Hillary's Remarks about "Assassination"

I've been thinking a lot lately about Senator Hillary Clinton's unfortunate remarks last week alluding to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968.  She seemed to be implying that she was remaining in the Democratic race just in case someone - presumably Barrack Obama - gets assassinated.  I've got to say that these remarks were really over the top and incredibly offensive.  What's worse is that she later offered only a tepid half-apology for her remarks to the Kennedy family, but failed to mention the damage such remarks had on the current campaign or Senator Obama.  

What is wrong with Hillary anyway?  Is she so detached from the reality of possible assassination attempts on Obama or even on her own life that she would mention such a disturbing scenario? Is she really so incredibly clueless about the potential danger in making such references in normal political discourse? Hasn't she heard about the numerous comparisons made between Obama and Bobby Kennedy, not to mention John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King? In making such remarks, she really has reached a new low in her campaign that is very disturbing. 

Here's a commentary from Keith Olbbermann that expresses the outrage about these comments that many of us are feeling.

Same-Sex Marriage: As Goes California, So Goes the Nation?

The California Supreme Court delivered a groundbreaking decision this morning:  State law banning same sex marriage is clearly unconstitutional.  To really understand this issue it is first important to recognize that marriage is not an "unchanging institution" as many conservatives such as George W. Bush and John McCain have erroneously alleged. In reality, marriage has undergone many important social and legal changes over the years.

For example, marriage used to be completely male-dominated and patriarchal, with men even permitted to beat their wives in some localities.  Women had no real legal rights in marriage for centuries with property rights often denied them upon the death of their husband or in divorce proceedings. By the way, people often quoted from the Bible to defend such sexist arrangements and laws.

Speaking of divorce, that's another example of how marriage rights have changed over time. No-fault divorce laws are a recent legal innovation that have dramatically altered marriage as an institution; abused spouses (both female and male) are now able to exit their marriage much easier as a result.

Marriage has also changed in laws governing rape. Until the 1970s, most states did not have any laws protecting women (or men for that matter) from rape by their spouses. All of these changes in marriage went up against the conservative status quo, but nonetheless prevailed.

Probably the most important legal precedent in this regard is how a large number of states used to have anti-miscegenation laws that prevented people from marrying someone of a different race.

It was not until 1967, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, that the US Supreme Court struck down such laws that banned interracial marriage. The Court used the equal protection clause in support of their decision. Public opinion polls taken at the time found that upwards of 90 percent of the general public (not just in the South) disagreed with the Supreme Court and supported bans on interracial marriage. Many so-called "Christians" - especially in the South - quoted from the Bible to defend their stance opposing mixed-race marriage. Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not simply affirm what was popular and reputedly "Christian;" instead, they took a stand to expand the definition of marriage to include a broader number of people.

Our current debate is the latest battle in the progressive evolution of marriage as a legal institution. It is not really an issue of gay rights; rather, it is an issue of human rights.

It is important to note that there are over ONE THOUSAND SPECIAL LEGAL RIGHTS AND BENEFITS accorded to married couples in the U.S. (e.g., inheritance, joint income tax returns, disability benefits, worker's compensation, spousal or child support, insurance benefits, medical leave, bereavement leave, child custody, Social Security and other retirement benefits, power of attorney, hospital visitation, divorce, etc.)

For this reason, it is high time to grant equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples nationwide. This is an issue that relates directly to the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. Though marriage has religious connotations, it is primarily a legal institution that licenses and codifies relationships and the rights that go with them. To deny same-sex couples equal marital rights is contrary to basic liberty. That's what America is really supposed to be about: liberty for all; rather than some mindless conformity based on homophobic bigotry. 

The California Supreme Court decision is another important step in the historic and ongoing expansion of civil and human rights in the U.S.   Hopefully, as goes California, so goes the nation.

 

The New McCarthyism: Unfair Allegations of "Guilt by Association" Used Against Obama

 By David Drissel

McCarthyism has made an unexpected comeback in the guise of repeated questions ad nauseum about Barrack Obama’s “patriotism” and related “guilt by association” with various figures such as his ex-pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and former Weather Underground member, William Ayers.  

