Category: politics

Nikki Giovanni


I got to meet Nikki Giovanni this week! Okay, not really. I spoke with her for about 28 seconds immediately after she gave an MLK Day speech. I’m a total fanboy! I gave my best Walter Payton combo of sliding, diving and pushing through the crowd to reach her and was able to say all the critical things in those 28 seconds.

Things like:
Her critical inspiration for me to achieve a surprising level of openness in my poetry
Our use of her poem Resignation at our wedding
One of my student’s research project on Giovanni and the Black Arts Movement
The power and bravery of her continuing stands for justice and against inequality

I was also able to give her a copy of MOSAIC. I can only hope she enjoys it.

FDO

out of the mouths of babes 2

I was working this morning while my son watched Fairy Oddparents next to me on the couch. In an episode about bad luck, a stupid president inadvertently almost starts a nuclear war. My son interrupted me so he could rewind it because, ‘Hey look, they’re making fun of President Bush!’

I love being a parent.

TP

Turkeys in the Straw (Poll)

Isn’t it interesting how the straw poll results are being parsed? Mike Huckabee is the big winner with 2nd place while Mitt Romney’s win is perceived as unconvincing. Huckabee is a protestant minister from Arkansas. He only won 2nd by a small margin of about 400 votes. No one has decided that 3rd place Sam Brownback was a big winner. Peculiar.

Also consider that Romney is a clear outsider in Iowa in multiple dimensions. He’s a Mormon, he’s from MA, he’s perceived as a slick elitist and he’s the flippiest of floppers on issues critically important to conservatives. I wonder how his team can re-write the conventional wisdom and impress upon the national public (and Iowans) that his victory really was substantial and meaningful. If he can’t, he’ll have a massive struggle regaining momentum.

Sure Romney spent lots of money in Iowa. Suddenly people are acting as though the use of money renders his victory invalid. Uh, let’s be honest, anyone who wins a nomination from either the GOP or Democratic parties is going to spend huge money. Pretending that spending money is a problem seems ridiculous.

TP

Iraqi Vacation


Last Sunday, Defense Secretary Gates admitted that he told the Iraqi legislature that it was unacceptable for them to have an adjournment while Americans were fighting, killing and dying for their country. They went anyway. This means something pretty devastating, doesn’t it?

Our army says you can’t take a break but they do. Who pulls the strings here? Do the Iraqis know that we’ll continue to attempt to protect them (or at least our interests) regardless of what they do? We are in way too deep.

TP

Tag Team Candidates?

I wonder if it really has significance but there are numerous pundits already speculating on the possibilities of Presidential/Vice Presidential pairings. Clinton/Richardson, Hagel/Bloomberg or Bloomberg/Hagel, Gore/Obama are all being floated as likely teams. Is this a painfully premature shift or the start of a new mechanism for creating momentum, support and anticipation?

Just one of the speculative ideas:

Clinton-Richardson ticket in the making?

TP

Cheney’s perspective

John Perry Barlow

[Dick] Cheney believes the world is an inherently
dangerous place and he sees the rest of the world
as… populated by four-year-olds with automatic
weapons.

Reading this quote by Barlow in the book Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency helped me understand why I struggle so much to relate to him at all. Not personally but politically. It’s frequently hard to make sense of his paranoia, sense of entitlement and obsession with secrecy. Barlow’s quote makes it a bit easier to decipher the madness behind his methods.

TP

Out of the mouths of babes

I just have to share this.

We attended a memorial service recognizing 3500 American deaths in Iraq. While there, someone named Jim engaged my son in conversation about George W. Bush. Jim asked my son what he would trade for GWB. My son said he’d trade Bush in for garbage. Jim asked how anyone would know the difference. My son paused for a moment then said, ‘Garbage doesn’t lie.’

Train up a child…

TP

GOP debate tonight!

I am looking forward to tonight’s Republican debate. The million dollar question on my mind is this: Which Republican(s) will attempt to vault into top tier status at the xpense of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani?

Romney is an easy target and I imagine at least a couple candidates will jab at him at least indirectly. My guess is that there will be a stronger, more pointed attack on Giuliani over abortion. This is still the big ticket issue for a great number of social conservatives who can forgive nearly anything else. Death penalty? Optional. Gay marriage? No sell but there’s at least wiggle room. Abortion? Fuggedaboudit. We don’t vote for you.

While it’s true that Romney has also been, uh, inconsistent, about his perspectives on abortion, Giuliani is more likely to be the subject of a bromide this evening. He’s the bigger target and seems so, pardon the pun, divorced, from his religious principles, Romney can at least couch his change as connected to his personal religious journey. No one would buy that from Giuliani.

Tonight should be fun.

TP

Vote Caging

<a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/rfk-rove-and-roves-brain-should-be-in-jail-not-in-office/
“>Vote Caging

<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2167284?nav=tap3
“>Slate responds to vote caging

Has this really been a standard practice? This is simply bizarre to me.

Is the Bush White House so insulated from scrutiny that even disenfranchising oh, a million or so, Americans is actually going unnoticed? Apparently yes. I’m gonna get sick.

What is an appropriate response to this level of disdain for the rule of law? Where’s a Cindy Sheehan on this?

TP