermal power plant in central Hanoi, a heavily defended target area that had previously been off-limits to U.S. raids. McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile while pulling up after dropping its bombs. McCain fractured both arms and a leg in being hit and ejecting from his plane. He nearly drowned after he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi. After he regained consciousness, a mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes. Others crushed his shoulder with the butt of a rifle and bayoneted him in his left foot and abdominal area; he was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” by American POWs. Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them information if taken to the hospital, hoping he could then put them off once he was treated. A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway. Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care and announce his capture. At this point, two days after McCain’s plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care.  He was interviewed by a French television reporter whose report was carried on CBS, and was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including the famous General Vo Nguyen Giap. Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that he must be part of America’s political-military-economic elite.  Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white, McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed “the Plantation” in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week (one was Bud Day, a future Medal of Honor recipient); they nursed McCain and kept him alive. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years. In July 1968, McCain’s father was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.  McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:  the North Vietnamese wanted a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially.  McCain turned down the offer of repatriation, due to the Code of Conduct principle of “first in, first out”: he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.  McCain’s refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.

In August of 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain, using rope bindings into painful positions, and beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery. Teeth and bones were broken again, as was McCain’s spirit; the beginning of a suicide attempt was stopped by guards. After four days of this, McCain signed an anti-American propaganda “confession” that said he was a “black criminal” and an “air pirate”, although he used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced.He felt then and always that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement, but as he would later write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.” His injuries to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head. Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time, his will to resist restored, he refused. He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal. Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract “confessions”. On one occasion when McCain was physically coerced to give the names of members of his squadron, he supplied them the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line.

Mr. McCain’s Viet Nam story is one of commitment to one’s ideals; it is an inspirational story of amazing selflessness and integrtity.

In the past he has exhibited that integrity and courage as a Senator too- speaking out on a number of issues which insensed the right wing of the Republican party.

When Congress was debating a Constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, Mr. McCain said “The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”

In 1999, John McCain said that overturning Roe v. Wade would be dangerous for women and he would not support it, even in “the long term.” Here’s McCain in the San Francisco Chronicle: “I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations”

McCain had been unequivocal in his condemnation of torture, and eloquent in expressing why. “We’ve sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists,” he said at an Oval Office appearance in December 2005, after he had forced the president to endorse an earlier torture ban McCain had authored and pushed through (a ban the president quickly subverted with a signing statement). “What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror.”
He made a similar case on the campaign trail in Iowa in October 2007: “When I was imprisoned, I took heart from the fact that I knew my North Vietnamese captors would never be treated like I was treated by them. There are much better and more effective ways to get information. You torture someone long enough, he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to know.”

Senator McCain voted twice against the Bush tax cuts saying that it is irresponsible to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans during a time when we are conducting a war.

But Mr. McCain has reversed all of these positions recently in a mad dash to the right in the most blatant pandering in recent memory just so he can be the Republican nominee for President

On the issue of gay marriage- he’s now on the side of the folks who would like to see our “laws” be subservient to “God’s laws”- whose God and what laws- remains a mystery

Now John McCain says he would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned and would appoint

Now he seems to be just fine with torture. Taking to the Senate floor to justify his vote against the torture ban on February 14th, McCain twisted himself in knots trying to explain how he could sponsor a bill — the 2006 Detainee Treatment Act — that prohibits the use of any cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment by the military while voting against a bill that would extend that ban to the CIA and other intelligence agencies: “It is important to the war on terror that the CIA have the ability to [detain and interrogate terrorists]. At the same time the CIA’s interrogation program has to abide by the rules, including the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act.” In other words, the CIA has to abide by rules prohibiting torture but we can’t tie the CIA’s hands by making it abide by rules prohibiting torture.

And of course he has made it a campaign promise to make the “Bush tax cuts” permanent regardless of the burden it causes as he vows to continue operations in Iraq.

I feel badly for Senator McCain. He has irreparably tarnished his integrity and his character for power. That is profoundly sad and I see it as a modern version of a Greek tragic myth. How sad to see someone give up honor for power.

I am not a Conservative and I am not a fan of Ronald Reagan. But I truly do not understand the deification of Ronald Reagan by the Conservative Right- his record wouldn’t be very popular by the Right today. It baffles me. I watched some of the CPAC convention and they spoke of Reagan as if he had been Christ himself.  The Conservative Republicans all worship at the alter of Ronald Reagan.  Governor Romney invoked the name of Reagan regularly to present “Conservative credibility” and Senator McCain continues to refer to himself as a “foot soldier” of the Reagan Revolution. 

