"Radicals In Their Own TIme" - Introduction & Selected Excerpts

I've just posted here the Introduction and excerpts from three chapters in my forthcoming book (Cambridge University Press), "Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America," on my Berkeley Press Selected Works page (http://works.bepress.com/michael_lawrence/).

Here are the first few paragraphs from the Introduction:

In teaching history, there should be extensive discussions of personalities who
benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.
-Albert Einstein, 1953

America in the twenty-first century exists in a perpetual Dickensian sort-of “best
of times, worst of times” state when it comes to putting into practice the sacred principles
of liberty and equal justice. On one hand, the once-unthinkable occurred in November
2008 when the nation – a land that had permitted and promoted human slavery for more
than half of its four hundred year history - elected an African-American man president.
The symbolic importance alone of placing Barack Obama at the pinnacle of power in the
United States, given its sordid past practices, cannot be understated. Yet, on the very
same day, a majority of voters in the most populous state in the union, California, voted
to deny thousands of their fellow citizens, gay Americans, the equal right to marry. The
California experience is only one of numerous legislative-judicial struggles beginning to
play out on the issue of gay marriage in other states around the nation.

Taking the long view, if history is any guide (and it is), there is little doubt the
discriminatory laws against gay marriage will eventually end up on history’s scrapheap.
The current battles will soon go the way of those of some fifty years ago involving
interracial marriage, during which one Virginia trial court, in upholding the state’s antimiscegenation statute, reasoned: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference
with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” Most Americans
today would view such language with a mixture of shock and disbelief - but it was not
long ago that legislative majorities in sixteen states gave official voice to such ignorant
biases.

Fifty years from now, the current arguments against gay marriage will seem
similarly archaic. As the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. limned, “the arc of the moral
universe is long; but it bends toward justice.” For all its faults, the United States
Constitution has, over time, provided a one-way ratchet toward greater, not lesser, liberty
and equal justice – every constitutional amendment but one (the eighteenth, itself
repealed by the twenty-first just fifteen years later), for example, has, if anything,
expanded Americans’ freedoms.

America’s story is remarkable: a Nation, sprouting from the seeds of
Enlightenment principles where “tolerance was a moral virtue, even a duty; no longer
merely the prerogative of calculating monarchs, but a fundamental element of the ‘rights
of man.’” For the first time in history a people - coming together toward the common
goal of liberty and equal justice, and clearly cognizant of human nature’s split personality
between good (freedom) and evil (tyranny and oppression) - created a government
explicitly designed to resolve the tension in favor of freedom.

That is the myth, anyway. But all is not well in the land of milk and honey; for
America’s constitutional structure has failed to thwart government’s moves to the darker
side: its shameful history of slavery and apartheid; its past oppression of women; its
systematic subjugation of Native Americans in violation of sacred treaty promises; its
pervasive discrimination against immigrants and homosexuals; and, among other currentday
repressions, its curtailments of civil liberties and inexcusable use of torture in the ill-considered “war on terror.” Consider also American geopolitics of the last hundred years: World War I Censorship (Congress’s and President Wilson’s 1917-1918 Espionage and Alien Acts imposing egregious punishments on political speech); World War II Nativism (the President’s authorizing the military to force 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, from their homes and to quarantine them in internment camps for nearly three years; Cold War McCarthyism (powerful committees of both the United States Senate and House of Representatives conducting modern-day witch-hunts of thousands of American citizens accused of having communist sympathies); and Millennial Cheneyism (the executive branch aggressively
exceeding long-accepted constitutional limits on its power - even while operating in a
system that separates powers in order to provide checks and balances on each co-equal
branch).

In each case, prejudice, greed, and political expediency took hold before being
beaten back – for the time being. It is a constant struggle. As much as America has
accomplished in advancing humankind’s perpetual quest for greater Freedom, it has
never completely lived up to its own promise, for whatever reason – whether because of
bitter class wars (Howard Zinn), its economically-motivated Constitution (Charles
Beard), or some combination of these or other factors.

Which viewpoint more accurately describes the true America - the mythic
common-interest pursuit-of-equal-liberty view; the grittier class-warfare explanation; or
the more cynical economic-interest rationale? The reality is that there are elements of
accuracy in each. And it is useful to keep them all in mind: Lest we become swept-up in
misty patriotic myth, we should recall America’s ignoble history of injustices and
intolerance; or, conversely, lest we lose hope, we should remember that the myth and
partial reality of America as beacon of freedom has for centuries truly inspired millions
around the world. In the end, the goals represented in the positive myth are worth
fighting for, both idealistically and practically, for they advance our individual and
collective humanity – and offer a model of ambition, idealism and hope for future
generations.
...

Obama Approach to Governing; Afghanistan Policy

David Ignatius's Washington Post column today, "More Than an Orator-in-Chief," provides an intriguing take on President Obama's approach to governing.

Ignatius reports that at a Dec. 1 luncheon for columnists in the White House library, Obama said:

"'If I were basing my decisions on polls, then the banking system might have collapsed, and we probably wouldn't have GM or Chrysler, and it's not clear that the economy would be growing right now.'" "Some presidents have an almost compulsive need to be popular (think Bill Clinton)," Ignatius continues. "This one is less needy, which is an advantage for him and the country."

Regarding the president's planned surge in Afghanistan, Ignatius comments, "there were the two juicy nuggets that stuck in my mind, which hint of a broader and more creative approach to governing and diplomacy. They suggest the strategic thinking in the back of our professorial president's mind....

[First, Obama said:] 'Part of the goal of my presidency is to take the threat of terrorism seriously but expand our notions of security so that it includes improving our science and technology, making sure our schools work, getting serious about clean energy, fixing our health-care system, stabilizing our deficit and our debt.' This may sound like boilerplate, Ignatius suggests, "but it's actually a pretty good manifesto for governing."

"Making responsible policy decisions isn't easy, and in the case of bailing out bankers or sending more troops to Afghanistan, it will leave nearly everyone unhappy. But Obama seems newly comfortable making enemies if he thinks he's doing the right thing."

The second insight involves the role of the Taliban. Responding to Ignatius's question about whether he would back reconciliation with the Taliban, Obama said: "'We are supportive of the Afghan government's efforts to reintegrate those elements of the Taliban that . . . have abandoned violence and are willing to engage in the political process.'

"Obama sent more signals that night at West Point: He dropped the language from his March 27 speech on Afghanistan insisting the Taliban's core 'must be defeated' and promised only to 'reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.' He also pledged to 'support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban' who are ready to make peace.

"The Taliban gave an interesting response a few days later on its Web site, Alemarah.info. It said the group 'has no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan.' Now, what did that mean? Was it a hint the Taliban might break with al-Qaeda? I don't know, but I hope the White House is asking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to find out."

Ignatius concludes: "Obama has a cool and detached style that makes people forget, sometimes, that he is an innovator and a change agent. He would be wise to show the country less of the mental teleprompter and more of the fire inside."

