mrshl | blog

An editorial in the Chicago Tribune reveals another bombshell about Barack Obama’s embattled friend and minister:

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy’s premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief’s medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

As far as Wright goes, I’m not super critical of the soundbitten remarks for which he’s become (in)famous. Is he over the top and inaccurate? Sure he is. But so is Rush Limbaugh. So are Bush and Cheney (and the Tribute editorial points out their repeated avoidance of military service). Are his remarks so terrible? Let’s take a look (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Sound bites from a sermon that Wright gave in 2003, entitled “Confusing God and Government”, were also shown on ABC’s Good Morning America^[26] and Fox News, in which Wright made statements about God and the U.S. Government. In the sermon, Wright first makes the distinction between God and governments, and points out that many governments in the past have failed: “Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change.”^[28] Wright then states: “And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness.”^[28]

Wright concludes by stating:” The government gives them the drugs,^[29] built bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America. No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America — that’s in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.”^[28][30]

Do I think the US is responsible for drug use among blacks? Nope. But the incidental racism of our decades-long drug war isn’t a myth. Our black-letter law says crack dealers have to spend 100 times longer in prison than cocaine dealers. The only difference between the two drugs is that black people are the primary buyers and sellers of crack. It’s right there in the US Sentencing guidelines.

I’m voting for Obama, and it’s not because of his preacher. If I was voting against him, it also wouldn’t be because of his preacher. But it’s worth noting there’s more to Jeremiah Wright than what’s being reported.

Here’s a short list of quotes from Republicans criticizing Clinton’s Bosnian intervention. Naturally, well known Republicans like Trent Lott and Tom Delay were vocally opposed to Clinton’s plan because they didn’t like the open-ended nature of the commitment. Hmmmm.

My favorite quote?

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

–Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush, who was then Governor of Texas.

The notion that the United States was founded and conceived as a Christian nation is so often repeated it has become a cliche. The fact that it’s not true doesn’t appear to diminish the virulent nature of these claims.

Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on religious tolerance once again brought the issue to the forefront as Romney’s main rival, Mike Huckabee, appears to be gaining ground by playing the religion card.

Huckabee is a former Protestant minister. Romney is a mormon.

In Romney’s speech he makes a semi-passionate plea for religious tolerance, and he makes token references to Jews and Muslims. His real aim, though, was to convince Christian voters that he’s a Christian too, and not a member of a cult:

Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

But should Romney have to defend his faith in the first place? Yes, say the Republicans, because America is a Christian Nation! There’s plenty of crap on the Internet debunking this notion. I leave you with a long quote from the latest piece by University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone.

To be sure, there were traditional Christians among the Founders, including such men as John Jay, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. Most of the Founders, however, were not traditional Christians, but deists who were quite skeptical of traditional Christianity. They believed that a benevolent Supreme Being had created the universe and the laws of nature and had given man the power of reason with which to discover the meaning of those laws. They viewed religious passion as irrational and dangerously divisive, and they challenged, both publicly and privately, the dogmas of traditional Christianity.

Benjamin Franklin, for example, dismissed most of Christian doctrine as “unintelligible.” He believed in a deity who “delights” in man’s “pursuit of happiness.” He regarded Jesus as a wise moral philosopher, but not necessarily as a divine or divinely inspired figure. He viewed all religions as more or less interchangeable in their most fundamental tenets, which he believed required men to treat each other with kindness and respect.

Thomas Jefferson was a thoroughgoing skeptic who valued reason above faith. He subjected every religious tradition, including his own, to careful scrutiny. He had no patience for talk of miracles, revelation, and resurrection. Like Franklin, Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral philosopher, but insisted that Jesus’ teachings had been distorted beyond all recognition by a succession of “corruptors,” such as Paul, Augustine, and Calvin. He regarded such doctrines as predestination, trinitarianism, and original sin as “nonsense,” “abracadabra” and “a deliria of crazy imaginations.” He referred to Christianity as “our peculiar superstition” and maintained that “ridicule” was the only rational response to the “unintelligible propositions” of traditional Christianity.

