Something to think about as the 'Romney lies' campaign gains steam

Recently, the Daily Caller, a conservative website, released the full--approximately 40 minute--video of a speech Barack Obama gave on June 5, 2007. It was at Hampton University, when Obama was still a senator. Apparently, the only version of the speech previously available had been a truncated one, about 9 minutes in length.

I didn't pay much attention to the story, as the focus of it seemed to be Obama's cringe-inducing propensity to fall into a speaking style he reserves for primarily black audiences--not exactly news.

But as Thomas Sowell's most recent column (linked below) points out, Obama stirred the crowd's outrage during this speech by suggesting quite clearly--I went back and listened to the relevant section--that the federal government waived the Stafford Act requirement (that disaster-affected communities kick in 10% of the amount the feds spend) for New York City after 9/11 and for victims of Hurricane Andrew in Florida, but not for victims of Hurricane Katrina. There is no way to misinterpret his clear suggestion that such unequal treatment was due to racism.

The problem? It wasn't true and Obama knew it wasn't true when he said it. He had in fact voted, a mere two weeks earlier, against a bill which included a provision to waive the Stafford requirement. Presumably, he voted against the bill because its primary intent was to provide continued funding for the Iraq war, but the point is that he knew the bill had passed and that it waived the Stafford requirement.

I am not suggesting that there were no legitimate reasons for Obama to want to fire up his audience, but when people give themselves a pass for deliberate deception in pursuit of their objectives, how can one not suspect those objectives, as well as the motives behind them? It is disturbingly similar to Obama's having fabricated people and events in his autobiography, because he apparently felt factual truth was less important than the 'story' he had to tell.

What Obama did was lie (and it's not his only one--the well-documented, deliberate and repeated lie about his mother's health insurance troubles comes to mind) and it's worth keeping in mind, as his campaign and its friends in the media move forward with their new tactic of branding Romney a liar.

If someone can recommend an unbiased examination of what the Obama campaign deems deliberate debate falsehoods, I'll certainly read it, and am not claiming there weren't any. But as the old adage goes, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

This may need to be cut and pasted:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/09/phony_in_chief_115715.html

Put your thinking cap on....

One of the books I reread every few years is C.S. Lewis' 'The Screwtape Letters.' I enjoy the device, the humor, and the sharp insight into human nature. For anyone unfamiliar with the book, it's a short compilation of letters--half of a correspondence between Screwtape, a senior devil, and his nephew and protege, Wormwood.

Wormwood's task is to secure the damnation of a particular young man, and we discern his progress, or lack of it, by reading the letters of advice from his uncle. As many times as I've read it, something always jumps out at me, and this time, it was Screwtape's musings about how much progress they and 'their father below' have made by encouraging a desire in humans for continued novelty, with one advantage being that they are never satisfied.

Screwtape goes on to say that the thirst for novelty 'is indispensable if we are to produce Fashions or Vogues' of thought, and explains that the 'use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.'

This got me thinking, as it might anyone, including those who do not attribute the course of history to a spiritual struggle between good and evil. I wondered, quite apart from cause, if this were a true observation--that the popular outcry is against dangers which are not really dangerous, and the acclaimed virtue is a step away from a corresponding vice. If so, what would they be?

The second half of the problem, in our time, seems obvious to me. The most loudly acclaimed virtue of the day is 'tolerance.' And who would disagree that it is a virtue? But while any objective measure shows that tolerance has greatly increased, we seem only to hear about when it is perceived to be absent or imperfect. The actual fruit of the movement to promote (enforce?) tolerance is _intolerance_ of anyone who does not say the correct thing, or has any opinion that can be characterized as intolerance and thereby discredited.

Examples abound--the hate (some of it quite visceral and ugly) directed at Dan Cathy by the supporters of tolerance because they refused to...tolerate...him having an opinion about the subject of gay marriage that they didn't like. No matter that no evidence existed of his ever having actually discriminated against anyone; it was his beliefs which were such an affront to them that he couldn't be allowed to have them in peace.

Another example is the ongoing effort, most recently at the current UN session, to criminalize any expression deemed offensive to Muhammed or Islam. Quite apart from the rather thorny problem of who makes that determination, the practical result is 'promoting tolerance' by being...intolerant.

So perhaps Lewis was on to something. I am curious if anyone has other ideas about this? Other vices or virtues, now or in times past, that support the idea that 'each generation direct[s] the fashionable outcry...against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix[es] its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice [it masks].' I would think examples could be found in education (perhaps the self-esteem movement that has increased self-esteem but not accomplishment?), certainly in politics, in art?

F-bombs and the death of common sense

Although the fate of 'Obamacare' is the most eagerly anticipated Supreme Court decision, the justices have been deliberating other cases, as well, and today announced an 8-0 verdict against the Federal Communications Commission's rules for censoring profanity and nudity on television.

Those rules applied only to certain types of broadcasts (the original fines levied were due to expletives uttered on awards shows by those two beacons of intelligence and good taste--Nicole Richie and Cher--along with the infamous Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction') and a New York appeals court had ruled against the FCC, which prompted the appeal to the Supreme Court.

It's usually a good indication of the soundness of a decision when conservative and liberal justices are in agreement, and their finding that the FCC rules were "unconstitutionally vague" sounds right to me, under the circumstances. That does not translate, however, at least in my mind, to the proposition that 'anything goes,' in terms of profanity, whether it's on TV or in public.

Which brings us to Middleborough, MA, a community that recently made headlines by voting to issue citations for outbursts of profanity in public spaces, like the town park. This was already prohibited by law (no doubt a holdover from the days when communities mistakenly believed there actually was a standard of 'common decency' which they were within their rights to protect) but it was never enforced. Middleborough proposed to decriminalize the offense, allowing officers to write $20 citations, instead, much like parking tickets.

The outcry was immediate, of course, with hysterical cries about the abrogation of our sacred First Amendment right to free speech, and people speculating darkly that cops would be lurking in the bushes, ready to spring out and write a ticket if they heard the 'f-word' spoken into a cell phone during a private conversation.

Puhleeze... No one doesn't know what the problem here really is, because who hasn't gotten caught in a hailstorm of 'f-bombs' in a public place where, theoretically, one has as many rights as the ignoramuses who are polluting the air? I remember once being at a South Carolina beach, settling down for what I thought would be a lovely afternoon but leaving after 30 minutes because some meathead nearby had exactly one adjective/adverb in his vocabulary and it was 'f***ing.' As in, 'f***ing awesome,' 'f***ing lame,' 'he's a f***ing ***hole,' and so on. Since I couldn't ignore it, I counted, and he used some variant of the f-word over FORTY times in that half-hour. He was extremely loud, so tuning him out was not practical. (And if you think I'm overly sensitive, imagine yourself with your present, past, or future toddlers in tow, with them being subjected to this.)