Didn’t they live through the 1980’s? Sure he was transformational in the way that Senator Barack Obama has described, but there is so much about his record I would imagine would infuriate the Right Wing nuts- tax increases, immigration reform, a poor economy, increasing the size of government, arming the Taliban and Sadaam Hussein. Why is it that they deify him so? The policies and actions of his presidency do not give credence to the Reagan myth. It seems that this is nothing more than, as President Clinton said of Mr. Obama’s campaign- a fairy tale. The thing is that Mr. Obama’s campaign is not a fairy tale, but the Reagan myth is.

They claim he ended the Cold War- a fact I dispute – The fall of the Soviet Union was based on many factors that fell into place during his presidency not because of some miracle performed by Ronald Reagan.  You can read more about this in my post Who ended the Cold War? The Clash of Myth and Reality

Reagan is, to be sure, one of the most conservative presidents in U.S. history and will certainly be remembered as such. His record on the environment, defense, and economic policy is very much in line with its portrayal. But he entered office as an ideologue who promised a conservative revolution, vowing to slash the size of government, radically scale back entitlements, and deploy the powers of the presidency in pursuit of socially and culturally conservative goals. That he essentially failed in this mission hasn’t stopped partisan biographers from pretending otherwise.

A sober review of Reagan’s presidency doesn’t yield the seamlessly conservative record being peddled today. Federal government expanded on his watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the hardliners in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983 (which was probably the best thing he did). And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised

At the outset of his first term, Reagan’s revolution appeared to have unstoppable momentum. His administration passed an historic tax cut based on dramatic cuts in marginal tax rates and began a massive defense buildup. To help compensate for the tax cut, his first budget called for slashing $41.4 billion from 83 federal programs, only the first round in a planned series of cuts. And Reagan himself made known his desire to eliminate the departments of Energy and Education, and to scale back what his first budget director David Stockman called the “closet socialism” of Social Security and Medicaid.

But after his initial victories on tax cuts and defense, the revolution effectively stalled. Deficits started to balloon, the recession soon deepened (due to tax cuts and increase in defense spending), his party lost ground in the 1982 midterms, and thereafter Reagan never seriously tried to enact the radical domestic agenda he’d campaigned on. Rather than abolish the departments of Energy and Education, as he had promised to do if elected president, Reagan added a new cabinet-level department–one of the largest federal agencies–the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Though his budgets requested some cuts in some areas of discretionary spending, Reagan rapidly retreated and never seriously pushed them. As Lou Cannon, the Washington Post reporter who covered Reagan’s political career for 25 years, put it in his masterful biography, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, “For all the fervor they created, the first-term Reagan budgets were mild manifestos devoid of revolutionary purpose. They did not seek to ‘rebuild the foundation of our society’ (the task Reagan set for himself and Congress in a nationally televised speech of February 5, 1981) or even to accomplish the ’sharp reduction in the spending growth trend’ called for in [his] Economic Recovery Plan.” By Reagan’s second term, the idea of seriously diminishing the budget was, to quote Stockman, “an institutionalized fantasy.” Though in speeches Reagan continued to repeat his bold pledge to “get government out of the way of the people,” government stayed pretty much where it was.

This hasn’t stopped recent contemporary conservative biographers from claiming otherwise. “He said he would cut the budget, and he did,” declares Peggy Noonan in When Character Was King. In fact, the budget grew significantly under Reagan. All he managed to do was moderately slow its rate of growth. What’s more, the number of workers on the federal payroll rose by 61,000 under Reagan. (By comparison, under Clinton, the number fell by 373,000.)

One year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year’s reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike–the largest since World War II–was actually “tax reform” that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn’t count as raising taxes.)

Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives–and probably cost Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection–Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.

Reagan deserves some credit for a foreign policy of confronting and challenging the Soviet Union that helped bring on its collapse–a central theme of any account of his life- even though his challenge to the Soviet Union was done so by shoring up the Taliban in Afghanistan.  But the vexing problem for conservatives, then and now, was that Reagan’s bellicosity, which they liked, obscured an equally strong belief that nuclear weapons could and should be abolished, a conviction found mainly on the liberal left. Long before he became president, Reagan had argued for a massive military buildup not just to confront the Soviets, which hardliners approved, but also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control–a goal to which conservative pragmatists subscribed. But no one shared, or even understood until late in the game, Reagan’s desire for total disarmament. “My dream,” he later wrote in his memoirs, “became a world free of nuclear weapons.” This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war–and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons.

