Nobel Laureates Choose Obama

I'm so glad I checked out Daily Kos today and saw this open letter from 61 Nobel Laureates endorsing Barack Obama for president.

This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.

We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

We have watched Senator Obama's approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take – through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research – to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs.

Senator Obama understands that Presidential leadership and federal investments in science and technology are crucial elements in successful governance of the world's leading country. We hope you will join us as we work together to ensure his election in November.

And yes, I too am fascinated at how I've been able to come full circle during this election season... From outspoken anti-Obamite to full-fledged supporter of his campaign. It's truly amazing what hatred for the GOP can inspire.

NARAL Records

Senator Obama's voting and statement record on freedom of choice gets a 100% from NARAL Pro-choice America. Senator McCain? 0%.

Shiny happy highlight from Obama's statements:

"Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it's never been more important to protect a woman's right to choose... Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America... I believe in and have supported common-sense solutions like increasing access to affordable birth control to help prevent unintended pregnancies... As President, I will improve access to affordable health care and work to ensure that our teens are getting the information and services they need to stay safe and healthy."
[From a statement by Sen. Obama on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 2008. Full statement is available here]

Absolutely abysmal lowlight from McCain's musings on sexual health:

When asked about whether he supported supplying condoms to Africa to assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS, McCain had the following exchange with a reporter:
Reporter: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?"
Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.
Reporter: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"
Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "You've stumped me."
[Adam Nagourney, McCain Stumbles on H.I.V. Prevention, The New York Times, March 16, 2007.]

The Anti-Christ

I chuckle (or seethe, depending on the source) every time I hear someone speak with any degree of sincerity about the coming of the "anti-Christ" with respect to modern political figures. So you can imagine my response when I stumbled upon The Colonic's jump to this disgusting attack ad, perpetrated by none other than the anti-Christ himself... I mean, John McCain. (Click on "Web Ad: The One" to view the trash.)

The explicit Biblical reference (Moses parting the Red Sea) coupled with gratuitous religious imagery (shining rays of light hitting a cloud, a staircase; "god's Eye View" of planet Earth) are completely uncalled for and signal (as I suggested in response to Vanessa's post) an attempt by the McCain campaign to tap in to right-wing, extremist rumors that Obama is - literally - the anti-Christ.

As someone who works under the umbrella of strategic research and consulting, it takes very little energy to imagine the focus group(s) that inspired this ad... Or perhaps it was all the internet message-board chatter which convinced McCain's team that a solid group of Evangelicals subscribe to the notion that Obama is fulfilling prophesies of the Book of Revelations. (Just google "Obama anti-Christ" for 747,000 relevant - or shall I say irreverent - links to bullshit!)

I openly and willingly admit that I have criticized Senator Obama (harshly) in the past. But if there's one thing that can win a disgruntled Hillary supporter over to Barack's team, I'd say mutual disgust with the Republican opponent is a great start.

So cheers to you, Johnny Boy, for helping inspire some warm-happy-feelings for my friends on the other side of the Blue Line! And even more, for pissing me off enough to revive my dear Oh Kermie rants. god Speed.

NO-bama

I'm a few days late posting a link to this op-ed about Senator Obama's largely unfounded attacks on my gal Hill, but here it is anyway.

My favorite points?

Your position on the Iran Resolution. You criticized Sen. Clinton's vote in September supporting a Senate resolution asking the U.S. government to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG) as a "foreign terrorist organization," …. Yet you failed to disclose that you had co-sponsored a Senate Resolution (S. 970) in March 2007 that used exactly the same language to designate the IRG a "foreign terrorist organization."

And...

Your position on the Iraq war. You have criticized Sen. Clinton for supporting the October 2002 Iraq war resolution (just as the governor of your state, Rod R. Blagojevich, did when he was in the House of Representatives, as did former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost two arms and a leg in the Vietnam War, and 29 Democratic senators). You claim to have been opposed to that resolution before you became a U.S. senator.

Yet when you were asked in the fall of 2004, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, how you would have voted on that resolution had you been a U.S. senator, you were quoted in The Chicago Tribune answering, “I don’t know.” Then in March 2007, your press secretary refused “eight times” to answer a New York Times reporter’s question as to why you couldn’t answer that question back in 2004. When pressed again, he said you refused to answer such a “hypothetical” question. So how can you accurately say that you opposed the war resolution when you said “I don’t know” — and how is it fair to criticize Sen. Clinton’s (and Gov. Blagojevich’s) judgment for doing so at that time — when she says today, “Had I known then what I know now [that there were no WMDs in Iraq], I would not have voted for that resolution”?