This is what the town of Middleborough wants to stop, and while I think they will doubtless back away from the ordinance because someone with nothing better to do will sue them, why is it that we can agree on a community's right to fine people who allow their dogs to leave steaming piles of crap in a public place, but become paranoid if any attempt is made to limit the 'right' to make public spaces hostile environments in other, equally repugnant, ways?

I know, I know...it's because it's a threat to free speech!!!

I think our founders would be horrified to know that this protection they enshrined so that citizens could criticize their government without fear of reprisal has been subverted so thoroughly that people actually get passionate about their 'rights' to pornography and foul language. Benjamin Franklin's comment that 'only a virtuous people are capable of freedom' becomes more chillingly apt with every passing year.

I am well aware that a certain toleration of this kind of boorishness is the price we pay to 'hold a line' in defense of the right to free speech, but how have we gotten to the point where no method exists to promote a civil society because of the 'right' of crude, inconsiderate people to make public spaces unbearable for anyone but the equally crude? (If you suggest saying something personally to the offender, you are truly out of touch.) How have we gotten to the point where some parents will undoubtedly sue, rather than tell their foul-mouthed little angels to have some respect for themselves and consideration for others?

I think Middleborough should just go back to its Puritan roots and put up a set of stocks, and let the citizenry pelt the pottymouths with rotten produce. I know, I know. I guess I don't really mean it, but I can dream, can't I?

Sandusky should get all 500 years

The trial of Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State, on charges of child sexual abuse and molestation, has recessed for the weekend. The prosecution has been presenting its case, and will continue into next week. It will be interesting to see what Joe Amendola, Sandusky's lawyer, comes up with as a defense, since his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses seems to have consisted mainly of challenging minor discrepancies in testimony, and accusing 'alleged' victims of being motivated by the hope of financial gain.

As contemptible as that is, Amendola probably doesn't have much else, which is why I say it will be interesting to see how he defends his client, and whether Sandusky will take the stand. Amendola is probably no fool, and I suspect he did his best to convince Sandusky to take the best plea bargain he could get. The fact that Sandusky wanted to go to trial--knowing all the sordid and despicable things he did were going to be exposed to the public in graphic detail--speaks to the level of denial that must be operating in his psyche. That he even entertained the idea of being found innocent indicates how little conception he has of the damage he's done.

But even if he's in denial about how much, he knows he was wrong, and that's what matters. His own statements over the years--a letter to a mother saying he knew she would never forgive him, a statement to another mother that he 'wished I were dead'--make it very clear he knew he was doing harm. Compulsion is a terrible thing and a powerful master, and I've no doubt Sandusky was compelled by his impulses and, probably, a victim of the same kind of abuse, himself.

But that only explains him; it does nothing to excuse or absolve him. He was not an opportunistic abuser. He had a preferred type of victim and he deliberately put himself in a position to find them, then patiently groomed them for what in many cases was extended abuse. (I can only hope Amendola's suggestions to the victims, many of them fatherless pre-teens at the time, that they were somehow complicit by continuing to accept Sandusky's attention and gifts, keeps him awake at night.) Anyone who could plan to that extent could also have made the choice to seek help.

Any sex-related crime wreaks havoc on the victim, but there is a special heinousness to cultivating the trust of an emotionally needy child so you can use him for your own gratification. There are many, many people related to Sandusky's long history of child-victimization who will never be put on trial, but whose consciences should forever trouble them--Mike McQueary, law enforcement and university personnel alerted to trouble as far back as 1998, those mothers who failed to vigilantly protect their offspring and, I believe, Sandusky's wife.

But Sandusky, at least, can pay. Never enough, but such a thing isn't possible. As a practical matter, 40 years in prison would accomplish what's needed--that Jerry Sandusky spend the rest of his life behind bars--but conviction on all counts with a maximum sentence does something very important.

It validates the claims of every single victim.

What are the limits on "reproductive rights"?

I’m not asking the question because I think I know the answer. I don’t and, frankly, I don’t think anyone does. But those who say there are _no_ limits, are, I believe, simply wrong.

A well-known Oliver Wendell Holmes remark goes like this: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” It’s a simple, colorful statement illustrating that our rights are not unlimited, and that those limits exist because other people have rights, too. Defining the limits, of course, is the hard part.

Abortion provides probably the best example of how complicated it can be. One side frames the debate as solely about a woman’s rights, while the other believes the fetus has rights, as well, but is in the difficult position of being unable to speak up for them. I don’t believe a legal resolution to this issue will _ever_ be reached that satisfies everyone, and I understand, entirely, that interfering in a woman’s decisions in this arena—even for unimpeachable reasons—involves depriving her of a basic freedom. But would those who say it can’t be done, then, and who reject the idea that a fetus has any rights, pause when the other person’s ‘nose’ belongs to a living child?

Consider the case of a young couple in Ohio—Felicia and Cody Beemer. Mr. Beemer, 23, just pleaded guilty to raping his own 13-month-old daughter—while on a supposedly supervised visit at a child protective services facility, no less. The abuse was in the presence of—and apparently participated in by—the child’s mother, Felicia, who is 21. They recorded the assault on a cell phone, and a relative who saw it reported the abuse. The cell phone also revealed hundreds of images of child porn, many involving bestiality, and evidence that Mr. Beemer had also raped an 18-month-old nephew.

It gets worse. Beemer was a registered sex offender, having raped a 3-year-old child when he was a teenager. Mrs. Beemer, only 21, has already had four children, and every one of them was taken away from her immediately after birth. One of those children has already been murdered in foster care. I have been unable to find any details on the Beemers but, clearly, there must have been ample evidence of her unfitness for motherhood. No one has to point out to me that Mr. Beemer was very likely a victim of child sexual abuse himself, or that something has to be deeply, profoundly, wrong with a woman who would not only sexually abuse her own child, but preserve the evidence for later enjoyment. Who knows what kind of screwed up parents she was probably subjected to, or what happened to her to turn her into a monster.

But does any of that change what they’ve done? The death, destruction, physical and psychological trauma and blighted futures of three children? (As mentioned, one is already dead.) And yet, she has the reproductive “right” to continue to get pregnant, and continue to bear children.

Why?

aaarrgh....is there anyone left who knows how to use an apostrophe correctly?!

