Ashwin Madia

For the House of Representatives

from Minnesota’s 3^rd Congressional District

by Charlie Leck

The 3^rd Congressional District in Minnesota is rich, Republican territory. It’s a tough place for a Democrat to run for Congress. Two good, progressive candidates worked their way to the fore this year and it was difficult to choose one over the other.

Little things make the difference in such a decision. I was sitting at my desk one afternoon in early March. The phone rang. I was reading a mighty fine book and didn’t feel like picking up the call; however, I slid the book aside and reached out and grabbed the receiver and punched the talk button.

“Yup,” I said.

“Hello,” came back the reply in a thin, elevated, crisp tone. “I’m Ashwin Madia and I’m running for Congress in your district. Have you time to chat?”

I’d just been reading about Madia the night before. He sounded like an intriguing guy. Everything said I should be supporting Terry Bonhoff, another announced candidate, because she had worked her way up and proved her party loyalty and had stripes she’d earned. My question was about her toughness and her ability to sway some Republicans over to her side. It’ll take that in order for a Democrat to win. I know this district really well. I know the people. I play golf with many of them and listen to them in the bar afterwards. They’re nowhere near being progressives. Most of them are far to the right of John McCain.  Some of them are right of Genghis Khan.

Ashwin Madia sounded bright to me in our little conversation. He also sounded tough – like a fighter who didn’t like to lose. He also seemed to have a bit of a silver tongue. Bonhoff kind of rages and shouts.

“You’ve got me,” I told him. “I’ll support you.”

I’d never done that before, but this kid was convincing. Arrived in America, from India, as just a wee lad and settled with his parents in the middle class suburb of Plymouth. He likes to explain that his parents had 19 bucks in cash “and a dream that America would provide opportunities for their children.”

I wanted to pop his bubble a little bit and ask how much they had in stocks and bonds. It seemed a bit brash and not very funny.

He graduated from one of the suburban high schools and went to the University of Minnesota and then on to law school at New York University. He did a stint in the U.S. Marines. Now he’s practicing law. I often wonder when lawyers stop practicing and start doing it for real.

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much are you going to support me?”

We settled on a number –half  now and the other half if he gets the nomination. It’s more than I usually give, but he sounds like a winner.

A few days later I heard him rev up a crowd. He cranked them up pretty good. The place was loaded with kids in their early twenties. They controlled the place and he had them hooked pretty good.

He finally worked his way over to my table and said hello.

“Thanks for the support.”

“You can’t win out here, you know!”

He winked at me and flashed a smile as wide as his face – a good, white, flamboyant, strong smile.

“Double up if I do?”

I stood quietly. He’d called my bluff. I thought he just might pull it off, so I kept my mouth closed.

His eyes sparkled at me. He knew we’d play a game of chicken and he had won it! This could be a guy to watch. Keep your eyes on him.

The Old Scout

Garrison Keillor's Sunday Column
by Charlie Leck

I guess they'll have to file a "cease and desist order" against me. Tribune Media Services distributes Garrison Keillor's weekly column and I end up quoting pretty large chunks of it for you, which is just a fraction as good as delighting in the whole thing.

You know, until last July, when Keillor's column began appearing every Sunday morning, I use to dive into the sports section just as soon as the local paper was dropped on the porch, and turn to the column of one of our local jock nuts, Sid Hartman. These days, I go first for the opinion section and right to the Old Scout column. I am very rarely disappointed; for example, a few weeks ago the column didn't appear and that disappointed the hell out of me. Keillor's stuff is just plain good.

Let me quote for you the opening of this week's column and its concluding two paragraphs. In between there's a lot of good stuff that explains the grammatical error in the last sentence. Click here to read the entire column on-line. If you're smart, you'll bookmark this so you can go to it every week for these delights.

"Here we are, ignorant peasants in our mud huts at the base of the volcano of finance, begging the gods to spare us as the ground shakes beneath our feet and economists examine the entrails of pigeons and the shamans of the Federal Reserve fling handfuls of sacred powder into the steaming crater. We live with a system rejiggered by Republicans - freedom from regulation, but when the manure hits the ventilator, the Feds step in with a few hundred billion to rescue the players - and nobody can tell us ignorant savages how rough the upheaval might be. Nobody knows.

"... People accuse us liberals of permissiveness - no no no no no. We liberals are oppressive, not permissive, working day and night to take your guns away and make you apply for a permit every time you spit. In my heart, I belong to the Correctness Party, the party of good spellers, of people who pay attention to details. The Current Occupant is not one of us. He is not a man who puts pen to paper with any confidence. Intellectually he has been a charity case all his life. He is one of those men who are lucky that their fathers were born before they were. 

"I vote to send him up to talk to the volcano. Let him climb up to the crater in his loincloth and crouch in the billowing steam and tell the volcano to stop shaking and stay there until it does. Him and Greenspan could do it together."

They're calling for about 5 inches of snow up here today. Lake Wobegon will look wondrous in the snow. Have a good week.