Just Do It - Obama Needs Backbone for Meaningful Healthcare Reform, a la FDR

In "Roosevelt, the Great Divider" in yesterday's New York Times, Jean Edward Smith explained that much of the meaningful progressive reform accomplished during the New Deal was done by a pugnacious president willing to exercise his majority in Congress even though he knew he would be highly criticized by his opponents.

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said on national radio before the 1936 election, Smith recalls. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

When he was seeking to make major progressive reform, FDR did not waste his time trying to work with the deeply entrenched obstructionist minorities interested only in maintaining an unjust status quo. He did not consult giant utilities, for example, when he sought to create the Tennessee Valley Authority which would provide affordable electricity throughout the poor South. He did not ask for the permission of Wall Street when he proposed the Securities and Exchange Commission to curb greed. Had he caved to the loud minority who believe that government has no role in providing a social safety net, we would have no Social Security. His arguments for maximum hours and minimum wage laws and the right to bargain collectively were over the heated objections of American business. And, to show that it was not always traditionally conservative vested interests that he faced down, organized labor was vociferous in its objection to the Civilian Conservation Corps because of the low wages paid by the corps.

In short, Smith explains, "majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission." He assuaged his Democratic colleagues to maintain his majorities, but "his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia.... [He] lambasted the 'economic royalists' who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having 'earned the hatred of entrenched greed.' In another speech he mocked 'the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs' who criticized the government’s relief efforts.... Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process."

By contrast, President Obama's "fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead." Smith suggests "[i]t is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices. Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land."

Really, what does Obama have to lose? Face it: the Right, marching to the tune of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Steele, is never going to play ball. Their main agenda is political - whatever it takes to bring Obama down, they're for. So Obama might as well stand up, like FDR, and say, "to heck with 'em - we're going to pass reform with teeth that will create the sort of humane society of which we are all worthy."

What does that mean? As David Brooks suggests in his column today, "Let's Get Fundamental": "There are many people telling [President Obama] to go incremental. They’re telling him to just enlarge the current system a bit and pay for it by pounding down a few Medicare fees. But did Barack Obama really get elected so he could pass the Status Quo Sanctification and Extension Act?

"This is not the time to get incremental. It’s the time to get fundamental. Reform the incentives. Make consumers accountable for spending. Make price information transparent. Reward health care, not health services. Do what you set out to do. Bring change."

Much of what has made America great was brought about by progressive legislation. If President Obama wants to be a great president who makes lasting, meaningful progressive change, he should stand up, be brave (in his own way, if not in the outright combative manner of FDR), and commit to a strong progressive plan. Accept that the ever-present regressive 40% of American society will bitch and moan about it (but of course they will take full advantage of its benefits once available) - they'll never change, so might as well just move forward despite them.

Strong versus Weak Judging

As so often happens in the field of constitutional law, events converge that serve to illustrate how real-world practice often departs from constitutional principle. The same-day announcements on May 26 by President Obama of Sonya Sotomayor as his choice for the U.S. Supreme Court and by the California Supreme Court of its decision to uphold Proposition 8 is but another such serendipitous pairing.

First, constitutional principle suggests that President Obama owed the nation a strong nominee - and with Sonya Sotomayor, he delivered.

Those who framed the Constitution knew that it would take a special kind of person to guarantee equal justice to all - including the less powerful - even when majorities in the legislative and executive branches would not. “It is easy to see,” Alexander Hamilton wrote, “that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice in the community.”

Sonya Sotomayor understands the constitutional role of judges. As she commented in 1997, “I believe we should not bend the Constitution under any circumstances. It says what it says. We should honor it.” A strong judge like Judge Sotomayor knows that when majorities abridge the rights of individuals, it is the judge’s sometimes unpopular role to overcome the majority’s will.

Weak judges, by contrast, hide behind majority opinion to avoid protecting individual liberty and equality. The California Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to uphold Proposition 8 (despite holding just last year that discrimination against gays is no less unconstitutional than discrimination based on race or religion) is an example of judging that is, well, weak.

As the lone strong voice, dissenting Justice Carlos J. Moreno, put it, “The rule the majority crafts today … weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority.”

Exactly right.

These principles apply to the federal Constitution as well. The framers believed that the whole point of majoritarian government is to protect liberty and equality for all. As James Madison explained in arguing for the Bill of Rights before the First Congress, “independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive.” And Hamilton commented that “the interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts…. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable difference between [the Constitution and a legislative act]…, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.”

In concept, the principle of judicial review is one upon which liberals and conservatives can agree. At his confirmation hearings in 2005, for example, Chief Justice John Roberts commented, “I don't think the Court should be a taskmaster of Congress. The Constitution is the Court's taskmaster, and it is Congress's as well.” Neither federal, state nor local majorities, in other words, may pass laws (including amendments to state constitutions) that abridge rights guaranteed by the federal Constitution - and it is the judge’s responsibility to make sure that they do not.

Viewed in this light, the “judicial activist” warhorse regularly trotted out by those opposed to judges doing their jobs to protect the rights of minorities (usually under the guise that such action constitutes inappropriate “legislating from the bench”) is exposed for what it is: a tired old nag ready for the glue factory.

Obama in the Middle East - A Respectful, Rational Voice

One may justifiably criticize some of the decisions made by President Obama in continuing certain Bush administration policies (e.g., military commissions, state secrets, etc.), but there is one area where the new president truly shines: representing the United States abroad.

As I'd posted a couple times from the early days of his campaign, this was one of the primary reasons Obama was such an appealing candidate ... and now is such an inspiring leader.

With his landmark speech in Cairo on June 4, Obama used the bully pulpit of the American presidency to turn the discussions on Middle-East politics in more productive directions. Not that everyone in the region is enamored of everything he had to say, as reported by the BBC, but isn't it heartening to see once again a U.S. president who is able to speak respectfully and rationally in the international arena?

Eugene Robinson said it well in his June 9 column in the Washington Post, "The Importance of Being Obama":

"I used to fear that President Obama was overestimating the power of his personal history as an instrument of foreign policy. Now I wonder if he might have been underestimating."
....

"Taking a cold-eyed view of international affairs is never wrong," Robinson continued. "But it's also wrong to ignore the spectacle of an audience member, at Obama's Cairo University speech, interrupting an American president to shout, "We love you!" You will recall that the last memorable presidential appearance in the Arab world was the news conference in Iraq at which George W. Bush dodged two shoes hurled at his head.

"Not being Bush was a big factor. But at least as important was being Obama -- and being able to say, as the president did in Cairo, that "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed."

"Obama was referring to the "generations of Muslims" in his father's Kenyan family, his early years in Indonesia and his experience working in Chicago communities where "many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith." The most important word in that sentence, however, came at the end: By saying "revealed" rather than "born," Obama was acknowledging Islam as a divinely given faith.

"Obama quoted liberally from the Koran, drawing applause. Perhaps more important was that he opened the speech by putting Islam in the historical context that many Muslims believe the West willfully ignores. He spoke of how the Islamic world kept the light of civilization burning during Europe's Dark Ages -- and mentioned the Koran that Thomas Jefferson kept in his library.