I don't get too bent out of shape when people misspell, punctuate poorly, or use the wrong word, as long as it's in their personal communication. It pains me a little, because I like the precision and beauty of language, but not everyone has a facility for it, and they are not putting the mistakes out there in a public forum.

But in professional communications perfection should be the goal, and I am flabbergasted that people and businesses pay to print and distribute materials--not to mention display signs--that contain glaring errors. Is there really no one along this continuum--the writer, the manager, the owner, the printer--who can recognize that something is incorrect?

I was following a truck recently that advertised the services of its owner, a landscaper. Along with mowing, edging, and laying sod, there was 'prunning.' I'm sure this custom sign wasn't cheap--it was large and looked well made--and yet, obviously, at no point did anyone see this simple misspelling. Even if the owner couldn't spell, wouldn't you assume he'd ask someone to proofread before he spent hundreds of dollars on a sign that was his face to the public, so to speak? Or that there would be someone at this sign-making enterprise that would double-check for accuracy before they committed the goof-up to posterity or had to haggle over redoing it?

But it is the misuse of apostrophes (particularly, when they denote possession) that is starting to make me crazy, not just because it's ubiquitous, but because their proper usage isn't all that difficult to comprehend.

Menus are the worst offenders. Oyster's, martini's, and entree's, for instance. This leaves me wondering. Which oyster? Which martini's what? Olive, onion? And while menus represent less of an investment than a huge roadside sign, consider this one in my town: 'Cap't Bill's Backyard Barbecue' which is 'catered by the Musser's.' The apostrophe is used correctly after 'Bill,' because the backyard barbecue belongs to him. But what or who is 'the Musser'? And catered by the Musser's what??

Aaaarrgh...! It's really not that hard. If something belongs to something or someone, you indicate that with an apostrophe: the dragonfly's wing, Mr. Pettifogger's hat, the owner's name, Peggy's pet peeve.

If it's simply a plural, then leave it alone! Martinis, lunch specials, entrees, the Mussers. For you eating establishments out there, "Wednesday's special" is correct, but "Beer special's on Wednesday's" is not.

Okay, I feel better now and am ready to move on. I think I have a couple of shrubs I need to prun.

NC teacher tells student he can be arrested for criticizing Obama

If you haven't heard about it yet, an audio recording by a North Carolina high school student has gone viral on YouTube. He recorded an exchange (that's misleading--it wasn't nearly that civil) with his Social Studies teacher, in which she tells him that he could be arrested for criticizing the president. Apparently, she was suspended once the furor escalated, but for what hasn't been made clear. For 'teaching while stupid'? I don't know.

The focus has been on her obvious ignorance; the student pointed out to her that he had in no way threatened the president, he had simply countered her 'fact of the day' (that Romney bullied someone in high school) with a question--namely, hadn't Obama also admitted to bullying someone--and that he was only exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

There are many disturbing things about this episode. For starters, this was the teacher's 'fact' of the day?? From my reading of it, it's not undoubtedly a fact. Romney may indeed have been a high school bully, but was this teacher going to start a discussion about the Washington Post's incredible lack of journalistic ethics (putting words into the mouth of a supposed witness to the effect that he had 'long been bothered' about the incident, then simply altering the story rather than issuing a retraction when this man made it known he hadn't even been aware of the incident until the Post contacted him a few weeks earlier), or mention the fact that the 'victim's own family disavowed the Post's portrayal of him and the incident?

Something tells me...no. And then there is the atmosphere in the classroom and the way this woman interacts with her students. I taught high school for many years, and while there often were laughs and spirited discussion, at no time--ever--was I trying to teach or conduct a debate while shrieking, laughing, unrelated conversation, and general 'carrying on' reigned while I simply tried to shout over it. These kids clearly had no respect for this woman--but why should they? She had no control over her classroom because she had no control over herself. She screamed like a fishwife, cut students off and shut them up because she wouldn't tolerate being disagreed with.

And quite frankly, she was an ideology-driven dummy. What a waste of time for all involved with her. If you can stand her loud, grating voice, you can find the clip and listen, but towards the end, she smugly tells the students that, 'as a Social Studies teacher,' she can't 'allow' them to disrespect any president--past or current--only _moments_ after she has responded to the student's comment that people 'talked shit' about Bush all the time with the shrieking rejoinder that he (Bush) "was shitty!"

I'm sorry to say that, based on my own observations over a long period of time, very few teachers maintain the objectivity they should when it comes to politics and their students. Their job is to challenge students' assumptions and reasoning (whatever their opinions) so they can make them better thinkers. But, by and large, they don't. They freely try to influence, and it's safe to say that most of them don't have a sufficient level of self-awareness to realize they are profoundly wrong--even immoral--to do so.

This woman is a temporary embarrassment to the education establishment in Rowan County, NC, but she is a great illustration of why we are pouring tax dollars down a hole, shortchanging our young people, and falling ever farther behind the countries who demand the very best of their students and teachers.

Why would Hillary even want to be vice president?

Much speculation is floating around at the moment about the possibility of President Obama dumping Joe Biden as his running mate and bringing Hillary Clinton on board. The same thing happened a while ago and then died down; no doubt it's been revived because of the belated realization (on the part of Obama's campaign) that they might not coast to victory, after all.

I have read at least four or five opinion pieces on the subject, all related to whether or not it will actually happen and how it would be accomplished so as not to make Obama look bad. (The most popular guess seems to be that Biden and Hillary would make a switch, and he would be Sec. of State in a second Obama administration--in effect, that he would not be 'dumped,' but would agree to the swap.)

None of what I've read, though, addresses what seems the most obvious and important question. Why would Clinton even consider such a move? Why would it be in her own best interest? The assumption seems to be that it would--but I don't see it.

It's certainly in Obama's, because she could well boost him to a win (although I suspect this would be a particularly bitter pill for him and Michelle to have to swallow--needing Hillary...) She remains highly popular with her fans and her tenure as Sec. of State has earned her respect even among non-fans and past critics. Her substitution onto the ticket is unlikely to change any votes among those who've already decided Obama's performance doesn't merit a second term, but it could easily energize disillusioned Dems and still-undecided Independents who voted for Obama the first time.

But what's in it for Hillary? Regardless of her many strengths, she would still be just the vice president--the "spare tire in the automobile of government' as one v.p. famously put it. Certainly, if she's v.p. for a popular, accomplished president, her chances of succeeding him would be boosted. But if Obama wins, I don't see that happening. Obviously, for the good of the country and all the people out of work, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid that if he gets reelected, he'll double down on what he's already done and what he wants to do, and the backlash will be that in 2016, the Republicans could run almost anyone and win. Being associated with Obama could be a huge liability for her, rather than a help.