The great success of Reagan’s 1980 campaign was that it united the disparate strands of the conservative movement: supply-siders, libertarians, religious conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and big business. The fact that Reagan’s presidency didn’t accomplish anything approaching its seismic promise–the size of government grew, abortion remained legal, and entitlements still abounded–is one that his partisan biographers elide by focusing on what Reagan believed and said rather than on what he actually did. The imaginary Reagan who inhabits these books embodies the ideas on which all these groups can agree. His shining example helps maintain the coalition while putting pressure on current GOP politicians to hew to the hard-right ideal.

During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We take a look at America’s role in Afghanistan that led to the rise of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan’s approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that “he had the duty to bring those Americans home,” and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan’s campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

A clear analysis of Mr. Reagan’s policies supporting the mujahedeen in Afghanistan and Sadaam Hussein in Iraq lead me to the conclusion that the iconic Mr. Reagan actually added and abetted the causes of terrorists in Afghanistan and Sadaam- a man who Ronald Reagan armed, by illegal means, and then by George W. Bush attacked to disarm.

And then there was The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which included that dirtiest of all Conservative words – AMNESTY!

The real Reagan, on the other hand, would bring discord to the current conservative agenda. If you believe, as conservatives now do, that raising taxes is always wrong, then it’s hard to admit that Reagan himself did so repeatedly. If you argue that the relative tax burden on low-income workers is too light, as the Bush administration does, then it does not pay to dwell on the fact that Reagan himself helped lighten that burden. If you insist, as many hardliners now do, that America is dangerously soft on communist China, then it is best to ignore Reagan’s own softening toward the Soviet Union. As with other conservative media efforts–Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel, The Washington Times–the purpose of the Reagan legacy project is not to deliver accuracy, but enhance political leverage.

I guess the 1980’s were a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. History is re-written quickly. I thought rewriting history that occurred in my life time wouldn’t happen at least until I was dead.

One year from today at Noon Eastern Standard Time the 44th President of the United States will be sworn in. Is the nation hungering for more than just “easy change” but for transformation?

Senator Barack Obama got himself into a heap of problems with the Democratic Party machine when he talked about Ronald Reagan being one of the transformational presidents in our history.

His exact words were, “I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times…I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

There is no doubt that I loathe Ronald Reagan. But I have to agree that his Presidency has had a profound effect on this country since 1980.

You can see articles on my blog- Who ended the Cold War? The Clash of Myth and Reality   about how I find the credit given to him for ending the Cold War absolutely ridiculous. The stage had been being set by US Presidents for a long time- just look at some of the comments made by President Gerald R. Ford about this issue that were released after President Ford’s death when he contended that his negotiations of the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights had much to do with the movement towards the demise of the Soviet Union. Of course- there is also the fact that without President Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II had a hand in “tearing down that wall”.

You can also read how much I feel that his inattention to the AIDS epidemic in the United States was beyond reprehensible and that he has the blood of thousands of people on his hands by not addressing the issue for years which led to not funding prevention, care and research appropriately in my piece A Half Century on the Planet: A Reflection on my 50th birthday

So I am no fan of Ronald Reagan but there is no doubt that he was a transformational figure in our political landscape. He is still affecting our nation today nearly 20 years after he first left office. His legacy is one that while I believe was ultimately not for the better but for the worse- and led us towards a nation willing to elect George W. Bush not once but twice- he had a profound effect on the nation. To ignore that is simply putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and going “LA LA LA LA LA”.

Face it, President Clinton never would have dismantled Welfare if it had not been for his desire to pander to the politics of Reagan. President Clinton was not forced into Welfare Reform, he promoted it. Have the Clintons forgotten that little piece of information when warmly remembering the wonderful days of the 1990’s. I liked President Clinton as a President, but he did not change the direction of this nation. He was not a transformational leader like Presidents Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt or President Lincoln. One does not have to agree with the transformation that the transformational leader inspired to acknowledge that that leader did in fact created change.

