Obama

a current-events poem

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by fiddler Sonnet of a disgruntled citizenry (with minor apologies to Homer, Chapman, et al.) Sing, news, of Obama’s promises, made To voters who elected him to power. Which has he kept? Wars’ ends? Taxes paid By the rich? An economy in flower? New jobs for all who seek them? Emptying Guantanamo’s cells, its prisoners … Read more

Their urge to betray – and ours

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WRITTEN BY Thomas Nephew, of Newsrack, NOT BY Gary Farber

Until recently, Peter Benjamin was the chairman of the Washington, D.C. area Metro transit system's Board of Directors. A former mayor of Garrett Park, he brought an avuncular personality and long experience with Metro affairs to the table. While in correspondence with us about the bag search issue I've written about before, he dismissed some of our assertions about the program's drawbacks — for example, he didn't believe it would cause much decline in ridership. But he seemed to take seriously the civil liberties issues involved.

Still, sometimes I think if I had a dollar for every time I've heard or read "I'm a supporter of the ACLU, but…" I could afford the richer, more refined lifestyle I truly deserve.


 

And sure enough, when push came to shove at a February 10 discussion of the bag search issue, Mr. Benjamin delivered what may be the new low standard in that genre. Beginning with the heart-sinking words "I am a long term member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of my friends consider me a civil liberties nut," Benjamin was giving the lie to those words within roughly twenty seconds. Even though asserting that the rights we have as citizens are "why we are the great country that we are" and personally believing that "bag checks are a violation of those rights, and …the beginning of a process that moves towards us having fewer and fewer and fewer of those rights," Mr. Benjamin continued:

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Self-Evident

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Guest post by Amezuki, not by Gary Farber

You all know me by a different pseudonym, and I'll reintroduce myself properly later.

But in the meantime, a word from our Founders:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence stands, in my mind, as one of the greatest political documents in history.

Like our Constitution, it stands on the shoulders of many other exalted works, and my opinion is not in any way intended to denigrate those works–but what makes it stand out in my mind is not just the role it had in the birth of our nation, but in the simple, unequivocal and straightforward statements of first principles it contains.

Foremost among these is the well-known passage I quoted above. Its evocative power was such that Martin Luther King, one of the most eloquent speakers and users of language our nation has known, had no need to embellish it further when quoting it, save to correctly note that it was a promise our country had yet to fully honor. "All men are created equal."

Think about that for a moment. All men. You will notice a distinct lack of footnotes, equivocation, qualifications or exceptions to the word "all".

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Weekly Pulse: Obama gives GOP rope to hang itself at health care summit

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Tomorrow, President Obama will gather with Republicans for the long-awaited televised health care summit. Obama will promote his health care proposal, the Republicans will demand that we start over. Even House Minority Leader John Boehner dimly senses that the GOP is walking into a trap. The public is thoroughly sick of the … Read more

Ping pong, anyone? The House must pass the Senate bill to save health care reform

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Martha Coakley's loss in Massachusetts will end the Democrats' 60-vote majority in the Senate. This is a major setback for health care reform, but let's not hang crepe yet. Remember, the Senate already passed its bill. If the House were to "ping pong" the bill by passing the identical legislation, the bill … Read more

It’s not easy not being Bush

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By Lindsay Beyerstein

Not bush nobel cat

It's already a truism that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for being not-George W. Bush. This talking point gets repeated as if it's a witty put down. It's supposed to trivialize the win. The implication is that Obama won just for showing up. On closer examination, winning for not being Bush is a pretty substantial distinction in its own right.

Most commentators implicitly assume Obama won just for what he's done as president or what he promises to do in office. In fact, Obama earned the prize for waging a successful campaign to unseat a ruling party that rejected the rule of law at home and abroad. Remember how hard that was?

Much has been made of the fact that nominations for the prize closed in February, just after Obama was sworn in. Obama did take some of his boldest steps towards peace to date during his earliest days in office. One of his first acts was to order the closure of prison at Guantanamo Bay. That was an courageous act of profound national and international significance. He also quickly repudiated the Bush administration's torture policies and shut down its secret prisons.

If the 2008 election happened in Africa or the Middle East it would seem obvious that an opposition leader who restored the rule of law and set about reintegrating his country into the family of nations would be racking up points towards a Nobel Peace Prize before he even took the oath of office.

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