You also voted against Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) amendment in the summer of 2006 to set a deadline on withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq (as did Sen. Clinton and most Senate Democrats). Yet I don’t think you have ever reminded voters about that vote since you began your presidential campaign.

More OhKermie posting to come in the weeks ahead... sorry for being MIA!

Obama Gives New Meaning to "Substance Free"

Back in February I complained about Obama's dramatic, long-winded way with language and his fuzzy plans (if you can call them that) for the presidency. Now with five more months on the campaign trail and ample time to develop specific platforms on key issues, critics' claims that the Senator is "all style, no substance" ring true.

Obama's embarrassingly vague essay in the current issue of Foreign Affairs should have been a veritable ribbon-cutting on his agenda for American foreign policy. Instead, the Senator gave us very little by the way of concrete plans and opted once again to ride the waves of rhetoric, highlighting the issues we all know should be addressed with what might as well be an invisible pen. Amitai Etzioni at the Huffington Post is right on in his criticism of the lackluster piece:

Obama's favorite term, repeated ad nauseum, ad infinitum, is vision. What we need, the Senator writes, is "vision." We need a "visionary leadership" and "a new vision of leadership." This is, of course, all too true but also tells us very little as to which vision of foreign policy this new leader would ask us to follow. Obama, like most political candidates without a clear agenda, still manages to be quite clear as to what we are not to do. We should not retreat into Fortress America. We should not get out of Iraq in an "irresponsible" way. And we cannot stop fighting terrorism. So far so good. So far so little.

Now read Obama. He calls for the United States to provide "global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity." These lines are about as vacuous as they come. Such far-from-inspirational prose ("grounded leadership," "share a common security") does not set Obama aside from most if not all other candidates. They lack a substantive vision that one can get one's hands around and draw on to guide a foreign policy.

Obama has charisma. Obama has style. Obama has a vision. But - like a person afflicted with cataracts vainly attemting to obtain a driver's license - that vision is grossly insufficient to inspire a Democratic nomination for the presidency.

My "Hope" for Obama's Campaign 2.0

In the wake of Time’s decision to select You as Person of the Year (as in we the brave warriors against corporate imperialism on the user-ruled internet terrain), it appears that 2008’s presidential candidates are gearing up for guerilla combat in the digital trenches. At least, that’s what Barack Obama’s campaign advisers are counting on.

Already drawing crowds of Facebookers to dazzling speeches about “the audacity of hope” in modern politics, Obama is banking on a “campaign whose support continues to expand even faster than you can put a fence around it” (adviser Robert Gibbs, in today’s WP).

…the challenge for Obama is not just assembling the nuts and bolts of a national campaign on the fly. He must, his advisers believe, do so in a way that reflects the distinct, next-generation message of his candidacy, or at least avoids making him look like every other politician in the race. "I would sooner lose the race than lose having him the way he is," said David Axelrod, his chief media strategist.

Few will argue that Obama possesses a certain je ne sais quoi that has yet to be tainted by the pressures of traditional campaign warfare. But as much as I am drawn to this charisma, I’d like to think that the American public – specifically the Google mailing, instant messaging, YouTube watching variety – can see through the increasing amount of idealistic rhetoric about Obama’s supposedly noble efforts to reach voters through the net. As critics of the Time tribute were quick to note, the “digital democracy” is anything but; corporations increasingly have a hand in shaping or limiting the content of sites like YouTube and MySpace, and the same strategic conniving that goes to shaping every other candidate’s image will go (and has gone) into making Obama the “next-generation” candidate. And while it is certainly early in the game and there is (some) time left to develop a distinctive agenda, I am extremely skeptical of statements like this:

"There are those who don't believe in talking about hope… They say, 'Well, we want specifics, we want details, and we want white papers, and we want plans.' We've had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we've had is a shortage of hope. And over the next year, over the next two years, that will be my call to you."

Well, Mr. Senator, I certainly hope you can give me some specifics, some details – soon. Nevermind that we’ve already had a lot of plans… how about focusing on drafting some plans that actually work for the American people?

He already possesses charisma and an apparent grasp on whatever potential lies in the digital forum. But in order to inspire confidence in his abilities as the leader and decision maker for our nation – and to combat accusations of having all style, no substance – Obama should focus on developing a specific platform with answers for the pressing questions of today.