For weeks, we’ve heard this kind of paranoid chauvinistic drivel especially from the conservative media – Sean Hannity of Fox News in particular.  But at the last debate, sponsored by ABC News, such neo-McCarthy-style tactics reached a new low in the guise of moderators Charley Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.   

The entire first half of the debate revolved around whether or not Obama was sufficiently patriotic and “loved America” as much or more than other people such as his former pastor.  Nothing Obama said seemed to be enough to satisfy the inquisitorial moderators. 

Sadly, Hillary Clinton only piled on Obama even more, taking her extremist-cues from former Clinton Administration official-turned-TV “journalist” – Stephanopoulos.   She then decided to bring up an even more distant secondary association - Louis Farrakhan – who she claimed was mentioned in Obama’s church bulletin!  Wow, talk about McCarthy-style “guilt by association” of the worst kind.

You know, this has got to be the most disgusting display of “political” discourse I’ve ever seen in my life.  These New McCarthyites –including Hillary Clinton - can’t seem to get enough of such non-issues.    Since when does whether or not one wears a flag-pin matter?  Patriotism is in the heart, not on the sleeve (or lapel).    Besides, I didn’t see Hillary wearing a flag-pin.  Why did the “unbiased” moderators not ask a question about her patriotism too?

Since when does a person’s ex-pastor become newsworthy?  So what if Obama went to this church for twenty years?  All of the objectionable comments (five minutes worth at most) made by Wright which played endlessly on cable TV news, were videotaped within the past six or seven years.  That was the period in which Obama was not even around Chicago all that much.   Besides, Obama clearly stated that he disagreed with Wright’s objectionable comments and was not in the church at the time when those comments were made.  That should have been the end of the story, but Fox’s Hannity and now ABC News’ resident neo-McCarthyites just wanted to keep the story alive for as long as possible.

This whole line of “debate” about William Ayers was even worse and really brought politics to a new chauvinistic low.  So what if Obama served on the same board with this guy? You know, I’ve served on boards with all kinds of people in my life.  Am I supposed to run a background check on everyone in which I come into contact?  This guy Ayers was never even convicted of anything, for crying out loud.  This is the worst kind of McCarthy-style tactics: To insinuate or even say flatly that a person who has met an “undesirable” (fill in the blank) is somehow “corrupted” or “infected” by that association.   

It’s instructive to remember that the critics of Dr. Martin Luther King attempted the use very similar McCarthy-style tactics to destroy him.  They accused of him of being a “communist” (or “pinko”) simply because he had associated with a few communists in the civil rights movement.  Of course, that was a ridiculous charge.  King was never a communist or communist sympathizer.  But just because he had brief associations with a few communists, the reactionary far-right race-baiting crowd automatically deemed him suspect of “anti-Americanism.”

Personally, I’m a whole lot more concerned about Presidential candidates who imagine and apparently lie about surviving “sniper fire” when they actually haven’t.  Do we really want someone to be our commander in chief that can’t tell fantasy from reality on the battlefield?  It makes one wonder what other kind of military attacks or maneuvers that Hillary might “imagine” if she somehow scratches her way back into the White House.

Hillary’s increasingly negative fear-mongering attacks on Obama are right out of the Republican playbook once again.  You know, I actually used to like and respect Hillary.  But now I see her as just so incredibly desperate to win that’s she’s willing to resort to McCarthy-style tactics and destroy the Democratic Party’s chances to win in the general election. 

It’s time to return to the issues that really matter to average Americans.  Let’s hope that Hillary ends her neo-McCarthyite campaign soon, before she completely ruins the Democratic party’s chances in the fall.

Why Barack Obama is the Best Candidate for U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security

In recent weeks, the Hillary Clinton campaign has repeatedly argued that Barack Obama is unprepared to engage in international relations as President.  These are my top ten reasons why I strongly believe that a President Obama would be highly successful in international relations, much more so than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

1. There's no doubt that Sen. Barack Obama has more global appeal than any other candidate for President. He's the son of an African immigrant and a woman from Kansas, which represents an obvious departure from the past.  

