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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
thomas dumm
Published Letters: 73 Editor's Choice: 3
The Broom in the System was Wallace's senior honors thesis at Amherst, where he was as I joined the faculty. Never met him, some of the faculty I care about the most mentored him, and he was someone I always watched. It breaks my heart he gave up life. As one who has been through a bit of heartbreak (I actually have new book on this and people can look it up from my name if interested) it just seems wrong that he gave up. I am, without knowing him, as angry as one of his intimates might be for his having given up, even as I know, and as I know so many of us know, why he did. Peace to the man.
I like Thomas Schaller's perspective, I really do, but he is blinded at this point by his own theory. There is more going on -- check out North Carolina, virtually a tie, and with Dole behind(!) in the Senate race. Will Obama win that state? Not likely at all, but that it is contested is the point. As the election date gets closer, of course resources move. But really, if there hadn't been a broad strategy, would Nevade be in play? Colorado?
to so muddy the waters about who is a reformer so that Obama's advantage is obscured. A responsible press would decry this. Tom Schaller, by suggesting that McCain is speaking Naderesque rhetoric, JUST LIKE OBAMA, without hammering him for doing so, is simply being another echo-chamber. Schaller, you need to point out, each and every time, what the underlying lie is.
Two things. First, many political scientists -- I happen to be one -- are convinced that there will be a minimal Bradley effect, if any, this cycle. But, second, this isn't because racism has disappeared. It is because people feel that they can claim other reasons for voting against Obama, and are able to do so without shame. When McCain and Palin engage in the specific kind of smear they are engaging in -- We don't really know Obama, Obama is touchy when we question him about his past (that is, when we goad him and then pretend he is overdefensive, Obama's middle name, Obama hangs with terrorists -- all of these and other smear moves that take advantage of those who are still uneasy about his race to raise doubts about him. The racism is for those receiving the message often unconscious, but it is a deliberate and provocative strategy of the McCain crew, and it is what Schaller should be highlighting, not the instrumental prescience of those creeps.
The upshot is that the polls may be more accurate, or even minimizing of, Obama's support. But the electronic media, and perhaps Salon too, have an interest in the horserace in order to generate more drama, at least. Look at the dismal reporting on the debates: by a much wider margin than in any recent elections, the voters have clearly indicated Obama and Biden the winners of those debates. And there has been little reporting of it, even though the CBS NYT poll indicated that the debates helped them move up significantly, not just the meltdown.
Greil Marcus's friend seems to be channeling Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously wrote in "Experience," "I am born again into this new yet unapproachable America I have found in the West."
Will we have the patience Emerson asked of us in that essay? I wonder.
I know personally two of the three people Mr. Lind refers to in regard to the next republic -- Bruce Ackerman, who has come to my school several times, who has argued with me and other colleagues about his ideas of participation, and whose magnum opus "We the People" I have reviewed, and Ted Lowi, who was a teacher of mine and has been and is is a mentor. It is deeply gratifying to see that a public intellectual like Lind is reflecting at this level of sophistication.
But I have to say, Obama, if he does it, will begin a 5th republic -- for better or worse, the Reagan period, culminating with Bush, was not simply an interrugnum, but represented a terrible period of rule, a republic that we cannot disavowal.
that the GOP chooses Palin as their nominee in 2012. She is a dream candidate to run against. We always have a gap between the public image of someone and who we believe them to be "for real," but Governor Palin has a record, and the record is one of personal corruption, vindictiveness, willful ignorance, and moral hypocrisy. Paglia, like Bush with Putin's, looks into Palin's eyes and sees a thing of beauty and charisma. Having grown up in Altoona, Pee Ay, in the Alalbama part of that state, I see something altogether different. It frightened me during the campaign to imagine that she might become one old man's heartbeat away from the preisdency. That we were spared is wonderful. That John McCain chose her forever discredits him in my eyes.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
