Straight talk on McCain's presidential ambition

From opinion piece in Politico by Elizabeth Drew, author of complimentary biographer, "Citizen McCain."

In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” he wrote, revealingly, “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.” (bold is mine)

...

There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges.

McCain’s making a big issue of “earmarks” and citing entertaining examples of ridiculous-sounding ones, circumvents discussion of the larger issues of the allocation of funds in the federal budget: according to the Office of Management and Budget, earmarks represent less than one percent of federal spending.

...

Campaigns matter. If he means “shaking up the system” … opposing earmarks doesn’t cut it.

McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.
In fact, it’s not clear who he is."

Obama's new ad: serious talk for serious times

How refreshing to find this ad from Sen. Barack Obama on The Moderate Voice today. Yeah, it's dry and it pushes our attention limits by pushing to two minutes in length. But you know what? I think he strikes the right tone and as citizens we owe it to look deeper into the serious issues facing our country. I'm tired of hearing about how strong the fundamentals of our economy are when I know I need to stretch every dime right now.

Read the Obama/Biden plan for the economy and taxes here.

Some Tweets on Palin

I am addicted to Twitter. During Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC, I sat in my family room with my laptop and joined a collection of followers and followees in a shared viewing experience. Son #1 sat next me and said, "So is this like texting for adults."

Yeah, I guess it is, only you're not texting one individual, you're talking to a group of people. While there may be some shared followers, no two Twitterers share the same conversation.

Increasingly, I find myself using it as a place for mini-posts that replace regular longer posts here on Creative Ink. Call me lazy, but sometimes it's just easier to post a pithy 140-character thought than to carve out the time for something longer here. I'm striving for better balance.

Today, I've been reading about Charles Gibson's interview with Gov. Sarah Pallin. Here are the tweets based on what I've read this morning:

In response to WAPO article in which Jill Zimon is quoted about how Palin manages home/family/work:
@Jillmz Nice! Article is interesting and begging for a blog post. WHY do we have to bring up mommy wars????? about 4 hours ago from web in reply to Jillmz

Retweeting item by Tracy Zollinger:
Retweeting @tinymantras Wondering if Sarah Palin will be interviewed by any female journalists before the election. about 4 hours ago from web

My musing after reading several stories about how Obama campaign needs to get back on message:
Paging Aaron Sorkin: We need an Andrew Shepard moment to refocus campaigns on what really matters. about 3 hours ago from web

Response to Paul Krugman's piece Blizzard of Lies:
Krugman: "how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern." http://is.gd/2wW5 about 2 hours ago from web

Reflecting on Obama's two-hour lunch with Bill Clinton:
What would Bill do? Politico takes a crack: http://is.gd/2wSo about 2 hours ago from web

Joan Walsh thinks McCain/Palin making mockery of 9/11:
"There is a constituency of people who want their president...to be just as clueless and uninformed as they are." http://is.gd/2x9W about 1 hour ago from web

Finally, this morning, the review from Atlantic's James Fallow's in China:
James Fallows on what Sarah Pallin didn't know: http://is.gd/2x8D. Reason? She was not interested enough.

Tuesday Tidbits: Why Joe Biden rocks, WAPO Wonder bread, power and sex in the church and another broken bone

Why Joe Biden rocks
I've been a fan of Sen. Joe Biden's for one simple reason: he is a no-nonsense guy unafraid to speak his mind. It's a shame his presidential run didn't get very far ironically in part because of his forthrightness. If you missed his op-ed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal, I suggest you give it a look. There's also a video bit on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program below. Biden for veep? Secretary of State?

He does a nice job of talking about the current administration's squandered opportunities. There's this:

At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the "war on terrorism" that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.

Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make.

And this:

Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can't identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win. (Bold is mine.)

Wonder Bread at WAPO op-ed
Last week was one of those weeks when I was working in triage mode getting through various deadlines so I missed getting some things posted that caught my eye. One was WAPO ombud Deborah Howell's look at the complexion of the paper's op-ed pages.

I love the Post, but I have to agree that its op-ed pages are so vanilla that I tend not to read them very often. The old tucks have been holding court so long (and vociferously) that I'm sure there's a "why bother" mentality of some would-be contributors.

But the answer to why bother is that this nation desperately needs to hear new voices. It's the only way to ensure our democracy, which frankly feels "less than" these days. And that's partly because we've been living under an administration that labels citizens as unpatriotic for having a difference of opinion. I saw a bumper sticker on a car in the Bay Village Library today that said, and I'm paraphrasing: Dissent is the truest form of patriotism. If you know anything of Bay Village, you know that it just warms my heart to know that there are few others like me in this town.

A variation of the same could be said of the Catholic church.

Power and sex in the Catholic church
On Thursday, June 5, Cleveland-based FutureChurch welcomes Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson who will speak on his book, "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus." Father Donald Cozzens, who used to be a frequent celebrant at my church and is now teaching at John Carroll University, wrote the forward. The public lecture will be held at 7 p.m. at 3430 Rocky River Drive.

This is one of only 10 stops on his U.S. tour. He's been banned from speaking on church property in some places and word is Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon is not pleased with his appearance here in Cleveland, but (at least for now) is allowing it to take place.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese banned him because he believes his work is counter to doctrinal teaching. I wonder if Mahony has even read the book. Here's what he wrote to Robinson.

I have come to learn that you new book is being investigated by the Australian Bishops' Conference because of concerns about doctrinal errors and other statements in the book contrary to Church teaching.

I have also learned that His Eminence, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops, has urged you to cancel your visit to the United States.

Consequently, I am hereby requesting that your cancel you visit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles now set for June 12, 2008. Canon 763 makes it clear that the Diocesan Bishop must safeguard the preaching of God's Word and the teachings of the Church in his own Diocese. Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

What are they so afraid of that they would seek to deny someone's opportunity to have a voice? More to the point: WWJD?

Another broken bone
My little Mikey broke his wrist on Friday while riding his bike home from a friend's house. A very kind mom drove him and his bike home and I wish I knew who she was so I could properly thank her. (I was at my neighbor's and she had left by the time my older boys found me.) Today he is sporting a royal blue cast that goes above his elbow and is already filled with signatures from his friends and teachers. He wouldn't let me sign it first because he didn't want me to spoil the clean look. So I signed after school in very large lettering on the under side of his arm, "LOVE, MOM (smiley face)."

Fortunately, we are only looking at a total of four weeks for this injury and at most, some lost baseball games, a week or two of three-on-three summer hoops and some pool time.

My baby must have been on my brain because I had one of those bizarre dreams in the early dawn today where I was getting everyone off to school—high school and middle school—when a 2-year-old version of Mikey came around the corner and said, "Hi, Mama." And a surprised me said, "Hi, Baby Boy." It was so real that I could see and smell his little toddler face, with his precious little cheeks, his chubby bare feet and his long, fluttery eyelashes.

It was the very best kind of sweetness. Unfortunately, at a beefy 9 years old, there's no way I could balance him on my hip these days.




Word of the day
Manichean: a believer in religious or philosophical dualism
Example: "You're either with us or against us." — President George W. Bush

"Hard-liners for Jesus"

My concern isn't the rift that has opened between Republican political practice and the vision of the nation's Founders, who made very clear in the Constitution that there would be no religious test for officeholders in their enlightened new republic. Rather, it's the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel's Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.

[snip]

But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he's a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for.

—Harold Myerson writing in today's Washington Post