Ever notice how sometimes things happen like a duet and it just doesn’t seem possible that it’s a coincidence? I had one of those experiences today, see what you think.
Driving to the tall timber this morning, once the Fargo stations faded away, we switched to the Park Rapids radio station―notable because its owner makes the astronaut radio station owner in Northern Exposure seem like a leftwing hippie.
So owner Ed Delahunt is in control of the microphone for his daily coffeetime call-in show which virtually never gets any calls. And with the patented reichwing tactic of prefacing his reading with “I don’t know this to be true, I don’t know if I believe this, but….” Delahunt launches into reading selected quotes from Michelle Obama’s
Guess Ed decided not to heed the “lay off my wife” memo.
Now Ed’s not exactly known for his intellectual curiosity around these parts, and word around here is Clear Channel has a hand in his operation these days, so my red-flag radar went off. Just where did Ed get this stuff? The McCain campaign? A surrogate McCain group?
Hmmmmm.
And then this evening, since it was still dripping from the thunderstorm outside, we were watching Countdown, and Keith Olbermann’s top story #3 was all about Grover Norquist and his “John Kerry with a tan” comment to the
Forget race card. I think today signaled the McCain campaign and the Usual Republican Suspects have decided to drop the whole damned deck. Little fluttery race cards spilling out all over the country, in environments large―like
So what’s the candidate who pledges to run a campaign of honor because he’s a man of integrity have to say about the conduct of his surrogates?
And did the Rethuglicans decide to shift their attack against Michelle Obama to the same kind of under-the-radar tactics used against McCain in
Like I say, it could all be coincidence, happening on this same day. Yep. Coincidence. That’s what it must be. Or not.
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● Sunday evenings on WABC Radio, Richard Cohen (married to Meredith Vieira) hosts a radio conversation building on his chronicle of people living with chronic diseases, Strong at the Broken Places. We're seeking further information regarding schedule and availability, will keep you posted. [We have confirmed that the show airs from 6-7 p.m. Sunday evenings on WABC am 770 in NYC, and it will be streamed online.]
● Col. Jack Jacobs has retired from two different careers, the first, obvious, being military. The second on Wall Street, and he has the cred to talk candidly about both. Which he does, and in the doing, shows to those who will see the linkage between Big Oil's war in Iraq and the current state of our economy. He's equally blunt discussing wind farms off Cape Cod and Gitmo.
On Guantanamo and the management of the war. "...we gotta be able to show...either we show why we've got these guys in jail...or win the war. We decided to take the easy way out [my bold] and that's why they're in Guantanamo. If we'd done the right thing in the first place we wouldn't be in this problem.
Spring’s being a tad harsh in Prairie Country these days, with thunderstorms and lightning lighting up the darkened skies, and tornadoes up to F3 force rampaging through the pines, leaving damage in their wake.
Hardly seems fair for a state that had to endure long weeks, months even, of being flooded with politicians and pollsters and pundits and media [Ha! You thought I’d say press, didn’t you?] as the first state in the primary process.
Today’s news notes that the National Guard has been called out to help. This is where we think of our National Guard at its best…state by state, ready when duty calls. Serving their fellow citizens in times of disaster or emergency.
Too many of them have not been well served by the rest of us, or the governments they serve.
An op-ed piece in our local newspaper this week got me to thinking. Michael A. Ross calls to task Gutless Governors for abrogating their responsibilities to the National Guard and the citizens of their states.
We are quick to castigate the Congress for not tending to their responsibilities of oversight, of allowing this President to exercise dictatorial control over the country. But the governors, the states, have responsibilities, too. States rights? Or is that quaint like the Constitution? Some damned old piece of paper, as Bush called it?
Might be nice to see that quaint ol’ concept used for good, for restoration of yet another segment of rule of law, instead of its nasty ol’ incarnation pushing discrimination.
We need the right kind of change this campaign season, one candidate for President tells us, promising not to be the same as Bush…in front of a pre-screened, controlled-access town hall gathering.
He says it’s “not that important” when our troops come home. Tell that to the families who have hugged and said good-bye never knowing whether they’d ever reunite again―one, two, three, four, five, six, seven….times after times, tearing apart families, tearing apart communities.
You’d better be damned sure you’ve got it right before you send men and women into harm’s way…and leave so much of
Stormy weather has beset the nation. And too little attention is being paid these days to the war our troops are weathering.
But oh, didn’t it look nice and green and serene for Bushie in the
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An insulting derogatory demeaning term for a successful woman who has lived the American dream of going to the highest levels based on hard work, intelligence, dedication, and strong integrity.This morning, in a compelling conversation on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Pete Hamill noted that Bobby Kennedy had a compassion for ordinary Democrats and a keen sense of the urgency of now [my paraphrase] that has been lost for all these years. He further noted the Kennedys are a rich family with a passion for public service when they could have been living well in the south of
This morning, Bill Eppridge—author of The Time It Was, Bobby Kennedy and the ’60s―described the moments when he captured history. His was the iconic photograph of the busboy at Kennedy’s side, on the floor, moments after Kennedy’s victory speech that long ago night in
It is tough to talk of that night.
Whether or not you are old enough to remember firsthand those times, I recommend this book to you, sight unseen. Because I intend to read it, myself. I think, after this long arduous primary campaign―which has renewed so many memories to me of that time, that night, MLK, Chicago―it is a book that will help those of us who must be part of a unified Democratic Party going forward from this week to heal.
I was a green kid who suspended her sophomore college year to work for Gene McCarthy, and when Bobby Kennedy joined the campaign, a late-comer in our eyes, a snatcher of the groundwork that McCarthy had done, there were resentments.
In Los Angeles that night we were at a different campaign’s election night event, then left and walked in the quiet darkness with co-workers through the long blocks to the McCarthy headquarters in Westwood, talking resolve and determination, coming to the red flashes of police car lights and the news.
Were there not that tragedy 40 years ago last night, lingering into the next day, those resentments would have been healed, the disparate party groups would have been reunited, and ….
Oh, but there was that tragedy.
And as much as it was the loss of one inspiring leader, it was also the breakdown of the best of what the Democratic Party can be, as Hamill noted. A breach that allowed "other priorities" to seize control, to take away that focus on the common good that serves ordinary Americans, and cede instead to the will of the fatcat global corporations and lobbyists. That is long past needing restoration.
That signal year began a long, slow slide into what we see now…Iraq and the grievous wounds that lies have brought us to, the corruption of the bedrock principles of justice of our government, the laid-off workers, foreclosures, Katrina, recession, hunger and homelessness … the list is long … you know it.
Right now, in this need-of-healing-and-unity time, we have another leader who has shown time and again his ability to inspire and lead and take charge to bring us together for a common, noble purpose.
It’s tempting to find metaphor in the Biblical journey of Moses…we have been wandering in our own wilderness these last 40 years.
For now, let’s reflect on what we lost, but only in the context of what we have yet to achieve, now, this fierce urgency of now. Let us pick up the threads of purpose that have lain in discord and distraction too long and set about rebuilding the best of what this nation can be. All of us united.