"Obama was speaking the language of Islam in a tone of respect. What a concept.

"The rest of his speech consisted essentially of a summary of U.S. policy in the Muslim world, and in truth there were no real departures from traditional American policy. Prior administrations have called for a Palestinian state, and Obama hasn't been nearly as tough with Israel as, say, James Baker's State Department during the administration of George Bush the Elder. Obama had nothing substantive to announce on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he properly asserted the right of the United States to defend itself against terrorists.

"Familiar policies sounded different coming from Obama, though -- not just because of his identity but also because he showed a little humility. He acknowledged that in recent years our nation had acted in ways "contrary to our ideals," and noted that he had ordered an end to torture and the closing of the prison at Guantanamo. There are those who believe that admitting mistakes is a sign of weakness. I think it's a sign of confidence and strength, and I believe that's how it was received by Obama's intended audience.

"Perhaps the best indication of how Obama played in Cairo is the reaction of his competitors for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hezbollah, an influential radical Saudi cleric and the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood all warned followers not to be taken in by Obama's seductive words -- which suggests a fear that Obama had been dangerously effective. A Web site that often reflects the thinking of al-Qaeda referred to the president after the speech as a 'wise enemy.'

"The fact that many Muslims now see a sympathetic figure in the White House creates new possibilities. It turns out that being Obama matters more than I thought."

Obama World vs. Cheney World

In his column in today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson nicely captures the juxtaposition of the choices offered by Barack Obama's world-view with that of the suddenly media-genic Richard Cheney:

"Which reality do you inhabit, Obama World or Cheney World? ...

"In Obama World, human beings are flawed but essentially decent and rational. Most will behave in a way consistent with enlightened self-interest. In Cheney World, humanity's defects are indelible and irredeemable. Absent evidence to the contrary, evil should be assumed to lurk in every heart. Better to do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you.

"In Obama World, choices are artifacts of reasoning and thus are only as valid as the logic underlying them. Security and freedom, for example, do not have to be seen as an either-or proposition. The nation never came to a fork in the road with one path labeled "torture" and the other labeled "disaster." In Cheney World, choices are binary and absolute. There's no wiggle room, no gray area, no time for second thoughts and no debate about how our options are framed. It's my way or the highway, citizen.

"In Obama World, objective fact matters. The failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is significant. The absence of any link between Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is relevant. In Cheney World, facts are based more on conviction than evidence. If it's possible to imagine "nuclear-armed terrorists," as Cheney did in his speech the other day, then they "exist" at least as a concept -- and this conceptual existence justifies torture, among other abuses.

"In Obama World, some "threats" can be recognized as no threat at all. Since there has never been an escape from the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado, and since it already houses plenty of terrorists, spies and other miscreants, there's no real reason to be concerned about transferring any of the Guantanamo inmates, even the worst of the lot, there.

"But in Cheney World, no threat, however remote, can be definitively ruled out -- especially if there's political hay to be made. And anyway, it's fun to scare people.

"Obama World buzzes with information overload: hundreds of cable channels, zillions of Web sites, constant "tweets" from Twitter. In Cheney World, it's pretty much Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, all day, every day....

"In Obama World, Americans have a sense of community and shared purpose. Those upon whom fortune has smiled -- through accident of birth, educational opportunity, career-enhancing connections or any other kind of "right place, right time" serendipity -- recognize that extending a hand to those who do not enjoy such advantages is not just morally right, but ultimately beneficial to all. They believe that Henry Ford was right to pay his workers the shockingly high sum of $5 a day -- so they could afford to buy the cars they were making.

"In Cheney World, sharing is for saps. Obtaining great wealth and power has nothing to do with being "fortunate," whatever that means. It's all about preparation, focus and hard work. The idea that luck or connections could possibly have anything to do with, say, becoming the lavishly compensated chairman and chief executive of a mega-corporation such as Halliburton? Preposterous and un-American.

"In Obama World, America exerts its leadership not just through force but through example. Our nation's exceptionalism lies in its ideals of freedom, justice and opportunity for all, in its decency and generosity, in its commitment to the rule of law and its zeal for self-improvement, in its willingness to examine its own flaws and work to correct them. These intangibles are backed up by the world's most powerful military, but it's the ideals that matter most. When we lose sight of them, we head down the path of inevitable decline.

"In Cheney World, ideals are nice and all that, but might makes right. We do what we want. Because we can. You got a problem with that?

"Obama World is an exciting place to live right now -- not perfect, to be sure, but full of energy and hope. If Dick Cheney wants to stay in his bunker, that's his business. Others might want to come up for some fresh air."

Education Reform

Together with healthcare reform and energy policy, one of President Obama's highest long-term priorities (aside from dealing with the current economic woes) is education reform. When we see such figures as those showing the U.S. in the bottom half of industrialized nations in math & science proficiency, etc., we must conclude that schools simply are not doing a good enough job.

In his "Harlem Miracle" column in today's New York Times, David Brooks offers a view of how we can begin to make truly meaningful change. He describes a charter school program in Harlem that has achieved breathtaking improvements, leading the Harvard economist Roland Fryer, upon examining the data, to comment, “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”

Fryer and a colleague undertook an in-depth assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone, and found that "the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced 'enormous' gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile."

"Forgive some academic jargon," Brooks continues, "but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

"Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. 'The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,' Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is 'the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.'"

So what is it that the Harlem Promise Academy does to achieve these sorts of jawdropping results? Basically, Promise Academy is a no excuses school. Brooks explains, "The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values....

"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

:They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.

"The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap. Which city is going to take up the challenge? Omaha? Chicago? Yours?"

Inspiring stuff.

Obama and the Muslim World

What a welcome change to have a U.S. president who engages the world, rather than try to bully it. President Obama's recent trip to the G-20 conference, after which he made a stop in Turkey to engage the Muslim world, demonstrates true cooperative leadership that is bound to reap much greater long-term rewards.

The Muslim world, for example, is hopeful that relations can improve. In an AP story reported on MSNBC, "'Everyone is optimistic about this man,' Nasser Abu Kwaik, a barber in the West Bank town of al-Beireh, said Wednesday. 'He is different, and he could be a friend to the Muslim world.'

"Many in Muslim countries echoed the words of one Indonesian woman, 'I believe him.'

"'For the Islamic world,' Obama's comments 'are like a fresh breeze,' said Ikana Mardiastuti, who works at a Jakarta research institute."

MSNBC continues, "A town-hall meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday was also a strong symbol, with Obama answering questions from university students. To some it sent a message that this president talks to Muslims, dramatically different from the perception many had of Bush as domineering, warlike and imposing U.S. policy.

"Even an offhand comment that he had to wrap up the town-hall before the afternoon call to Islamic prayers showed an easy familiarity with the rhythms of Muslims' lives.