Walter Dean Burnham had a theory of transformational presidents and non-transformational president. Franklin Roosevelt was a transformational president, somebody who didn’t just occupy the office but fundamentally changed the country according to Burnham. In my opinion he created transformation that I applaud as opposed to the transformation that Reagan created which I deplore.

Senator Obama was correct though. Through the 1970’s we liberals did not tend to the New Deal and Great Society programs that were brilliantly developed to lift up our poor and our lower classes. We were smug and lazy and these programs became bloated bureaucracies that did not move smartly in order to be as effective as possible. They became ripe for discontent for many of the “Reagan Democrats”. Add to that the jingoist American arrogance that came from our declaration that we ended the cold war that allowed us to develop more arrogant foreign policies and swagger in our step on the world stage and you can see the writing on the wall towards our march to the first prëmptive war in our nation’s history- the war where we are currently mired in Iraq.

There is nothing wrong with saying that we need another transformational leader to move us in a new direction. If neither Senators Clinton nor Edwards are willing to acknowledge the realities of our history that is somewhat troubling to me. My sense is that they do indeed understand history but knowing how much many of us liberals loathe Reagan and his legacy it was awfully good political fodder.

“If I understand what he was saying I can’t entirely disagree with it. They both came along at times when society was on the cusp of change and they are both agents of change,” President Reagan’s youngest son Ron Reagan Jr, told the Huffington Post. “As far as Barack Obama being a similar agent of change, that remains to be seen. But what I do see him saying is that we are in a historical moment right now like the 60s and 80s. And I think he’s right. We are overdue for a cultural shift right now.”

I have often thought that Ron Reagan Jr., was not a fan of his father’s politics but a zealous protector of his father’s legacy. I think his comment that we are overdue for a cultural shift is dead on.

In an interview with “American Prospect” magazine, Pulitzer Prize winning Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said:

“History suggests that unless a progressive president is able to mobilize widespread support for significant change in the country at large, it’s not enough to have a congressional majority. For example, Bill Clinton had a Democratic majority when he failed to get health reform.

When you look at the periods of social change, in each instance the president used leadership not only to get the public involved in understanding what the problems were but to create a fervent desire to address those problems in a meaningful way.”

Mr. Clinton is a political animal and politics trumped everything. He could have chosen to battle for letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military as he promised during his campaign – he could have made good on that promise- but political expedience won out.

It is eerie that Doris Kearns Godwin’s analysis of President Clinton is not unlike that of Mr. Obama’s.

In discussing Teddy Roosevelt, Goodwin said “Roosevelt faced a conservative Congress. But the muckrakers created, in the middle class especially, an understanding of what had to be done in conservation, in food and drug legislation, in the regulation of the railroads. They revealed in long, factual, investigative pieces the way in which Standard Oil and the trusts were constricting opportunity for smaller, independent businesses. Then, with an aroused public, TR was able to pressure the Congress to do something. Similarly, in the early days of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt used the power of the bully pulpit in his famous fireside chats to drive home to the country at large the need for significant federal legislation in a wide range of areas to ease the problems of the Great Depression.”

And when  Robert Kuttner in this December 2007 interview with Goodwin for “American Prospect”, “The public has been trained for 30 years to think that there’s really nothing great the government can do, except perhaps to prevent attacks. Where do you start? How do you change public opinion so that you can then change legislative direction? Goodwin answered.

“The next president has to be able to express a sense of what America can be, what America has been in the past, and what it is not now. It has to be overarching; it cannot be just “we need this program and this program and this program.” He or she has to remind us what made people come to this country in the first place — the belief that here, as Lincoln famously said, we had formed a government “whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” The first and the most difficult task for the new president will be to remind people what made America so special in the first place, to create an emotional desire on their part to bring our performance closer to that ideal, to make clear the wide array of artificial weights that still prevent far too many people from having a fair chance in the race of life, and then and only then to propose the legislative programs or executive actions that will address these shortcomings.”

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss when asked in an interview with Bill Steigerwald of “The Pittsburgh Tribune Review” what makes a great president he answered, “A number of things, but I think the most important ones are the vision to understand where to take the country and the skills to move the American people to that vision. All of this as blessed by historians and the American people of a later generation.”

So transformational presidencies are fundamentally the most important and have been milestones in our nation’s history. Senator Obama seems to understand this truth at a gut level.