John Adams, who identified most closely with the early Unitarians, also believed that the original teachings of Jesus had been sound, but that Christianity had subsequently gone awry. He wrote to Jefferson that the essence of his religious beliefs was captured in the phrase, “Be just and good.” As President, Adams signed a treaty, unanimously approved by the Senate in 1797, stating unambiguously that “the Government of the United States . . . is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

George Washington was respectful of traditional Christianity, but he did not have much use for it. His personal papers offer no evidence that he believed in biblical revelation, eternal life, or Jesus’ divinity. Clergymen who knew Washington well bemoaned his skeptical approach to Christianity. Bishop William White, for example, admitted that no “degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in Christian revelation.”

Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason, insisted that “the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian religion,” because it “is free from those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason.” Paine explained that deism’s creed “is pure and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests. It honours Reason as the choicest gift of God to man” and “it avoids all presumptuous beliefs and rejects, as the fabulous inventions of men, all books pretending to revelation.” Paine dismissed Christianity as “a fable, which, for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.” In Paine’s view, traditional Christianity had “served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”

These words no doubt sound shockingly blunt and “politically incorrect” to modern ears, but they were in fact the views of many of our most revered Founders. The fable that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation is just that – a fable.

Greg over at Culture Warrior lifted this from Wonkette. I too am astonished. But I’m having a hard time laughing at it.

Wonkette: Tancredo Setting New Standards for Racism

It’s ham-handed satire, but its heart is in the right place: 

Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears’s 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn’t changed at all: women are property, Blacks can’t marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That’s why we only have one religion in America.

Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

12 Reasons | Gator Gay-Straight Alliance

I’m the first one to agree that moving middle-class kids onto public health insurance probably isn’t the way to go. But hey, is it possible we aren’t getting the whole picture from policy makers? I know it’s crazy to suggest the Bush administration might not be giving us the whole truth, but this press release from an admittedly pro-SCHIP organization makes a persuasive case for the other side:

The second myth in the series, “CHIP-ing Away at the Myths,” deals with the myth of an expansion of eligibility:

* This bill does NOT change which children are eligible for CHIP. States have always had the flexibility to set CHIP eligibility at whatever level they deem appropriate for their state. CHIP is not a one-size-fits-all program, and eligibility levels vary widely from state to state. The bill preserves that flexibility.

* Claims by the President that this bill raises the CHIP eligibility level to $83,000 (400 percent of the federal of the poverty level) in annual income are unambiguously false. There isn’t a single state in the country with such a high eligibility level. One state, New York, wanted to set the eligibility standard at that level, but its request to do so was denied by the Administration.

* The CHIP bill will make it more difficult for states to set eligibility levels above 300 percent of poverty (approximately $62,000 in annual income for a family of four). States wishing to establish higher levels would receive less money for children with incomes above 300 percent than for lower-income children.

* The vast majority of the 3.8 million children who will gain coverage under this bill—more than 75%—have incomes below twice the poverty level. That’s $41,300 for a family of four.

“Insurance premiums for family health coverage now average more than $12,000 a year,” said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA. “These costs are simply unaffordable for millions of working families, especially those that would receive the most help for their children under this bill. It is cruel for the President to deny coverage to these kids and to offer a disingenuous reason for his veto.”

Second in the Series, “CHIP-ing Away at the Myths,” Focuses on Myths about Eligibility

This site may help. Warning, you may be fairly surprised with the results. I know I was.

http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

There are also helpful links to certain issues that you may or may not be aware of already that candidates are focusing in on for their campaign.

Jack Goldsmith, as former head of the Office of Legal Counsel inside the Justice Department, was responsible for evaluating and approving (or rejecting) the frequently controversial anti-terrorism policies of the Bush administration. His new book, The Terror Presidency, offers an insiders view of the fights over the ultimate legality of many of the President’s most contentious assertions of power.