"'He's a modest person with a humanitarian view on world issues, particularly those relating to the Arab and Islamic worlds,' said Jamal Dahan, a 50-year-old resident of the Lebanese capital Beirut. 'Bush, on the other hand, was an arrogant man who only knew military power.'

"Even hard-liners took notice. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country welcomes talks with the United States if Obama proves 'honest' in extending the U.S. hand to Iran, one of his strongest signals yet of openness to Obama's calls for dialogue.

"A cleric at the prominent Shiite seminary in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf — where disdain for Bush's policies is high — was enthusiastic. 'The Islamic world should avail itself of this positive opportunity,' said Sheik Nimaa Al-Abadi. 'The opening chapter of Obama in the Islamic world might be a real turning point.'

Naysayers of course will criticize Obama as being too soft, or of "appeasing the enemy," but the comments of those who have reason to truly understand terrorism and its motivations should (but likely won't) open the eyes of neo-cons and others who claim to be driven by the goal of defeating terrorism: Obama "'will make it more difficult to recruit young Muslim men to carry out terrorist acts. They (militants) no longer have the argument to do so,' said Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a cleric on a government committee for rehabilitating militants away from extremism." In short, Obama's outreach vastly diminishes the appeal of terror groups.

What a welcome change, indeed.

Ginsburg: Opening Soon on Supreme Court; Qualities of the Next Justice

With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s veiled hint yesterday of an impending vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, speculation about the necessary qualities of the next Justice will now begin in earnest.

By far the most important criterion for any new Justice is a judicial philosophy that embraces a healthy respect for the vital role played by judicial review in guaranteeing liberty and equal justice for all. (Gender will also be a key criterion if the vacancy is created by the retirement of Justice Ginsburg herself - it is unimaginable that the twenty-first century Supreme Court would not count at least one woman among its members.)

Judicial review, the Court’s power to correct the unconstitutional actions of the legislative and executive branches, is precisely how the framers originally envisioned the Court’s role in the constitutional design.

James Madison, for example, arguing in support of passage of the Bill of Rights before the First Congress, said, “independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive.” Addressing a French correspondent, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “the laws of the land, administered by upright judges, … would protect you from any exercise of power unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States.” And in Federalist 78 Alexander Hamilton commented that “the interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts…. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable difference between [the Constitution and a legislative act]…, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.”

In principle, judges and scholars from across the political spectrum agree on these basics. Conservative icon Robert Bork, for example, has written that “there are some things a majority should not do to us no matter how democratically it decides to do them. These are areas properly left to individual freedom…. Society consents to be ruled undemocratically within defined areas by certain enduring principles believed to be stated in, and placed beyond the reach of majorities by, the Constitution.”

In practice, however, conservative ideology has latched onto the idea that the use of "undemocratic" judicial review is “activist” and will almost always constitute inappropriate “legislating from the bench.” (This position is consistently held by a bare minority (four) of the current Supreme Court Justices, which explains the critical importance of the next Justice’s views on the matter.) What this argument ignores, of course, is that the whole point of the Constitution’s scheme of majoritarian government is to protect liberty and equal justice. As amply explained by Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton, the true original intent of the framers was that constitutionally-protected liberty and equal justice are not to be sacrificed to majority will.

When the Court fails to properly exercise its power of judicial review, liberty and equal justice suffer, because there is simply no other institution left to protect individual and minority rights. During World War I, for example, the Court upheld vast legislative prohibitions on speech; and during World War II it refused to curb executive forced-relocation and internment of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans. America would look quite different today if the Court – largely under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, whose strong support of judicial review prompted President Dwight Eisenhower to grumble that his 1953 appointment of Warren to the Court was “the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made” - had not eventually returned to checking the unconstitutional excesses of the democratically-elected executive and legislative branches.

So as President Obama looks at candidates for a Supreme Court vacancy, he should insist on a person whose judicial philosophy includes a strong understanding of the important role judicial review has played throughout American history in vindicating individual rights and ensuring equal justice for all. The U.S. Supreme Court must not shrink from fulfilling its crucial - yes, active - original constitutional role of critically reviewing the actions of the executive and legislative branches and striking them down where necessary.

The Audacity of Idealism - Great Week for Progressives

Progressives and idealists are pinching themselves after President Barack Obama's joint Address to Congress on Tuesday and the release of his ten-year budget on Thursday.

In his Tuesday Address he outlined the plans to view the nation's economic woes as reason to raise its sights, calling for bold new efforts to improve healthcare, education and energy policy.

"The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach," he said. "They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on earth.... What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more....

"We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market.... And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.

"Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is now. Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jump-start job creation, restart lending, and invest in areas like energy, healthcare and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down."

Then on Thursday Obama's budget backed it up with numbers explaining how all of this can be accomplished. As Paul Krugman said in his column in yesterday's Times, "these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in. Many will ask whether Mr. Obama can actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises. Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can.... [T]his budget looks very, very good."

And David Brooks, while more reserved in his overall assessment, commented, "Obama’s budget is far more honest than the ones that preceded it. It imposes real pay-as-you-go rules on future outlays. Intellectually serious efforts are made to pay for at least half of the cost of health care reform."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.... the plan raises annual deficits to their highest levels (as percentage of gross domestic product) since WWII, but the fact is that there's a responsible plan in place, as compared to the voodoo-economics of the Bush years, which turned a solid annual surplus in 2000 into record deficits by 2008. It will pay for itself, for example, by increasing taxes on rich individuals and polluting industries, and reducing war costs as well as subsidies on farm payments and the like. (Friday's worse-than-expected 4th quarter report from the Commerce Department that the economy contracted at 6.2 percent rather than the projected 3.8 percent gives sobering pause on the sheer scope the challenges facing these plans; and means that the administration will need to make adjustments.)

The Progressive's response to all of this: it's about damn time. For too long the country has suffered at the hands of people who justify smaller government under the perverse logic of screwing everything up and then using their incompetence at governing as justification for doing nothing. "See how government doesn't work?" they ask.

It's not about big government as an end in itself for the progressive libertarian, as readers of this page will recall; rather it's about government actually helping where it is properly equipped to help, but then staying out of the way in areas where it has no business - like matters of individual free-will and self-determination.

So far, the first six weeks of the Obama administration has come closer than any administration in several generations to realizing this appropriate balance between responsible progressive governmental activism on one hand, and libertarian governmental respect for individual freedom on the other.

In our constitutional system, some things (individual liberty) are non-negotiable; while others (economic policy) are properly delegated to the political process. In November 2008, the Progressive policy vision won. Now let's GO.

Obama - A New Ethics or Same Old Washington?

After the heady idealistic days of the campaign and promising first days of the new Obama presidency, these last several days have been very discouraging.

The President's promises and then equivocations on the backgrounds and ethical standards of his nominees (no lobbyists in the administration - except when we need a particular person in the Defense Department; high ethical standards - except when we have a special need for a particular person who has had some rather egregious oversights in paying taxes) prompts thoughts of a sobering possibility: that Obama's message of change was just a mirage - and that it's actually just business as usual in the same old Washington. It's just disillusioning.