In my essay about why I voted for Barack Obama I pointed to an article written by Michael Kinsley in the New York Times where he said “We as a society have shown no tolerance for unpleasant changes, and politicians have shown no enthusiasm for trying to persuade us that they might be necessary. If all you want is happy changes, you really don’t want change at all.”

It is clear that Senator Obama understands more clearly than most that we are at one of those junctures in our history where our nation is craving a transformational president. Every presidential historian point to the fact that a leader cannot create sea change without being able to move the American people. Mr. Kinsley astutely acknowledges that people don’t want unpleasant change and most change that is needed is indeed somewhat unpleasant. It is imperative that someone who sees beyond tinkering with one government program or another and actually inspirses the American people to move and create that change at a societal level. Society isn’t informed by policy as much as policy is informed by society. Finding how to move society forward to a vision that is positive makes creating the necessaary policy for the framework of that vision an easier task. Leadership and policy wonkiness while not necessarily mutually exclusive, are different skills.

There are none among the Republican presidential hopefuls that have a hope of developing a transformational presidency. There is nothing inspiring about this group of men. There is nothing in their words that makes one ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. These men are really not interested in change at all. They hearken back to Reagan’s revolution but have no idea how to create their own and it seems unlikely that they would even want a revolution.

Senators Clinton and Edwards are not as aware of the importance of the transformational leader as is Mr. Obama. They may indeed be able to transform things, but will they inspire? Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton might be able to create some change especially if they were elected in with a Democratic sweep of Congress. But they are focusing on programs to fix things not on inspiring the people to change and have government build programs based on the framework of that societal shift.

I go back to Ron Reagan Jr.’s comment “We are overdue for a cultural shift right now.” I couldn’t agree more. I ardently hope that the American people are honest in their desire to do the hard work for change- but that will require a leader who can lead us in that transformation.

One year from now, I do hope we are swearing in a transformational leader. Our nation needs it, we hunger for it and we are like a nomadic tribe in the desert searching for that oasis- the leader who can move us to change.

I believe that Barak Obama essentially understands this role and is ready to take it. But we’ll see how serious the people are about wanting that real change. I want to challenge us to be better than what Mr. Kinsley thinks about us- that we really only want easy change- because we will not have any change unless the people can be inspired to create change.

We are at a time that demands more than competent bureaucratic leadership and politics as usual it requires inspiration and transformational leadership. The Republicans have no policies of change nor do any of them have the qualities to inspire us- they actually have no interest in any change- it is not to their benefit. Transformational leadership? No I don’t think so- not among this crew.

Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton might create change if given a friendly Congress but will this be enough will it indeed provide that transformational leadership we need and that we crave at this time? Maybe, but I am not willing to that risk to paraphrase former President Clinton. That’s why I have put my hopes into Senator Obama. Simply transformational leadership will transform us, not just our government.

When those 21 guns salute and “Hail to the Chief” is played after the 44th President takes the oath of office one year from today I hope and pray that it will be a moment of transformation for the nation with a leader who is able to lead and inspire that transformation.

On the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said eloquently in his “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech words that ring so true today.

“Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

Over the past few months I have made reference to Mr. Huckabee as being a man with whom I have fundamental differences, but whom I respect for a sense of integrity and his fair spirit when it comes to issues on immigration and poverty. I never ever would vote for the man or even give it a passing fancy- but I can admire people with whom I fundamentally differ as long as we can respectfully agree to disagree and if there is a mutual respect for the rule of law.

All those nice things that I said about Mike Huckabee- I take it all back.

This man is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He is a dangerous man. Sure I knew that he was anti-choice and was against gay marriage- but he isn’t the only one and it seemed to me that he had the sort of spirit that although he fundamentally disagreed with these issues, he understood the distinction between religion and civil law. He seemed to say some of the right things to make me feel less concerned about his religious zealotry.

I thought that he said just the right thing in response to the Baptist canon that “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband,” and “serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.” Many Southern Baptists understand that to mean that just men are meant to occupy certain leadership roles like church pastor. But in a debate last week in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Mr. Huckabee said the position required no subordination at all. It meant, he said, both husbands and wives “mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.” “Biblically,” he added, “marriage is a 100-100 deal. Each partner gives 100 percent of their devotion to the other.” Maybe he wasn’t a literalist when it came to the interpretation of the Bible like so many others of the Christian radical right. I guess I forgot that he raised his hand when Wolf Blitzer asked the Republican candidates in one of those CNN sham debates about Evolution and divulged he is one of those Creationists.