2. Obama has lived in other countries and traveled abroad extensively, and as a result fully understands many other cultures particularly in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.  

3. Obama studied international relations in college and consequently understands important nuances of foreign policy. He has brought his academic expertise to the U.S. Foreign Relations committee and has worked in a bipartisan fashion to chart a new American foreign policy. For example, Obama spearheaded the effort – along with Republican Senator Richard Luger - to emphasize the importance of helping eliminate “loose nukes” in Russia and Eastern Europe – a project that had been vastly under-funded by the Bush Administration.  

4. He has seen poverty and related social problems firsthand on a daily basis as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago and will have a greater understanding of comparable Third World issues as a result. His experience at the grassroots level in the U.S. will enable him to devise viable, innovative solutions to global problems as poverty, hunger, lack of adequate health care, infant mortality, AIDS, organized crime, and homelessness.  

5. He has credibility in the world because he opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning (unlike Hillary Clinton) and understood in 2002 that Bush's pre-emptive war in Iraq would seriously hurt America's standing in the world. After all, the Iraq War is the Number One reason why the U.S. has become so incredibly unpopular in recent years.  

6. Obama has clearly demonstrated good judgment in such foreign policy decisions, unlike Hillary and McCain - who made the worst foreign policy decision in decades when they voted to authorize Bush’s invasion of Iraq.  

7. Obama is highly diplomatic in his personal style and never shrill or temperamental (unlike McCain and Hillary), which will help win back good will around the world. He doesn't lose his cool or cry "shame" when he disagrees with someone. Rather, Obama knows how to bring people together and forge compromises - and this characteristic will help him immensely in any diplomatic initiatives he undertakes with foreign governments.  

8. Obama is willing to meet with virtually any leader in the world without unnecessary bureaucratic preconditions (unlike Hillary and McCain), thereby signaling a new, more open, stance for American foreign policy. He understands that the U.S. never stopped meeting with Soviet leaders during the Cold War, so why should we not meet with our enemies today? He contends that adequate preparation for such meetings is absolutely necessary, but continuing the obstructionist saber-rattling cowboy antics of the Bush Administration (as Hillary seems to favor) will get us nowhere.  

9. Obama knows how to prioritize national security concerns (unlike Bush, McCain, and Hillary) and will act accordingly in shifting the emphasis in the war on terror back to Afghanistan/Pakistan, where it truly belongs. Of course, he will also use his diplomatic skills to help bring together disparate Iraqi factions and fully involve Iraq’s Muslim neighbors and the United Nations in a multilateral effort to achieve lasting stability in the region.  

10. Electing Barack Obama as President will be a clear and unambiguous signal to the world that the U.S. is charting a brand new course. Rather than looking backwards, the U.S. will be moving forward with fresh new ideas and innovative bipartisan approaches in foreign policy.

Reflections on Democratic Party "Insiders" and "Outsiders"

Someone mentioned to me the other day that there are basically two major “wings” of the Democratic Party. Actually that is somewhat of an oversimplification, since there are actually many factions.  But there is some truth to that bisected depiction.  Indeed, there are certainly party "insiders" on the one hand (i.e. the establishment) and "outsiders" on the other. There are those who almost always play it "safe" on major policy issues (the insiders) and those who stand up for what they actually believe on a given issue, even though their positions may not be popular with the nervous poll-driven party establishment. Paradoxically, sometimes the outsiders eventually become insiders and appear to "sell out" in the process.

I'm old enough to remember how Sen. Gary Hart (labeled an outsider) challenged the Democratic Party establishment candidate of the 1984 presidential election, Walter Mondale. In fact, I ran and was elected as a Hart delegate that year. At the time I was really excited by all of his fresh “new ideas.”  He was touted as a “neo-liberal” reformer that wanted to dramatically change Washington’s political climate.  He was even a defense policy expert. 