It was reassuring, then, to see President Obama's response yesterday, acknowledging that he "screwed up" and taking responsibility for his mistake. "I'm frustrated with myself and my team," he said, pointing out the importance of sending a message that there are not two sets of rules, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes. "I've got to own up to my mistake," he said.

Does this all mean that Washington-as-usual wins? Obama says no. "Washington doesn't win. The fact of the matter is that Tom Daschle pulled out. And I'm here on television saying I screwed up. Part of the era of responsibility is not never making mistakes; it's owning up to them and trying to make sure you don't repeat them."

Okay, fair enough.

Obama's First Ten Days - Progressive Agenda

Those interested in progressive governance* are happy (mostly) with the Obama administration's promising start.

Here are some highlights from the first ten days:

Tuesday, Jan. 20 (Day One) - comments from inaugural:
-President Obama's appeals to reason & progressive government: "We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise healthcare's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories, and we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age." These comments cause “a lot of happy faces … in the science world,” says Frank Press, former president of the National Academy of Sciences. "It’s not just getting money. It’s his recognition of what science can do to bring this country back in an innovative way.”

-appeals to the other nations:: "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." And, "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit, and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history. But that we will extend a hand, if you are willing to unclench your fist." Also, "To all the other peoples and governments that are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is the friend of each nation and of every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity. And we are ready to lead once more."

Wednesday, Jan. 21 (Day Two) –
-Government Transparency & Ethics: President imposes new rules on government transparency and ethics (mandating new limits on lobbyists and requiring that government disclose more information), commenting that “[t]ransparency and rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

-Ethics in Government: institutes rules to end the unseemly revolving-door between government and private business/lobbying. “For as long as I am president,” he says, officials from his administration will be barred from lobbying their former colleagues; and former lobbyists entering the administration are required to sign a pledge promising to recuse themselves from dealing with matters they had worked with in the private sector.

-War in Iraq: meets with senior civilian and uniformed officials to instruct them to start making plans to end the war in Iraq.

Friday, Jan. 23 (Day Four) –
-Economic Stimulus Plan: President meets with leaders of both parties in Congress to advocate quick passage of an $825 billion economic recovery package, pledging that three-fourths of the combined spending and tax cuts would be used within eighteen months (and $250 billion in aid to states to help them continue to provide education and health care services during this difficult economy);

-Abortion Aid: signs executive order repealing rules enacted during the Bush/Cheney regime restricting federal money for international organizations that offer counsel on contraception or promote or provide abortions overseas (even if with their own money only). “For the past eight years,” the President comments, “[these rules] have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries.... For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.” This is good news for both pro- and (perhaps ironically) anti-abortion groups alike. As Steven W. Sindling, past director-general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and population adviser to the World Bank stated, “This will help many of the most effective providers of family planning services to enable women to avoid unwanted pregnancies.”

-Stem-cell Research: The President does not, however, move to lift President Bush’s restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem-cell research, even though he has stated in the past that he supports such research. Congress will likely soon address, and is likely to pass, such a reversal; if it does not, the progressive can hope that President Obama will himself issue an executive order to that effect.

-Tightening the Financial Regulatory System: announces plans, through Treasury Dep’t nominee Timothy Geithner , economic team member Paul A. Volcker and others, to impose stricter federal rules for on financial markets and its participants.

Saturday, Jan. 24 (Day Five)
-Economic Stimulus Plan: President lays out details of the proposed $825 billion stimulus package in his first weekly video address: “This is not just a short-term program to boost employment. It’s one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education, health care and a new infrastructure tha are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century.” As reported in the New York Times, according to a White House report providing additional details, the plan would:

• double the generating capacity of renewable energy over three years, enough to power six million American homes;
• retrofit two million homes and 75 percent of all federal buildings to better protect against the weather, saving low-income homeowners an average of $350 a year in utility costs and saving the government $2 billion a year;
• use loan guarantees and other financial support to leverage $100 billion in private sector investment in clean energy projects over three years. The plan would lay 3,000 miles of new or upgraded transmission wires for a new electric grid;
• help 8.5 million Americans keep health care coverage by providing workers who lose insurance with tax credits to pay for continuing coverage under the “Cobra” federal law, and by expanding Medicaid coverage for low-income Americans who lack access to Cobra;
• modernize 10,000 schools, improve security at 90 ports and build 1,300 waste-water projects;
• bolster Pell Grants to help seven million students, and offer a new tax credit for four million college students;
• increase food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans;
• increase Social Security benefits by $450 for 7.5 million disabled and elderly Americans.

Monday, Jan. 26 (Day Seven)
-Environment - Clean Air: President directs the Environmental Protection Agency to move swiftly on the applications of California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards. This "progressive federalism" marks a sharp reversal from the Bush administration practice, which has been dragging its feet for years on this issue.

In addition, he directs federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly.

Tuesday, Jan. 27 (Day Eight)
-Foreign Affairs: In an interview on a major Arabic-language channel (Al Arabiya) based in Dubai, President Obama says he wants to convince Muslims that "the Americans are not your enemy," and comments that it is important to be willing to talk to the Iranians to see "where there are potential avenues for progress." Moreover, he expresses the view that the time is appropriate for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians: "Israel will not stop being a strong ally of the United State, and I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount. But I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. they will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

-Employee Rights: Congress gives final approval to legislation, sure to be signed by the President, providing women, blacks and Hispanics with new power to bring pay discrimination claims against employers under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law addresses the Supreme Court's holding two years ago against Lilly Ledbetter in her claim against Goodyear Corporation for pay discrimination, on grounds that she should have filed suit within 180 days of the company's initial decision to pay her less than men (even though she only learned of the decision herself years later).

-Stimulus Plan: The President makes an unusual appearance on Capitol Hill and visits with House Republicans to try to win support for the Stimulus Package.

Wednesday, Jan. 29 (Day Nine)
- House passes $819 billion Stimulus Package 244-188 (no Republicans vote for it). Signaling his approval, the President comments, "What we can't do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do." Republicans such as Eric Cantor of Virginia, however, call the package "a spending bill beyond anyone's imagination."

-The President visits the Pentagon for the first time to discuss plans for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, expressing concern about the "enormous pressure on our military to carry out a whole set of missions," and promising to use other powers at America's disposal "to make sure that [the military] is not carrying the full load."

-Thursday, Jan. 30 (Day Ten)
-President publicly criticizes Wall Street bankers who awarded themselves $18 billion in bonuses even after being bailed out by federal money. "That is the height of irresponsibility," he says. "It is shameful. And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility."

In short, a pretty good first week-and-a-half for the progressively inclined. Bob Herbert put it well in his Jan.24 NYTimes column: “[I]t’s called leadership. Mr. Obama has been feeding the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not reckless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed. However you feel about his policies, and there are people grumbling on the right and on the left, Mr. Obama has signaled loudly and clearly that the era of irresponsible behavior in public office is over.”