Of course what made me see Mr. Huckabee’s true colors was his comments about the Constitution. Speaking to a not-particularly religious crowd near Detroit on Monday, before the Michigan primary, he slipped into an argument to amend the Constitution to ban abortion and same-sex marriage, “so it’s in God’s standards, rather than try to change God’s standards.” SAY WHAT?

Does the smiling guy with the dimples who charms the pants off of people with his folksy charm and who has said all the right things to assuage the concerns that a Baptist preacher would be in the position to affect secular policy really have an nefarious Christian agenda? I guess so. It sounds to me eerily like Mr. Huckabee is interested in seeing the United States as a theocracy.

Sure these statements are Republican red meat and were about abortion rights and gay marriage. But his remarks are troubling on so many levels.

First- I don’t understand how any fair-minded “Christian” person, even if they fundamentally disagree with choice and gay marriage, could consider writing limitations to rights and liberties into our constitution. Amending our constitution to limit rights and liberties is antithetical to what we believe that document inherently protects.

Second is just the idea that secular law has to line up with someone’s definition of God’s law. Who is the arbiter of what Biblical laws should be the model for our Constitution.

Are we talking about the fundamental laws of the Bible- the Ten Commandments? If so, neither abortion nor gay marriage is relevant.

Remember those Commandments?
1: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.
2: ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
3: ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5: ‘Honor your father and your mother.
6: ‘You shall not murder.
7: ‘You shall not commit adultery.
8: ‘You shall not steal.
9: ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’
10: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

Well I guess we should take the rights away of our citizens who commit adultery? Well I guess that would take out most of the Christian right. They seem famous for their sleazy sex scandal. I guess we should take away the rights of children who do not honor their parents who beat and abuse them. I guess any Buddhist or Hindu or any person not from the Islamic-Judaic-Christian tradition (Never forget that these three religions are tied to one another and all can trace their beginnings to Abraham) would lose their rights. I also think that this country seems to conveniently forget the relationship between Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Slavery is just fine in the Bible. A father has the right to sell his daughter into slavery. Exodus 21:7 states, “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do. Even Jefferson Davis hid behind the Bible when defending slavery for the Confederacy. “Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts,” said Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. Leviticus 25:44-46 states that “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”

Here’s a little gem from Deuteronomy 21-24: Then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house , and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house ; thus you shall purge the evil from among you. If a man is found lying with a married woman , then both of them shall die , the man who lay with the woman , and the woman ; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel . If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man , and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death ; the girl , because she did not cry out in the city , and the man , because he has violated his neighbor’s wife . Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

So in fact what Biblical laws are the ones that our Constitution need to reflect? As a gay man I have always found the Biblical arguments against homosexuality rather specious and very selective. If you truly believe that the Bible is God’s law and everything in it should be taken literally. Why are these other issues that are considered heinous- slavery and killing young girls who are not virgins- in contemporary society conveniently forgotten but the two or three references to homosexuality are hauled out of the morality chest when discussing gay issues?

Biblical interpretation- even among the most ardent literalist- is always conveniently weighted to their own specific prejudices and agendas. The Old Testament – the testament that defined most Biblical laws was written thousands of years ago for nomadic tribes living in the desert- not for the contemporary world.

So Mr. Huckabee’s desire to see the Constitution line up with God’s law is again one of those great hypocrisies that feed into hate and prejudice that conveniently extracts portions of the Bible as the final word on an issue. I had thought that Mr. Huckabee’s views were more those of Jesus- love, tolerance and charity and less about the draconian and millennially outdated laws of a nomadic people wandering through the desert.

Sadly I was wrong- Mr. Huckabee is just another one of those wolves in sheep’s clothing. More dangerous than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell because he is so folksy and “appealing” in his “shucks I’m just a guy” sort of way that hides that evil prejudice and he can make many people, including myself, think that he was a Christian in the model of Jesus, not in the model of Falwell and Robertson. That is scary!

Benazir Bhutto, like any leader of a nation that has a tradition rife with corruption, military coups, and assassination of leaders had her flaws. But she was undeniably a courageous leader. Her return to Pakistan two months ago raised hopes that her country might find its way toward democracy and stability. Her assassination on Thursday is yet one more horrifying reminder of how far Pakistan is from both — and how close it is to the brink. No blogger with his or her salt could take off the usual holiday hiatus without addressing this appalling act.