In a situation like that, she would actually have a better chance running as the Democratic nominee if she had not been involved with the administration in such a capacity. Really, an Obama win, with or without her, doesn't necessarily improve her 2016 chances. If Romney wins, he's inheriting as big or an even bigger mess than Obama did, and a Democratic challenger will have more traction against him than against a new challenger after 8 years of Obama. Unless--and once again, for the good of the country, this would be the best scenario--Romney did a bang-up job.

Either way, it's a political calculation, but I don't see that hitching her wagon to Obama as his second-in-command really is the smart gamble. And my opinion of her (for 2016) is not going to be improved at all if she cooperates with Obama to turn Uncle Joe loose as Sec. of State. That's really what we need in today's world, isn't it? As our top diplomat, a man who merely opens his mouth and people hold their breath and cringe because they don't know what might come out. Oy.

NC Amendment One passes--a follow-up

Wow, what a news day, yesterday. North Carolina passed Amendment One (defined in my last post as stipulating that marriage between one man and one woman will be the only legally recognized relationship in the state) and President Obama finally made a definitive statement on the subject.

Coincidence? Probably not. Although the state’s fourteen electoral votes don’t constitute a huge number, they could make a critical difference, and after months of reports that North Carolina seemed very winnable to the Obama campaign (with many visits scheduled, to that end) more recent rumors have been that they are wondering whether they should expend the effort. One has to wonder if the timing, partly, is a message to the base and to undecided, socially liberal independents.

The pronouncement was a gamble, and carefully calibrated, I think, to try to do three things: reassure and appeal to the two groups just mentioned, and at the same time, not lose undecided independents who are more socially conservative and/or consider the 10th amendment an important issue. This tightrope-walking consisted of voicing a definite personal opinion in favor of gay marriage while maintaining that it’s still an issue for individual states to decide. Whether this works or backfires is yet to be seen.

I am not overly critical of the political opportunism involved; Mr. Obama is, after all, a politician, and one who had to get elected and is trying to be re-elected by a center-right country. Obviously, Mr. Romney—who was against gay marriage, then for it when he was running for governor of the most liberal state in the union, and is now against it—will have to tread carefully here.

But what makes it such a gamble is the issue of his base. As most people know, turnout among the young and among blacks are critical, and there is simply no appealing to both with this. Young people will respond positively, but the majority of black voters will not, and will be very conflicted, as a result. Neither demographic is likely to turn out for Romney, but they might stay home out of a dearth of 2008 enthusiasm. (This is an unscientific observation, I know, but a black friend—intelligent, passionate about politics and issues, an intriguing mix of liberal and conservative who nonetheless tends to the former, and a devout Christian—had already told me he couldn’t vote for Romney. He’s not thrilled with Obama anymore, but would have voted for him. Now he expects to stay home.)

Thinking of this young man’s support for Amendment One leads me back to the vote, itself. As polls predicted, it wasn’t close—about 60/40 was what I saw. One thing did surprise me, though, given that the polling numbers were readily available. On Facebook, where the majority of my friends are liberal (or perhaps the conservative ones stay quiet; I don’t know) there was an outpouring of surprise, even shock. “Who are these people who voted yes?” one of them asked. I don’t know any of them.” One of his friends assured him they were just uneducated rednecks, so of course he wouldn’t have known any. There were numerous posts decrying the ‘bigotry’ of this vote, and as I pointed out in my last post, this is dangerous ground when people often want to paint ‘bigots’ with as broad a brush as possible, given that black voters overwhelmingly agreed with the ‘rednecks.’

There is a kind of insulated thinking here that hampers the efforts of those who opposed this amendment—and they would do well to consider it as they marshal their efforts toward repeal. When you only talk to one another, when you reinforce each other about how your own feelings are the only valid ones, when you demonize those who disagree with you as either ignorant, bigoted, or both, you lower your preparedness and your effectiveness. (I believe this same phenomenon is at work in the Obama re-election campaign—they have seemed ignorant or dismissive of the genuine reservations of intelligent, concerned voters, and have relied, unwisely, on the supportive coverage of a largely biased press, to the point where they have up to now believed the seas ahead were largely smooth. I’m not surprised that James Carville is currently trying to sound the alarm that a defeat is entirely possible.)

I should make it clear that I’m not saying it’s just those who opposed the amendment who should do more listening to those who supported it. That goes both ways. Those whose religious convictions are firm, like my friend, are unlikely ever to change their mind, but those convictions do not make him ignorant, or a bigot, or a hater. And some sincere interchange might change the minds of those whose concerns are cultural and societal, or whose religious reservations are more open to amelioration.

I was kind of heartened to see a post on one of my Facebook friends’ pages, in which one of his friends (who was clearly opposed to the amendment) seemed to be making a genuine appeal to supporters to explain their thinking. Dialogue may not promote agreement but—engaged in with a determination to be civil—it can promote understanding and respect, and a renewed will to find solutions.

Trying to decide how to vote on the NC 'marriage amendment...'

I prefer to make voting decisions based on facts, not emotions, and I'm currently deciding how to vote on the so-called 'marriage amendment,' which will be on North Carolina's primary ballot next Tuesday, May 8. The proposed amendment to the state's constitution reads as follows: "Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state." Backers of the amendment cite a desire to make sure this definition is determined by a majority of voters, with immunity to reversal by a judge or judges. Opponents dismiss the concern, and allege that the motivation is simply anti-gay bias.

For many people there is no hesitation on how to vote. Either their faith and religious convictions motivate them to vote for, or their conviction that the amendment constitutes discrimination motivates them to vote against. Others, and I include myself here, are less passionate and are weighing intent, concerns about possible legal confusion down the road when disputes end up in court, vague wording, possible unknown consequences, etc.

For the record, I don't have any problem with gay marriage, in itself. But there has been a host of unanticipated consequences in the states where it exists--most notably public school education that clearly crosses the line from promoting tolerance to indoctrinating approval--and parents have no right to opt out of this if they wish to keep their kids in public school, no matter how much it conflicts with their most deeply held convictions. To endorse or promote gay marriage without at least considering the possible ramifications is unwise, I think.

And I guess where I differ with a lot of the amendment's opponents is that I don't dismiss those who are against it as 'haters' and 'bigots.' Polls routinely show that support for civil unions, for example, continues to rise among those who object to gay marriage, and while all some people may see in this is evidence of discrimination, it clearly doesn't indicate 'hate,' or a desire to leave people in gay relationships without any legal protections or status.