*Constitutionally speaking, whereas the "liberty" in the "progressive liberty" concept is mandatory (i.e., government has no right to abridge inviolable individual freedom), the "progressive" part is discretionary (i.e., whether government is "progressive" or "conservative" or anything else is a political matter for the elected branches to work out among themselves).

Obama's First Seven Days - Constitutional Freedom Restored

In purely constitutional terms, President Barack Obama's first days in office have been triumphant.

Leaving aside for the moment talk of stimulus plans, tax rates, etc. (all of which are discretionary political matters to be hashed out among the executive and legislature), on the separate matter of mandatory constitutional requirements - ie, those inviolable freedoms beyond the reach of the political process - Obama has acted swiftly and decisively to restore proper respect for core values eviscerated during the Bush/Cheney years.

Virtually daily during the President's days on the job we have seen important restorations of constitutional principle, both in word and action. Here's what happened in just the first three days alone:

Day One (Jan. 20, 2009 (Tuesday)):
-Rule of Law and Rights of Man: Before a worldwide audience during his Inaugural Address, new President Obama emphasizes, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man; a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake." -American Power: He adds, "Earlier generations ... understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do what we please. Instead they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering quality of our humility and restraint. We are the keepers of this legacy."

-Suspends Gitmo proceedings: Late Tuesday night, the new administration orders an immediate halt to the military commission proceedings for trying detainees at Guantanamo Bay, to allow the administration time to assess detention policy, leading ACLU executive president Anthony Romero to comment that the move "reaffirm[s] American values and are a ray of light after eight long, dark years."

Day Two (Jan. 21, 2009 (Wednesday))
-Openness in Government: In recognition of the Constitution's core structural principle that government serves at the pleasure of the people, President Obama's very first executive orders reverse the Bush administration policy of resisting providing information. "Starting today," he says, "every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known." Among other things, these orders will allow reporters and historians access to Bush administration records.

Day Three (Jan. 22, 2009 (Thursday)) -Human Rights: surrounded by 16 retired generals and admirals, President Obama signs executive orders closing Guantanamo Bay within a year; ending the CIA's secret prisons; and requiring all interrogations to comply with the Army Field Manual (which forbids coercive methods like the infamous water-boarding).

-separately, Obama orders his administration not to rely on any legal opinions on the topic of interrogation issued from the Justice Department between September 11, 2001 and January 20, 2009.

All in all, it's a bright new day for the American Constitution.

Good Riddance Dick Cheney

It's probably no surprise Dick Cheney is still defending waterboarding as legitimate. Of one thing we have become certain - Cheney is a dangerous man. Only 10 more days, then to the scrapheap of history.

In the recent presidential election, thankfully John McCain and Barack Obama were in full agreement on at least one thing: America does not torture. Decent Americans - Republican and Democratic alike - all agree on this point. And make no mistake: waterboarding IS torture, despite Cheney's, Bush's and John Yoo's (author of the infamous DOJ torture memo) lame protestations to the contrary. If it walks like a duck & quacks like a duck....

Cheney's ends-justify-any-means brand of neoconservatism is scarily reminiscent of that of the Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose theories on broad executive power paved the way for the fascist Adolf Hitler to lead a civilized, highly-cultured nation into committing the most egregious human rights violations in human history. In interpreting the Weimar Constitution, Schmitt argued that the president's power to declare a state of emergency granted him broad, virtually-dictatorial authority. Schmitt justified this expansive executive power as much more efficient and effective than resorting to the comparatively slow processes of legislation. Sound familiar?

Good riddance to Dick Cheney.

Conserving Resources as Progressive Governance

It says something about the state of American politics when taking care of what we have - supposedly a "conservative" concept - is actually a progressive idea. But that's exactly the case in 2008, after 40 years of government - Republican and Democratic alike - rushing headlong into feeding the military-industrial complex while at the same time neglecting our aging infrastructure.


In his column in today's Times, Bob Herbert discusses America's failure to keep up with maintaining its infrastructure:

"The idea that the nation had all but stopped investing in its infrastructure, and that officials in Washington have ignored the crucial role of job creation as the cornerstone of a thriving economy is beyond mind-boggling. It’s impossible to understand.

"Impossible, that is, until you realize that bandits don’t waste time repairing a building that they’re looting.
...
"One of the reasons the U.S. is in such deep trouble is that it has stopped being smart — turning its back on excellence, sophistication and long-term planning — in its public policies and corporate behavior. We’ve seen it in Iraq, in New Orleans, in the fiscal policies of the Bush administration, in the scandalous neglect of public education, in the financial sector meltdown, the auto industry and on and on. We’ve lionized dimwits. And now we’re paying the price.
...

"The U.S. is moving from a period in which leaders spent money on wars and on lavish tax cuts for the rich, but not on investments in the nation’s future. That era of breathtaking irresponsibility must come to an end. Which means that now, with so much federal money soon to be available for infrastructure projects, it’s crucially important to spend the money as wisely as possible."

As Senator Christopher Dodd says, "Our major economic competitors in the 21st century are spending seven, eight, nine percent of their gross domestic product on infrastructure. We’re spending almost nothing at all.”

Felix Rohatyn and Everett Ehrlich comment, “Ultimately, we face a future of mass transit strained beyond capacity, planes sitting on tarmacs, slow traffic and wasteful sprawl, ports that lack the capacity to operate efficiently, and increasing numbers of bridges and dams that are obsolescent and dangerous to the public’s health and safety.”

So what to do? "The question now," Herbert suggests, is whether the nation, in the midst of a full-blown economic emergency, can keep its cool and be smart as it marshals billions of public dollars for a new infrastructure initiative. It won’t be helpful to have sparkling new bridges to nowhere being built from coast to coast."

Thankfully, we've elected a smart, thoughtful person to be our next president - if anyone can lead America out of the this mess, perhaps it can be Barack Obama. As he announced in a radio address last Saturday, “[My plan] will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.

“We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

As Herbert notes, "The message is many years overdue. The hope is that it hasn’t come too late."

Obama Election - A Rare Moment

Even in the midst of some of the predictable silliness following Barack Obama's election (such as the young woman proclaiming "Obama is Jesus" overheard by my son during a college street celebration), there's something pure about what happened on Nov. 4, 2008 where even the cynic can get a bit misty.

We're not talking if's and when's or "I have a dream" here, but rather that it DID actually happen that a black man was elected president of the country whose Constitution formally endorsed slavery and perpetuated separate-but-equal for nearly another hundred years after slavery was formally abolished. That our constitutional system can allow that to happen (not to mention repudiate the practices of the worst one or two presidencies in our history) is awesome. As Thomas Friedman said in noting that Virginia, the former capitol of the slave-holding South, went for Obama, "The Civil War is over. Let Reconstruction begin."

Even for the cynic the world changed Tuesday - as a white man, I can only imagine what it feels like to be a black person today. I canvassed for Obama on election day in Lansing with a young black woman from Detroit, and her excitement and pride was something to see; and then the day after I was in a meeting with a black colleague (who was also canvassing on election day), and he was just bursting. He said his frail 87 year old mother in Chicago is insisting that he take her to the inauguration in DC on Jan.20.