In his book, Goldsmith admits he agrees with the President’s core objectives and world view. Indeed, he frankly states, he is “not a civil libertarian.” Nevertheless, he faults the Bush administration for taking the wrong path in protecting Americans from the next terrorist attack. I encourage you to read University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone’s review of the book for a more complete understanding of Goldsmith and the aims of his book. I’ll tempt you with the closing paragraph of that review:

The net effect of the Bush administration approach has been deeply ironic. Although “the President and Vice President wanted to leave the presidency stronger than they found it,” they “achieved the opposite.” By unlawfully disregarding statutory, international and constitutional law, they “borrowed against the power of future presidencies — presidencies that . . . will be viewed by Congress and the courts . . . with a harmful suspicion and mistrust.” Because of the Bush administration’s obsession with excessive presidential power, our nation and our democracy are less secure.

If you want the extreme cliff notes version, here’s Goldsmith appearing on the Jon Stewart show last week.

As some lawmakers ponder a new GI Bill, 2,600 soldiers in Minnesota’s National Guard are returning home to discover they won’t receive benefits under the current GI Bill. Despite serving longer than any other ground combat unit in Iraq, they came up just short of qualifying for the GI Bill’s substantial educational benefits.

How short? One day.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

“It’s pretty much a slap in the face,” Anderson said. “I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership… once again failing the soldiers.”
Anderson’s orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

“Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month,” Anderson said.

That money would help him pay for his master’s degree in public administration. It would help Anderson’s fellow platoon leader, John Hobot, pay for a degree in law enforcement.

“I would assume, and I would hope, that when I get back from a deployment of 22 months, my senior leadership in Washington, the leadership that extended us in the first place, would take care of us once we got home,” Hobot said.

Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730. Now, six of Minnesota’s members of the House of Representatives have asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it — So have Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman.

Now, I’m going to guess what happened here is this: The GI Bill was intended for men and women who serve during longer periods of enlistment, say 4 to 6 years. Under normal circumstances, troops from the National Guard wouldn’t be expected to serve anywhere near the time required to qualify. As we know, the Iraq war lasted quite a bit longer than the Bush administration expected.

Of course, the long war has provoked a serious budget crunch, serious enough that the unplanned expense of extending the GI Bill to thousands of unexpected beneficiaries isn’t economically feasible without Congress agreeing to front some extra money. No one in the military wants to pay them out of their current budget. So, what to do?

I know: How about we write the orders for only one day less than what’s required for GI Bill eligibility? The resulting uproar will force congress to come up with the extra cash, these soldiers will get their well-deserved money, and the Armed Forces won’t have look in the sofa for spare change just to do the right thing. And if Congress doesn’t come up with the money? Well, we can still support the troops with our magnetic yellow ribbons, I guess. Or our American flag lapel pins.

It’s kind of slimy isn’t it? But hear me roar, Congress. These dudes got to get paid.

From the Associated Press:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he doesn’t wear the American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for “true patriotism” since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Asked about the decision Wednesday in an interview with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Illinois senator said he stopped doing so shortly after the attacks and instead hoped to show his patriotism by explaining his ideas to citizens.

“The truth is that right after 9-11 I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9-11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

“I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said in the interview. “Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.”

You can expect Obama to catch holy hell from all sides. Indeed, it’s already started. Law professor Eugene Volokh argues that’s Obama’s decision is like deciding to stop telling your wife that you love her. Wrong. It’s like deciding to stop telling other people that you love your wife.

Like most people, I kind of assume that my married friends love their wives. I’d probably think it was weird if they decided to wear numerous symbols demonstrating something that should be obvious. Same goes for the flag. I don’t know a single person who wears a flag pin all the time. Or who is ostentatious about displaying a flag on their car, house, or boat. If you’re an American, and you live here on purpose, I kind of assume you love your country. I know I love my country.

I can kinda see what Obama’s saying, too. Overt, aggressive, and ubiquitous flag worship can seem kind of cheap and unseemly. And where’s the value of such a statement if everyone’s making it? This video filmed in NYC a few days after 9/11 does a fantastic job of making the point.

Finally, I’m not surprised that all the right-wing pundits are tripping over themselves to excoriate Obama’s conviction on this point. Ironically, though, I think Obama might be channeling a righteous source none of them would dare refute. Check out these words Jesus uttered to his disciples before delivering the Lord’s prayer:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:5-6

Or try this one:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Matthew 7:15-16

I think that’s sort of what Obama had in mind when he talked about true patriotism. When you look for a leader, you must look to the man, not his lapel pin.