The religious objection to gay marriage is a discussion that almost always goes nowhere, because if someone else doesn't share the same foundation or worldview, it's never going to be a view that makes sense to them. In most cases they don't truly respect the conviction because they believe it's without any logical underpinnings, so they suspect it's just a smokescreen for bigotry and ignorance. The fascinating thing in terms of how this turns out next Tuesday is that, often, that implication (of bigotry and hate) is subtly or not so subtly coupled with hints that it is to be found in the 'right wing,' among 'conservative Christians' and 'Republicans,' with the subtext being that those groups are probably racial bigots as well.

But blacks--almost all of whom are Democrats--tend to be religious conservatives who are not in favor of gay marriage. Black pastors are solidly against the amendment and it is noteworthy that while the NAACP, in a difficult political position, has come out against the amendment, they caution explicitly that their opposition should not be interpreted as a position on gay marriage.

I have been leaning towards an 'against' vote for the reasons mentioned above and a number of others, but now am tempted to just abstain because of how turned off I am by the campaign of distortion being waged by the amendment's opponents. Here are two examples of 'facts' they are disseminating:

"This amendment would take away domestic violence protections for all unmarried people..." Please see the link below (you may need to cut and paste) for an unequivocal statement by a dozen or more prosecutors/judges/law enforcement personnel across the state--some of whom do not support the amendment but would like to set the record straight--to the effect that this allegation is 'utterly false.'

http://www.voteformarriagenc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Domestic-Violence-Statement-5.1.12.pdf

Another 'fact' being put out there by opponents is this: "The amendment would automatically strip health benefits from unmarried people who receive coverage through their partners..' when the truth is that _no one_ who receives these benefits from companies that provide them will be affected. The state already doesn't provide benefits to unmarried couples, whatever their sex, so the only couples who may lose partner coverage are employees of one of the few municipalities--Chapel Hill is one--that provide these benefits. I am not saying this isn't of concern--it is--but to state that everyone with partner coverage will lose it is, quite simply, a blatant lie.

I haven't had time to investigate the other claims being made by opponents, but I really dislike being manipulated and since they are 0 for 2 so far, I'm not confident of their veracity. I am also deeply offended by some of the more absurd propaganda--such as the suggestion that abused women will be forced to consider marrying their abusers so they can have legal protection from them. Fearmongering is ugly and inexcusable no matter which side of the political spectrum it comes from.

So, I am sincerely interested in input from both sides, and I'm particularly interested in feedback from people who live in states where gay marriage is legal.

Thanks

Sex with the dead in Egypt

A U.K. newspaper, The Daily Mail, has reported that a law is in the works in Egypt that would legalize a man's having sex with his wife's corpse (although 'with' doesn't seem exactly the right word...) up until six hours after her death. According to the news report a Moroccan imam, who last year opined that marriage is an institution which extends beyond death, was somehow the impetus for this legislation. Apparently, he demonstrated his support for equal rights by stating unequivocally that women enjoyed the same right to sex with their dead husbands, which is less magnanimous than it sounds, once one thinks about it for a short moment.

But, I digress. There is no solid evidence at this point that the story is true, and defenders of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is poised to take control of Parliament and is fielding a presidential candidate, in violation of a promise made last year not to) say it is just a story cooked up by Mubarak supporters to make the Brotherhood look bad. Time will soon tell, no doubt.

But even if it is a hoax, Egyptian women aren't laughing. They know that the advancement of legal equality for women will be significantly less of a priority for the Brotherhood than it was under the hated Mubarak regime. Less ghoulish but more concerning in terms of the broader implications, are proposed laws (according to the Daily Mail piece and other accounts) that would lower the marriage age and repeal a ten-year old reform which made it less legally onerous and time-consuming for women to divorce. Whether these become law or not there is little reason to doubt that the Brotherhood, once in control, will not only halt women's advances but attempt to roll back gains already made. Democracy, overall, doesn't look nearly as imminent as it did back in the heady days of the Arab spring, but hey, one didn't need a telescope to see this coming.

Which leads to the question, did the Obama administration see it coming? One assumes these highly-educated and reportedly brilliant people considered what would happen in the aftermath of Mubarak's ouster before they promoted it, so perhaps this is the outcome they expected, but still think it will all turn out in the end. Or maybe they were naive enough to think it was going to work out right away; who knows? Perhaps they didn't have a clue, but feared they'd be on the wrong side of history if they kept quiet or propped up Mubarak, not that the latter would have been likely given Obama's views about the past use of American power. I am not saying he should have, either, because I don't know, but serious arguments for that can be made.

I have a friend whose opinion I respect, but we disagree fundamentally about Obama's foreign policy record. He thinks it's what he's done best. I think the President's inexperience shows glaringly, although the consequences may not fully bloom for a while. Persuasion wasn't utilized much in Libya where we had comparatively little national security interest; we were told the bombing and material/logistical support for the rebels (something one suspects Obama would have condemned were he still a senator and it was authorized by George Bush) was necessary for humanitarian reasons, yet upwards of 10,000 people have died at the hands of the Syrian regime and we've done nothing active to help them. Obama lent his voice and American support for regime change in Egypt, but kept silent when a million (or maybe it was two million) people took to the streets of Tehran seeking the ouster of a government which openly threatens us and inexorably marches toward the means to make good on the threat.

I don't claim to be a foreign policy expert, but much of this is incomprehensible to me. I have the uneasy feeling these are not foreign 'policies' at all, but simply reactions. Perhaps Obama has discovered what hubris kept him from seeing when all he had to do was criticize his predecessor. It's a lot more complicated than it looks.

Maureen Dowd uses the phony 'mommy wars' to wage the real war on Romney's Mormonism

In her column, "Phony Mommy Wars," Maureen Dowd dismisses as 'piffle' Hilary Rosen's comment that Mitt Romney was foolish to say he depended on his wife's feedback about women's economic concerns because she 'actually never worked a day in her life.' But next, Dowd goes on to criticize Ann Romney for capitalizing on the attack and turning it to her husband's advantage.

Hello? Maureen! Remember all the mileage the left got out of Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student whose starting salary after graduation will approach $200K but who wants her Catholic university to pay to protect her from the consequences of her own sex life? That's what people _do_ when they're jockeying for political advantage; it's kind of like you snarking about the "wealthy Palm Beach donors who came in fancy cars to eat snapper," while they listened to Mitt, while failing to mention the many dozens of high-dollar fundraisers Obama has attended over the last year. Or your newspaper calling the 'mommy wars' phony while it legitimizes the phony 'war on women.'