For those of us who've been eaten up by government malfeasance/tyranny, this, what feels like vindication of sorts, is worth a tear or two. Probably because things have been so bad under Bush (the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, with all the ill that they portended for American government, hit me hard), I didn't know if America had it in it to make such a statement - and it turns out it does. Amazing Grace.

True, there's bound to be disappointment - what comes next is going to be interesting, and there is sure to be plenty of criticism and disillusionment. But there's a difference between disillusionment borne of bad faith (see Bush/Rove/Cheney), and disappointment for good faith efforts that may nonetheless sometimes fall short (Obama, I think). Even if what comes next is just politics as usual (which I doubt), Tuesday alone will always stand as a momentous day for the sheer outpouring of hope and joy that millions (maybe billions) of people around the world experienced. Nothing can ever change that - not even over-the-top people who've drunk the Kool-aid like the "Obama is Jesus" person.

Obama's Victory - What it Means

Reflections the morning after Barack Obama's historic victory - in what amounts to nothing less than a national catharsis.

What's most moving to me is to think of what this means to all of those within and outside of the United States who have long felt disenfranchised or oppressed by government tyranny. The United States was founded 232 years ago and the Constitution framed 219 years ago as a slave-holding country - and now a son of the formerly-enslaved peoples will be president of the United States. Amazing, ... and incredible. It redeems one's hope that America is not destined to go the way charted for it by George W. Bush and Richard Cheney for the past eight years, where torture is authorized and individual liberty stolen by overzealous government.

And what about overseas? It's deeply moving to see the images of celebration around the world in response to Obama's victory. America has long been a beacon of hope for people around the world, and its image has been severely tarnished in recent years. But the fact that the American people can elect an African American, a son of a Muslim, goes a long way to beginning to restore a bit of America's luster. It is possible for reason, and tolerance, to prevail; instead of arbitrary, meaningless judgments based on skin color, religion or the like.

The New York Times reports from Gaza this morning, in "For Many Abroad, An Ideal Renewed":

"From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens.

"Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the “glorious epic of Barack Obama,” as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America — the idea as much as the actual place — stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility.

“It allows us all to dream a little,” said Oswaldo Calvo, 58, a Venezuelan political activist in Caracas, in a comment echoed to correspondents of The New York Times on four continents in the days leading up to the election.

"Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.”

"But wonder is almost overwhelmed by relief. Mr. Obama’s election offers most non-Americans a sense that the imperial power capable of doing such good and such harm — a country that, they complain, preached justice but tortured its captives, launched a disastrous war in Iraq, turned its back on the environment and greedily dragged the world into economic chaos — saw the errors of its ways over the past eight years and shifted course.

"They say the country that weakened democratic forces abroad through a tireless but often ineffective campaign for democracy — dismissing results it found unsavory, cutting deals with dictators it needed as allies in its other battles — was now shining a transformative beacon with its own democratic exercise.

"It would be hard to overstate how fervently vast stretches of the globe wanted the election to turn out as it did to repudiate the Bush administration and its policies. Poll after poll in country after country showed only a few — Israel, Georgia, the Philippines — favoring a victory for Senator John McCain.

"“Since Bush came to power it’s all bam, bam, bam on the Arabs,” asserted Fathi Abdel Hamid, 40, as he sat in a Cairo coffee house.

"The world’s view of an Obama presidency presents a paradox. His election embodies what many consider unique about the United States — yet America’s sense of its own specialness, of its destiny and mission, has driven it astray, they say. They want Mr. Obama, the beneficiary and exemplar of American exceptionalism, to act like everyone else, only better, to shift American policy and somehow to project both humility and leadership.
...
"Such contradictory demands and expectations may reflect, in part, the unusual makeup of a man of mixed race and origin whose life and upbringing have touched several continents.

"“People feel he is a part of them because he has this multiracial, multiethnic and multinational dimension,” said Philippe Sands, a British international lawyer and author who travels frequently, adding that people find some thread of their own hopes and ideals in Mr. Obama. “He represents, for people in so many different communities and cultures, a personal connection. There is an immigrant component and a minority component.”

"Francis Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian novelist and social scientist, said he saw Mr. Obama less as a black man than “as a successful negotiator of identity margins.”

"His ability to inhabit so many categories mirrors the African experience. Mr. Nyamnjoh said that for America to choose as its citizen in chief such a skillful straddler of global identities could not help but transform the nation’s image, making it once again the screen upon which the hopes and ambitions of the world are projected.

"Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at the People’s University of China, said Mr. Obama’s background, particularly his upbringing in Indonesia, made him suited to understanding the problems facing the world’s poorer nations.

"He and others say they hope the next American president will see their place more firmly within the community of nations, engaging in what Jairam Ramesh, junior commerce minister in the Indian government, called “genuine multilateralism and not in muscular unilateralism.”
Assuming Mr. Obama does play by international rules more fully, as he has promised, can his government live up to all the expectations?

"“We have so many hopes and wishes that he will never be able to fulfill them,” said Susanne Grieshaber, 40, an art adviser in Berlin who was one of 200,000 Germans to attend a speech by Mr. Obama there in July. She cited action to protect the environment, reducing the use of force and helping the less fortunate. In essence, she wants Mr. Obama to make his country more like hers. But she is sober. “I’m preparing myself for the fact that peace and happiness are not going to suddenly break out,” she said.
...
"“Definitely, this will improve America’s image in Russia,” said Sergey M. Rogov, director of the Institute for U.S.A. and Canada Studies in Moscow. “There was this perception before of widespread racism in America, deeply rooted racism.”
...
"So foreigners are watching closely, hoping that despite what they consider the hypocrisies and inconsistencies, the nation they once imagined would stand as a model for the future will, with greater sensitivity and less force, help solve the world’s problems."

It is indeed a new, more hopeful, day in America - and in the world - today.

Bush Worst President - 79 Days Left

Nicholas Kristof reports in today's New York Times that "[a]n unscientific poll of 109 professional historians this year found that 61 percent rated President Bush as the worst president in American history. A couple of others judged him second-worst, after James Buchanan, whose incompetence set the stage for the Civil War. More than 98 percent of the historians in the poll, conducted through the History News Network, viewed Mr. Bush’s presidency as a failure."

Only 79 days left in the Bush/Cheney American nightmare. Either one of the presidential candidates will be a vast improvement (as would one of the vice-presidential candidates, Joe Biden; whereas Sarah Palin is not up to the task); but what specifically will the new president do to start to restore America to its past honor and greatness? Kristof suggests America must rejoin the world:

"[Bush] turned a superpower into a rogue country. Instead of isolating North Korea and Iran, he isolated us — and undermined his own ability to achieve his aims.

"So here’s the top priority for President Barack Obama or President John McCain: We must rejoin the world. There are three general ways in which we can signal a new beginning and “refriend” our allies:

"• We should not only close the Guantánamo prison but also turn it into an international center for research on tropical diseases that afflict poor countries. It could thus become an example of multilateral humanitarianism.