However, that was right after the "superdelegates" had been created, which helped Mondale win.  More importantly, the Mondale campaign was able to lift a simplistic line from a Wendy’s commercial, “Where’s the beef?” to question whether Hart's ideas actually had any real substance.  As a result, the party insiders slowed Hart’s momentum and triumphed in the short term by winning the nomination.  But the lackluster candidacy of Mondale went down to defeat against Ronald Reagan in the general election.

Ironically, Bill Clinton was deemed n "outsider" in 1992 by challenging the traditional liberal orthodoxy of the Democratic Party establishment. After years of losing presidential elections to conservative Republicans, Clinton’s strategy was to move the Democratic Party to the center and therefore appeal to a broader cross-section of the electorate. 

Though many neo-liberals and progressives - including myself - were disturbed by some of Bill Clinton’s more conservative positions (on issues such as the death penalty, welfare reform, and growth of the prison-industrial complex), we still appreciated his charisma and leadership skills.  Despite my misgivings, I liked him personally and credited him with some important accomplishments - especially regarding balanced budgets, the booming economy, and the peace processes in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

The dynamic of Democratic insiders/outsiders changed again as a result of the Iraq War. The Clinton-era moderates had become the new insiders by this time, though a new cadre of more liberal/progressive outsiders was now on the horizon.  Countless thousands of liberals and progressives across the country had spoken out against the use of force resolution, urging Congress to vote against it.  It was obvious to virtually anyone who followed politics that President Bush intended to go to war against Iraq and was seeking Congressional “cover,” particularly since the U.N. route had been ruled out by this time. 

Many Democrats - including a majority of Democratic members in the House of Representatives - voted against the use of force authorization of 2002. But a plurality of Democratic Senators - including several that had planned to run for President such as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden, voted in favor of the resolution.

This was a defining moment for "liberal outsiders" such as myself who were mad as hell that any Democrat in Congress would basically give Bush a green light to invade Iraq. That's why I supported the maverick liberal outsider, Howard Dean, for president in 2004.  That's also what initially attracted me to Barack Obama in the current election. But I soon found out that Obama was much more than just another anti-Iraq war outsider.  He was filled with specific new ideas and policy prescriptions, while at the same time heading up a nationwide grassroots movement dedicated to overturning the corrupt status quo in Washington, D.C.

Of course, John Edwards reinvented himself as an "outsider," after leaving the U.S. Senate, adopting populist rhetoric, and actually apologizing for his Iraq war vote.   But Hillary did not follow suit and for this reason further alienated many anti-Iraq war liberal outsiders such as myself.  Despite my generally fond feelings for Hillary, I felt betrayed by her 2002 vote and her stubborn refusal to renounce that vote.  

Ironically, Hillary had become the consummate insider, reaping the benefits of "insider" party patronage and network ties from her years spent in the White House.  Though the idea of the “first woman president” was appealing, the idea of another poll-driven Machiavellian candidate of the corrupt Washington status quo was revolting.   

For those of us who have seen countless liberal outsiders go down to defeat in the primary season over the years, Barack Obama has given us hope that the status quo can be challenged successfully this time.  Now more than ever we are particularly hopeful that the new outsider (Obama) will ultimately triumph over the new insider (H. Clinton). 

But the insiders are very adept at fending off such challenges from outsiders and tend to use overly simplistic attacks to marginalize their opponents.  Mondale played that game and won the nomination in 1984.  Hillary Clinton is employing similar tactics today, no matter what lasting harm that may be done to the Democratic Party.  Hopefully, this time the outsider candidate will secure the nomination and lead his party – and more importantly his social movement - to victory in November.

Xenophobic Attacks on Obama are Disturbing, Especially When the Clinton Campaign is Involved

I'm really disturbed by the narrow-minded attacks leveled at Barrack Obama over the last several days regarding such non-issues as his middle name (which was his Kenyan grandfather's name) and the photo showing him wearing tribal robes presented to him while visiting Kenya. Even though Obama is a long-time Christian who was born in the United States, some of his political opponents are resorting to fear mongering about his ethnic/ancestral background. 