Actually, I don't usually mind Dowd--her opinions are rarely a surprise but she's generally not overtly hateful and, occasionally, she'll make me laugh (as when she described Newt Gingrich as a 'crazed Chuckie doll.' I kind of like Newt, but when something's funny, it's funny...)

But, Dowd's partisan panties are clearly showing. In mocking Mitt's claim to have promoted welfare reform in Massachusetts by spending more on state-funded daycare so mothers could have the 'dignity of work' than it would have cost to just continue their welfare, Dowd asks the question "So the dignity of work only applies to poor moms?"

The subtext of this clumsy attempt at sarcasm is that women who stay home with their kids are all like Ann Romney--they can do it without fear or anxiety because a well-off husband can afford it, and the only other moms out there are either welfare moms or 'waitress moms.' It was a silly thing to say, but in spite of its casualness, the remark conveys remarkable ignorance about a big swath of stay-at-home moms--those who aren't poor but who are far from wealthy. The ones who thought long and hard about the material sacrifices their families would have to make, about the added pressure on their husbands, about the possibly permanent effects of the hiatus on their own career trajectories. Those parents are not only letting their children know how much they're valued, but are teaching them by example about frugality, self-reliance, and discipline. So are millions of other parents who would like to make it work with only one earner, but can't, and who still struggle valiantly to do it all.

One gets the sense Dowd doesn't know many of the stay-at-home moms of the sort I describe, but that's no excuse for misrepresenting the choice as the province only of the privileged, like Ann Romney, so she can then call her husband a hypocrite for trying to do something to disrupt the cycle of dependent parents bringing up dependent children. Not only is that transparent partisan hackery, it doesn't even make sense.

The cries by Dowd and others about how the Romney campaign is exploiting what is--I agree--pretty much a tempest in a teapot, are laughable given their determination to similarly exploit anything they can. No doubt we'll be in for that, from both sides, for another six months. But watch for her and her cronies to amp up the sneak attack on Romney's religion. It's already begun, actually, and I say 'sneak' attack because they won't risk a direct one; they'll supply 'information' that's damning and creepy. A little more than a month ago, I commented to a friend that there had been very little floated about Romney's Mormonism, and that I thought it was deliberate--that the Obama campaign (through its surrogates in the media) were leaving the topic alone until Mitt was safely the nominee. Only days later, this column came out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/dowd-is-elvis-a-mormon.html?ref=maureendowd

Not surprisingly, Dowd has worked the Mormon angle into the 'mommy wars' column, along with others. It won't be the last time. I am not a Mormon and don't know many Mormons and, frankly, even though I'm less than enthusiastic about him, I don't really care that Romney is one. If I thought he might be unduly influenced by it in a negative way as President, I would be concerned, but I don't.

I really hope I'm wrong, but I predict that a just-under-the-radar assault on him, because of it, is forthcoming, and it's going to be ugly. David Axelrod is no fool. He knows he can't run a positive campaign unless things dramatically improve soon, and those voters who aren't currently deceived by the spin aren't likely to fall under the spell. So to capture the undecideds and the waverers, it will be fear and smear. It's going to be a long six months...

Will any good come out of Trayvon Martin's death? Final thoughts.

Sooner or later, Trayvon Martin's death will fade from the headlines. Not in the next few weeks when a determination should be forthcoming as to whether George Zimmerman should be charged with a crime--and the certain backlash if he isn't--but eventually, it will be old news.

When that happens, will the utterly shameful Sharpton and Jackson, and others who have incited violence in the name of 'justice,' recognize their hypocrisy and perfidy and have a genuine change of heart? Highly doubtful, given that their past rushes to judgment (Tawana Brawley, the Duke lacrosse incident, etc.) have had no discernible chastening effect, and no apparent effect on the media's eagerness to give them a megaphone.

Will NBC think twice, next time, before they edit something to deliberately misrepresent and deceive? Will the rest of the media pack hold back and wait for the facts before they sensationalize the next big story in order to scoop their competitors and keep on top of the 24/7 news cycle? I think we all know the answer to those questions.

So who might actually learn some lesson of value, going forward? Consumers of news, hopefully, but it will only be those with some intelligence and discrimination. But those whom one would really like to see profit are the people--both black and white--who genuinely desire to see the black community flourish and fulfill its enormous potential.

Here is one of the things writer and professor Shelby Steele (who, like Barack Obama, is a product of a black father and a white mother) had to say about the exploitation of the Martin situation: "After the '60s—-in a society guilty for its long abuse of us—-we took our historical victimization as the central theme of our group identity. We could not have made a worse mistake. It has given us a generation of ambulance-chasing leaders, and the illusion that our greatest power lies in the manipulation of white guilt."

It is hard not to agree that those who have fanned the flames in this situation have done so with that goal of manipulating white guilt. How else could they claim, with straight faces, that young black men are being 'hunted down in the streets,' as several have put it, by whites? The numbers are there, and they don't lie. As Steele said--"blacks today are nine times more likely to be killed by other blacks than by whites...the absurdity of Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites." (Writers on the left are attacking Steele, of course, largely on the basis that he is a black conservative, and therefore not worthy of any consideration.)

Someone they would dismiss even more on matters of race (as a white, Jewish conservative) is Mona Charen, who zeroed in on what is probably the most important takeaway in this whole thing. She asks the question, "Why do African-Americans, 12.6 percent of the nation’s population, account for 50 percent of the murder victims?" (And as Steele and a host of others have reminded us, they are overwhelmingly the victims of other blacks--not whites.)

Her answer? "Because fatherlessness is most pervasive among blacks."

She goes on to say that "among blacks, 72 percent of births are to unmarried women. And while some unmarried mothers go on to marry the fathers of their babies, it’s rare in the African-American community, where only 31 percent of couples are married (in 1960, it was 61 percent)...a full 85 percent of youths in prison come from fatherless homes, as do 80 percent of rapists, 71 percent of high-school drop-outs, and 63 percent of teen suicides..."

This statement of hers is the one that should really make people sit up and take notice: "In The Atlantic Monthly, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote that the 'relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature.'"

_Erases_ the connection. That's big.