Ms. Bhutto’s death leaves the Bush administration with no visible strategy for extricating Pakistan from its crisis or rooting out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which have made the country their most important rear base.

One thing is clear- Bush and Company believe that the elections should go on as planned in Pahkistan in order to show the world that they are serious about having a free and open election and a democratically elected country. PLEASE! With one party banned from participating due to the sham that Musharaf made of the Pakistani Supreme Court and Bhutto’s own party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), in turmoil with the assassination of its titular leader.

Senator Chris Dodd was correct today. As much as we want to see free and open elections, they will not happen under the current circumstances. There would be one party in the election- Musharaf – a President who originally came to power in a military coup d’etat. In order to have a fair, open and free election, the Pakistan Peoples Party should be given ample time to regroup and find new leadership that can take up Ms. Bhutto’s mantle.

Benazir Bhutto was a bridge. She was able to successfully bridge the east and the west, she bridged various factions in Pakistan and most importantly she bridged the role of women in a culture that is known to demean women by being an elected female Prime Minister in a Muslim nation.

Bhutto was an amazingly accomplished woman. Benazir Bhutto was born to Begum Nusrat Ispahani, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of a prominent Shia Muslim family of Larkana , in Karachi in 1953. After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe College at Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with cum laude honors in comparative government. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The next phase of her education took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973 and 1977 Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy while at Oxford. In December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society.

Pakistan was born out of violence and that violence has remained- to one extent or another ever since. In 712, the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh and Multan in southern Punjab. The Pakistan government’s official chronology states that “its foundation was laid” as a result of this invasion. This would set the stage for several successive Muslim empires in the Indian subcontinent, including the Ghaznavid Empire, the Ghorid Kingdom, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. During this period, Sufi missionaries played a pivotal role in converting a majority of the regional Buddhist and Hindu population to Islam. The gradual decline of the Mughal Empire in the early eighteenth century provided opportunities for the Afghans, Balochis and Sikhs to exercise control over large areas until the British East India Company gained ascendancy over South Asia.

The rebellion, also known as the Indian Mutiny, in 1857 was the region’s last major armed struggle against the British Raj, and it laid the foundations for the generally unarmed freedom struggle led by the mostly Hindu Congress Party. However, the Muslim League rose to popularity in the late 1930s amid fears of under-representation and neglect of Muslims in politics. On 29 December 1930, Allama Iqbal’s presidential address called for an autonomous “state in northwestern India for Indian Muslims, within the body politic of India” Muhammad Ali Jinnah espoused the Two Nation Theory and led the Muslim League to adopt the Lahore Resolution of 1940 (popularly known as the Pakistan Resolution), which ultimately led to the formation of an independent Pakistan.

Pakistan was formed on 14 August 1947 with two Muslim-majority wings in the eastern and northwestern regions of the British Indian Empire, separated from the rest of the country with a Hindu majority, and comprising the provinces of Balochistan, East Bengal, the North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab and Sindh.

The partition of the British Indian Empire resulted in communal riots across India and Pakistan—millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus and Sikhs moved to India. Disputes arose over several princely states including Jammu and Kashmir whose ruler had acceded to India following an invasion by Pashtun warriors, leading to the First Kashmir War (194 ending with India occupying roughly two-third of the state. From 1947 to 1956, Pakistan was a Dominion in the Commonwealth of Nations. The republic declared in 1956 was stalled by a coup d’etat by Ayub Khan (1958–69), who was president during a period of internal instability and a second war with India in 1965. His successor, Yahya Khan (1969–71) had to deal with the cyclone which caused 500,000 deaths in East Pakistan.

Economic and political dissent in East Pakistan led to violent political repression and tensions escalating into civil war (Bangladesh War of Independence) and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and ultimately the secession of East Pakistan as the independent state of Bangladesh.. Estimates of the number of people killed during this episode vary greatly, from ~30,000 to over 2 million depending on the source.

The Pakistani military has played an influential role in mainstream politics throughout Pakistan’s history, with military presidents ruling from 1958–71, 1977–88 and from 1999 onwards. The leftist Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, emerged as a major political player during the 1970s and led by his daughter Benazir Bhuttp was the only real threat to Pakistani military rule.

So putting it simply- Pakistan has never been a paragon of stability. But President Bush has put all his eggs in the Musharaf basket for our nation’s hopes for security in a part of the