There has been a not-so-subtle use of such xenophobic themes by persons associated with the Clinton campaign and an all-out frontal assault by far-right talk radio commentators and bloggers in recent days. Anyone who would resort to such tactics is attempting to appeal to the unwarranted fears of many voters, particularly those who are easily swayed by such race-baiting demagoguery. 

I would expect such ethnocentric tactics from conservative talk show hosts such as Bill Cunningham and Rush Linbaugh, since they are notorious for appealing to the dark side of the American electorate. But to have fellow Democrats employ such tactics is really sickening. As Linbaugh of all people noted on the O'Reilly Factor recently, the origin of the "controversy" over Obama's middle name goes back to Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton. It was actually a Clinton surrogate, former Senator Bob Kerry, who first repeatedly used Obama's middle name back in December while he was campaigning on behalf of Sen. Clinton. 

As a Democrat, I am very disturbed that the Clinton campaign would use or condone such a xenophobic approach. Did Hillary apologize for Bob Kerry's remarks or admonish him in any way, shape, or form? No. It's very sad that Sen. Clinton's campaign is apparently resorting to such tactics even while John McCain has criticized such language. 

There is also reason to believe that someone associated with the Clinton campaign was behind the leaking of Obama's Kenyan photo to the Drudge Report. What's going on here? Why does the Clinton campaign feel the need to encourage xenophobia in attacking their rival? This sort of thing is very ugly and Senator Clinton owes the American people an apology for her campaign's thinly veiled attacks on her rival's ethnic/ancestral background.

The Clinton Campaign's Dishonest Approach to Health Care

I get so angry when I read about the Clinton campaign's dishonest approach to the issue of universal health care. Her campaign recently sent out a mailer with a photo of several desperate-looking people with the caption "Barack Obama, which of these people don't deserve health care?" The allegation of the mailer is that Obama would not cover everyone with his health care plan and is therefore not universal.



Does the Clinton campaign really think that the American people are this stupid? Until recently, when has anyone ever argued that universal health care must include mandatory individual coverage? It's infuriating that Clinton is resorting to demagoguery on this issue and alleging (erroneously) that only her plan is truly universal. 



"Sen. Clinton's idea is that we should force everyone to buy insurance," Obama has noted, "She's not being straight with the American people because she refuses to tell us how much she would fine people if they couldn't afford insurance."

Sen. Ted Kennedy recently responded to Clinton's charges, noting, "They both effectively have universal health care programs. The point of this ad is to undermine people's belief that Barack Obama is committed to universal health care, and that is simply a distortion, a misrepresentation… that is the kind of distortion that we had back in 1994."



Notably, Obama's plan likely would actually cover more people than Hillary's and would not include any unworkable government enforcement mechanisms in the process. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has argued:



"She says his would insure fewer people than hers. I've compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than Hillary Clinton's. That's because Obama's puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who's likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old. Hers requires that everyone insure themselves. Yet we know from experience with mandated auto insurance – and we're learning from what's happening in Massachusetts where health insurance is now being mandated – that mandates still leave out a lot of people at the lower end who can't afford to insure themselves even when they're required to do so. Clinton doesn't indicate how she'd enforce her mandate, and I can't find enough money in Clinton's plan to help all those who won't be able to afford to buy it. I'm also impressed by the up-front investments in information technology in Obama's plan, and the reinsurance mechanism for coping with the costs of catastrophic illness. Clinton is far less specific on both counts. In short: They're both advances, but Obama's is the better of the two. Clinton has no grounds for alleging that Obama's would leave out 15 million people."



It is certainly ironic that Hillary has stolen the idea of mandatory coverage from a conservative Republican, Mitt Romney, who as governor instituted such a plan in Massachusetts. As Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor who was an adviser to Romney on the state's health care reform law, has noted, "Hillary's plan is just like the Massachusetts plan. There's not a whole lot of difference."



Moreover, there have been many problems enforcing such a government mandate in Massachusetts, with all kinds of unanticipated consequences in health care costs and fines on individual households. Hillary's plan is based on the flawed Romney Mandate Model and should be anathema to Democrats for that reason alone.