So while this will have to be the subject of another post, I have to comment that there is a tie-in here, for sure, with the latest canard of those who are trying to shore up the women's vote for Obama--the so-called 'war on women.' The illogical equation being posited is that opposition to forcing the Catholic Church to pay for contraception is the same as trying to take away contraception, or that the mere mention of the fact that sexual freedom hasn't been an unalloyed good indicates the desire to send women back into the kitchen, barefoot. It's absurd, of course, but as I said above, there are many credulous people.

But how can it be a matter of dispute between people of good will, whatever their political persuasions, that fathers and family structure matter. As a letter writer to the WSJ rather succinctly put it: "I have nothing to say about whether the sexual revolution has been good for women or not. But I think an important question is, has it been good for children?" Wouldn't it be great if the Sharptons and Jacksons asked that question about black children?

Time for a reality check on the ‘politicizing’ of the Trayvon Martin tragedy

Have the media and Obama’s re-election team made the leap that all of us are stupid, just because a lot of people are? The drumbeat has started that Republicans, and those on the ‘right,’ are politicizing the tragedy and should be ashamed of themselves. Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for Obama’s re-election effort, said it, and now Joe Scarborough on MSNBC has said it, so look for this to be picked up and parroted throughout the media.

Here’s a little refresher:

Left-leaning media outlets reported this case, from the outset, not just as a ‘murder,’ but a racially motivated murder. They didn’t have (and still do not have) a shred of evidence that this was so, but hey, who cares? The goal was to get things stirred up, and that they did.

They initially reported that the shooter was white, so a bit of a wrench was thrown into things when they found out that Zimmerman is only half white. (Good indication of how much investigation they actually did into the facts of the case before they took it and ran with it, don’t you think?) They solved this by calling him a ‘white Hispanic’ henceforth, with the order of the words being no accident, of course.

Sharpton (whom MSNBC considers a worthy mouthpiece) and Jackson and the usual hustlers who couldn’t care less about blacks who are killed by other blacks, or whites who are killed by blacks, descended on Sanford, spewing incendiary rhetoric and whipping crowds into frenzies.

While screaming about justice and how Zimmerman was a ‘vigilante,’ various parties, from obscure ones to the likes of Spike Lee and Roseanne Barr, have publicized the addresses not only of Zimmerman, but of his parents, sending them into hiding. (Lee at first refused to apologize when it was discovered he had tweeted the wrong address for Zimmerman, sending a bewildered older couple into hiding.) The New Black Panther Party issued a bounty for Zimmerman's 'capture' and witnesses were terrified of being identified.

As we all know, President Obama has inserted himself into this, and we have had a Democratic member of the House wearing a hoodie onto the floor of the chamber, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation demanding a Justice Department investigation “and an arrest.” Not, you will note, ‘an arrest if it’s warranted,” but an arrest. Why are they even calling for an investigation?

And yet Cutter and Scarborough (and there will be more, you can be sure) have the absolute gall to point fingers at Republicans/conservatives for ‘politicizing’ the tragedy. Scarborough was particularly upset about Trayvon’s social media posts and pictures being scrutinized, and what he considers a ‘blame the victim’ mentality.

I don’t care how many tattoos Trayvon had, or gold teeth, or whatever. I don’t think they ‘prove’ anything about what did or didn’t happen that night. As far as has been reported, Trayvon had no criminal record, which is the most salient fact about him.

But the dishonest and corrupt media precipitated this scrutiny by trying, from the outset, to shape public perception with selective, slanted, and overly emotional coverage. If Trayvon’s tattoos, gold teeth, etc., don’t matter, why did they deliberately hide them? Why did they deliberately use a picture that was years old? We know the answer. They wanted to create a narrative in which an innocent, sweet boy was mercilessly gunned down because he was black, and anything that might have contributed to the impression that he wasn’t a sympathetic victim had to be suppressed.

If I should need to reiterate—I do not believe that anything that’s been revealed about who Trayvon Martin was, five years after that widely disseminated first picture was taken, constitutes “evidence” of anything. And while I don’t believe—at all—that his shooting was racially motivated, I believe it was avoidable, and that a tragedy has occurred, and the investigation should proceed.

But for the people and organizations who deliberately orchestrated a media firestorm to now start complaining because everyone didn’t just shut up and swallow what they were fed, almost defies belief. They started this conflagration, so their lamentations about where it’s spreading ring pretty hollow.

Trayvon Martin

Okay, this one will be pretty short. Unlike some people, I'm not prepared to rush to judgment, not prepared to decide that the tragic incident which resulted in a young man's death is for sure a 'murder,' not prepared to agree that it's on a par with Emmet Till's murder, not ready to agree it's proof that nothing has changed in this country, not prepared to agree with the increasingly hysterical emotion that passes for activism these days.

What I do agree with is that a tragedy has occurred, Martin's family deserves a thorough, competent and impartial investigation, and George Zimmerman should be held responsible for whatever degree of culpability an investigation and subsequent trial, if there is one, is assigned to him. But I also believe he is entitled, like everyone else, to the presumption of innocence and to due process of law.

'But he should be arrested!' people are screaming. They say that law enforcement failed to do its job. But these same people would be outraged if someone to whom they were sympathetic was arrested without probable cause, and as I understand it, the standards for probable cause in this case were not met. (That said, if the local law enforcement were planning to consider the case closed rather than continue to investigate and try to determine what happened, with an arrest to come if it's warranted, they would be in the wrong. It certainly sounded as if Zimmerman could have avoided a confrontation if he had used better judgment.) But at the scene, the police were confronted with an injured, bleeding man who claimed self-defense, who had already called 911 to report somebody suspicious in his neighborhood, which had been subject to an increasing amount of crime as more houses became vacant. I just read three different articles about this, and none of them even mentioned Zimmerman's injuries or that he had apparently been knocked to the ground. Doesn't need to be mentioned, I guess, if your goal is to stoke the fires. Under this set of circumstances, an arrest was not immediately warranted, but that doesn't mean one was never going to occur, and I've heard nothing to indicate Zimmerman is a flight risk or was refusing to cooperate.

For those who think I am saying the man is innocent--no, I'm not. I don't know that, any more than do those who are sure he's guilty, but that's not stopping _them_. An investigation, conducted by an agency in whom all involved can have confidence, should proceed without delay. But those who are ranting for 'justice,' those like Farrakhan who are making veiled threats of general violence and those who are making explicit death threats to Zimmerman, and those like Sharpton who never seem to have any outrage about racially motivated violence unless the victims are black, don't even know the meaning of the word.

It's not about pills; it's about power.