"The new president should also start a Truth Commission to investigate torture and other abuses during the “war on terror.” This should not be a bipartisan panel but a nonpartisan one, dominated by retired generals and intelligence figures like Brent Scowcroft or Colin Powell.
Such a panel would be respected as fair and authoritative in a way that one composed of bickering Democrats and Republicans would not, and it would underscore that we are eager to return to the norms of the civilized world.

"• The new president also should signal that we will no longer confront problems just by blowing them up. The military toolbox is essential, but it shouldn’t be the first option for 21st-century challenges. You can’t bomb climate change.
...
A new approach means a vigorous effort for peace in the Middle East. We also need to commit to negotiating with odious countries. President Clinton’s engagement policy toward North Korea was a constant headache, for Kim Jong Il was brutally repressive and tried to start a secret uranium program. But North Korea didn’t produce nuclear materials for a single weapon during Mr. Clinton’s years in office; under Mr. Bush, it has produced enough for a half dozen.
So here’s the score: Clinton diplomacy, 0 weapons; Bush fulmination, 6 weapons.

"• We must cooperate with other countries on humanitarian efforts, including family planning. One of the Bush follies that has bewildered and antagonized our allies has been the vacuous refusal to support family planning through the United Nations Population Fund.
The upshot of the failure to support contraception has been millions of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It’s difficult to think of any person alive today whose policies have led to more unnecessary abortions worldwide than Mr. Bush.
...
"Look, a friendlier, more multilateral policy will not solve the world’s problems. Iran isn’t going to give up its nuclear program because it likes us, and brawn is necessary to back up brains.
But without global political capital, we don’t have the leverage to organize more muscular persuasion. Without diplomatic heavy lifting, we can’t credibly threaten military heavy smashing.

"In the aftermath of World War II, the United States led the international effort to construct global institutions to promote peace and prosperity. These included the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and they served our interests. Now, in the aftermath of the cold war, we need to rethink and refurbish this architecture for the next half century or more.

"The United States needs to be a part of the International Criminal Court and should lead the push for a new climate change treaty, for example. The new president should be an architect of this emerging order, rather than AWOL as the Bush administration has been.

"For eight years, the United States has been in self-imposed exile, and that is one reason Mr. Bush’s presidency has failed on so many levels. After Tuesday, let’s rejoin the world."

Sarah Palin's Ridiculous Debate

As noted in my previous post, expectations were so low for Sarah Palin going into last Thursday's debate with Joe Biden that merely managing not to fall off the stage would be considered a success.

And by those standards she did acquit herself well enough - she stayed on her feet and was able to string a few sentences together here and there with lots of winks, you betchas and darn rights. (I confess it was a relief not to see her implode on live television before 50 or 60 million people - thanks to the kid glove treatment by moderator Gwen Ifill, who apparently was sufficiently cowed by the conservative right's claims of her Obama bias not to follow up on any of Palin's non-answers to her questions.)

Palin's performance did demonstrate that she is qualified.... for senior class president. The vacuous non-answers, winks, smiles, and colloquialisms are all fine for someone trying to win a popularity (or beauty) contest, but not for someone running for the second highest office in land. We now have first-hand experience with what happens when we elect someone on the basis of aw-shucks likeability - and George W. Bush has done more to weaken the United States in his eight years than any president in history. We cannot afford any more ignorance in the president's office - and I'm sorry folks, Sarah Palin may be a nice lady and good in beauty contests, but she is not presidential timber.

The following letter to the editor in yesterday's New York Times rings true:

"As someone who teaches history," writes from Barbara Weinstein of New York, "I often give essay exams, and inevitably there are students who arrive ill prepared to take the exam. These students typically adopt one of two strategies: they either construct an essay that is a torrent of words, hoping that by filling up the space I will not notice that they don't know anything (Sarah Palin's performance in the Katie Couric interviews); or they ignore the question I've asked, and answer something else they do know a little about (Ms. Palin's performance in the vice-presidential debates).

"Both strategies earn an F, since neither indicates that they can tackle a crucial issue in the course."

As a teacher myself who grades hundreds of law school essay exams a year, I can vouch for Ms. Weinstein's observation on the tactics adopted by a student who may be clueless on a particular question, and concur with the ultimate failing grade either way. As she says, by "adopt[ing] what amounts to Strategy No. 2 in the debate, and therefore avoid[ing] seeming as clueless as she did in the Couric interviews," Palin reassured the Republican base that the beauty queen can still deliver scripted comments, but "it was no more helpful in establishing her ability to be an effective vice president than Strategy No. 1."

Bailout; Erratic McCain; Presidential Debate; Sarah Palin Qualifications

What a few weeks. We got a chance to see John McCain at his erratic best, bouncing between saying the fundamentals of the economy are sound then turning around to his panicky reactionism, claiming he's not attending the debate (then he is, then he's not, then he is), saying he needs to rush to Washington to help negotiate the bailout, then blowing up the agreement that was well on its way to being sealed, etc., etc.

In spite of all of that, McCain is alright. He's had major experience in the Senate and has been on the right side of a number of issues during the Bush years (even though he voted with Bush 90% of the time): he worked for campaign finance reform; he spoke out against Alberto Gonzales's ghastly Department of Justice tenure; and most importantly, he spoke out very forcefully against Bush and Cheney on the torture issue - and with his experience as a tortured POW himself, he has massive credibility.

BUT - even if Obama and McCain were dead even, or even if McCain had the slight edge, two factors overwhelmingly favor Obama: (1) for the sake of the individual liberty of ALL Americans, we CAN'T AFFORD any more of the sort of socially conservative Supreme Court justices Bush appointed, and that McCain would try to appoint; and (2) Sarah Palin is simply unqualified to be president.

On the first, Bush appointed two Justices - John Roberts and Joseph Alito - who come from the "command and control" side of the Republican Party. Adding to them the two such Justices already on the Court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and we have close to a majority on the Court who unquestionably favor government power over protection of individual liberty. Individual liberty hangs by a thread - Anthony Kennedy, the fifth conservative on the Court, comes from the libertarian side of the Republican Party and he's the one who's been making the difference in a number of the 5-4 decisions protecting the individual. On the other side, Justice Stevens is in his 80s, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had health issues - and G-d forbid if anything happened to either of them or David Souter or Stephen Breyer, the President would have the chance to seriously change the tone of the Supreme Court. We simply can't afford that.

Second, Sarah Palin. Can we now agree that she's unqualified? Take a look at the Katie Couric interview from a few days back. It's embarrassing - and scary. Bob Herbert of the New York Times said it this morning, for the first time I've heard from anyone - for the good of the nation, John McCain should recognize her serious deficiencies and appoint someone else. Sarah Palin is not qualified to lead the country. If John McCain is the "maverick" he keeps claiming to be, he'll set aside personal ambition for clear-eyed reason. Will he do the right thing and nominate someone else? Don't hold your breath.