The latest news is that the Obama administration has offered what it considers to be an acceptable solution to the objections (primarily by the Catholic Church) to its directive that religious institutions (other than individual houses of worship) provide free birth control and abortifacients to their employees. As best I can understand, the administration's claim is that the religious institutions will not have to pay for these things, after all; their insurance providers will have to provide them.

If you are scratching your head right now, so am I. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if a religious institution's insurance provider will be required to provide access, free of charge, to birth control methods and so-called 'morning after' pills, then the cost of these items will be passed on to the employer. They are going to be paying for it, no matter how you slice it, and it will be interesting to read the defenses of this 'adjustment' that will no doubt be forthcoming.

What's also been interesting (but not surprising given the administration's apparent unpreparedness for the backlash) is its attempt, aided by the dependable lackeys in the media, to characterize the whole controversy as being about contraception, women's health and women's rights, when it is not. There seems to be almost a deliberate strategy to exploit the sloppy and emotional thinking that contributes to forming opinions these days, to obscure the central fact: this is about government's power to impose its will wherever it wants. By railing about how people opposed to the new policy are mounting "an outrageous assault" as Planned Parenthood put it, on women's health, denying them their 'rights,' and so forth, they expect that people will support this serious encroachment on the First Amendment simply because they support the availability of birth control. (The administration and its defenders are shamelessly politicizing the controversy by assailing 'Republicans' for their opposition, but not very successfully, given that many of their most outspoken Catholic critics are Democrats.)

I support the availability of birth control, should I need to make that clear. I used it for a while during my own marriage, and after we decided our family was complete, my ex-husband had a vasectomy, another procedure which is anathema to the Catholic Church. But I don't think my opinion about a matter is sufficient to determine the best policies government should follow, and I'm amazed at the number of people who apparently do. I am also dismayed that so many people's conception of what constitutes a 'right' has gotten so fuzzy. Our mothers used to caution us that life was not fair, but many people seem to believe it can be made so--indeed, that we have a 'right' that it should be so.

Is it 'fair' that women who work for a Catholic university or hospital have had to pay for their own birth control? Maybe not. But no one forced those women to accept employment there, as opposed to somewhere where the insurance provided it. If the answer to that is that those women needed a job and perhaps there were no other available jobs, well maybe that was true. But does that translate into them having a 'right' to employer-funded birth control? I guess if logic isn't your strong suit, maybe it does. But even if that were true, does their right to birth control trump the religious employer's right to follow the deeply held and long-standing tenets of the faith?

Don't get me wrong; I certainly understand the conviction that a woman's ability to plan her family shouldn't be a financial hardship or an impossibility for some women while it's available to others either through their insurance or because they have adequate means. But nothing is ever 'free.' Free means that the government provides or subsidizes it, which means taxpayers are paying, or in this case, if insurance companies provide it, 'free' means employers and/or people who pay premiums are covering it.

So the central question in this case is, does government have the power to force a religious institution to pay for something that violates a core, deeply held and longstanding pillar of its faith (and your opinion, or mine, on birth control, is not what counts here) or does the First Amendment protect them from that intrusion?

If it doesn't, then be prepared for future encroachments on religious liberty that you might not happen to agree with. But, by then, your opinion on the issue itself won't matter, if a precedent is set.

Musings on the race for the Republican nomination

I looked back to see when I had written about Herman Cain, and saw that it was mid-October. I think that was shortly after the Florida straw poll when he surprised everyone by winning handily, and his candidacy was just beginning to catch fire. There's nothing but ash now, of course, and burned up in that conflagration was any chance of Cain being selected as another candidate's running mate--a place I thought from the beginning was ideal for him.

About a month after that, I got distracted from following up on Cain, by another story that caught my eye, but mentioned along with him my 'new man,' Newt Gingrich. Since then he has surged and faded, too, although he's not going quietly. (Maureen Dowd actually got a laugh out of me--she referred to him as 'a crazed Chuckie doll.)

Which leaves Mitt the last man standing, because Santorum is unlikely to maintain any momentum outside Iowa, Perry's last hope is South Carolina and he doesn't appear to be polling well there, and Huntsman's performance in New Hampshire notwithstanding, I can't see him getting enough traction in time, or ever engaging the more conservative wing of the party.

So that leaves very few Republicans, or interested Independents like myself, satisfied with what's on the menu. Conservatives can't stand him and threaten to stay home in November or cast a protest vote, establishment Republicans support him not out of any great enthusiasm but because he seems the only viable choice, and the Obama re-election team rejoices, because not only have they have been handed the perfect foil for their planned strategy of class warfare, but the other Republican hopefuls are providing lots of good video clips for attack ads against Romney.

Is what has so far been a raucous, surprise-filled run-up to the 2012 election going to turn into just a long, boring slog? If so, I might just have to check out the news once a week instead of daily, because it will all be the same--blah, blah, blah. There is an occasional flare sent up by one or another of the pundits about the possibility of a brokered convention, but one can't even imagine who could ride in on a white horse at the end of August, and go on to win. The Republican establishment would only be forced into that if they really came to believe disaffected conservatives would stay home in sufficient numbers that Romney didn't have a chance. And again, even if they considered it, who could turn out the vote in only two months? The only conceivable choice would be Palin, but that would be a huge gamble, in terms of losing the Independents/centrists Romney is presumed to have garnered. Not only that--and I never thought I would hear myself say this--I think Palin is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future; she would be reluctant to jeopardize that with a probably futile attempt to unseat Obama this time.

The wild card, of course, is Paul. If he were to run on the Libertarian ticket, whose chances would he spoil? The usual answer would be a given--the Republican. Think Ross Perot. But Paul is wildly popular with a lot of young people, one of the Obama team's key demographics. If the messages coming out of OWS were any clue, their grasp on economics is tenuous, at best, but there's certainly a growing awareness that, as Obama rails against the likes of Mitt Romney, he's filled his administration with exactly those people. They are beginning to see (contrary to Michelle's pronouncement that the public is 'confused' about how much her husband has accomplished and needs to be educated to that end) that the emperor really doesn't have any clothes. Paul could hurt him a lot more than Romney.

However, it's widely held that Paul won't run as a third-party candidate because of the damage--fatal damage--it would do to the career of his senator son, Rand. No other Libertarian candidate could make so much as a dent in the outcome, so it would have to be Paul, and it's a crying shame that he is so 'out there' on certain things, because he is perhaps the only candidate who really seems to comprehend the seriousness of our financial future as a nation.

So, I think it's Romney and, to use the president's phrase, those of us who hope a Republican candidate will at least steer us away from the abyss instead of stepping on the gas will just have to 'eat our peas' and vote for him.