END

a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi

Thoughts from up near Lake Wobegon
by Charlie Leck

I’m sitting in my lovely tree-loft study, letting a multiplicity of random thoughts play around in the various recesses and accesses of my limited mind.

(1) I fall asleep evenings listening to the public radio. With its range of mono-tones and monotony it is perfect for putting one to sleep. My wife arranged this little speaker that is actually imbedded in my pillow, so I can listen and yet not disturb her. It’s a clever invention. A fellow last night was rambling on about what motivates writers to keep working and producing when they don’t really sell or get read by vast audiences. He thought it was a fear of death – the desire to be as immortal as possible – to leave something of oneself behind. I wondered if it couldn’t just be the sheer love of doing it; yet, I’m aware that I do want my grandchildren to have some sense of who I was and what made me like I am (to mix tenses a bit).

(2) Years ago, perhaps 20 or 25 years ago, a friend gave me a little sculpture that he had created. I keep it proudly near me here in this private place where I write. It’s only about 6 inches high and a few inches across. The base is a piece of roughly hewn hardwood. A thin piece of steel protrudes from it and rises to about 6 inches. Slender tongs at the end of the piece form a resting place for a smooth, egg-shaped rock or stone. He called it: “Between a rock and a hard place!” We were in business together at the time and that’s where we were.

(3) I’m trying to get a closet-full of old photographs – prints and slides – organized, cataloged and, in some cases, digitized to archival quality disks, so, when I shed this mortal coil, there won’t be such a mess for those who will need to go through these things. I find that I pause most often over photographs I took here and there of my wife. They remind me of one of the reasons I fell in love with her and they often take my breath away. They also remind me of the very good times we’ve had together. The photograph that introduces this blog is one of those that I found wasting away on a slide that had never been printed. I took the photograph with a wonderful old Minolta camera that served us well for many years. We were traveling in Germany and on our way to Stockholm for the 1990 World Equestrian Games. Anyway, it brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I love traveling with her and wish we’d do more of it. A farm and its animals is not conducive to long get-aways.

(4) Van Peebles Land is a blog -- The Shambolic Postings of an Irishman Living in Wales – that I enjoy reading. It’s written and maintained by David Williamson. I want so much to respond to some of David’s meandering thoughts, but he has a complicated defense against anonymous scammers and I can’t leave my compliments without having his email address. David, if you are out there, give me some assistance! I’m one of your fans.

Now this Irishman’s blog isn’t something I’d necessarily recommend to everyone. It just happens to be one of those places I enjoy going for a change of pace and scenery. David seems a solid guy and a clear, uncomplicated thinker. Pay his blog a visit if you want a breath of fresh, Welsh air.

For instance, a few days ago he wrote about the visit of the French President, Nocolass Sarkozy, to England.

“The sharpest knives may have been locked away when French president Nicolas Sarkozy dined with the Queen yesterday.”

(5) I do nearly all the cooking around our house these days and not because I must, but because I enjoy it. I’ve resolved to get much better at it, too, and I’m getting hooked on the concept of better, fresher and more local foods – foods that we know about and whose life-histories we can nearly document. I’m bitten by a blog by Mark Bittman. He calls it Bitten. He also does a weekly column, The Minimalist, in the dining section of the NY Times and regularly produces marvelous videos. I’ve tried his recipes enough times that I know they work extremely well. To accomplish them, however, I find myself having to find new sources for various foods, herbs and spices. So, I’ve discovered the Asian and Hispanic markets in town. What a neat adventure! Next I’ll try one or two of Bittman’s cookbooks.

This resolution about my food in the future led me to discover Moonstone Farm. My, what a lovely place! It’s down in the Minnesota River Valley. Pay them, at least, an on-line visit.

“River-friendly meats...local artisan foods...guest cottage...handthrown pottery...all from the gently rolling bluffland of the Minnesota River Valley. Our 240 acres offers a varied landscape, plenty of trees, and a home to humans and cattle, corn and alfalfa, beaver and coyote, coneflowers and big bluestem. Meander through our site, get to know a bit about us and Moonstone grass-based beef. Be assured that customer visits, electronic or in person, are always welcome.”

The farm has been in the Handeen family since 1872. It’s a joy to feel the deep respect this couple has for the land and what it produces. One can visit their farm store and have a very nice time.

(6) I’m thinking a lot about the Sojourners movement these days. I’ve been so disappointed with the Christian Church in America during my life time –the traditional Protestant Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the fundamentalist, evangelical churches. There’s too much division, finger pointing, claims to exclusive understanding. Scripture has also been badly misunderstood and brutally used as claims to universal and exclusive truth.

Now I’m going to a blog by Jim Wallis, called God’s Politics, and I find it refreshing and hopeful. There’s no finger pointing and no claims to exclusive possession of truth and no guarantees of salvation. Wallis’ latest blog about Pastor Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama gave me some hope. The perspective of Jim Wallis on this incident is unique and strikes to the heart of what’s going on.

I’ll watch this organization (or movement) for a while yet; however, I think I’ve found a vehicle for religious and faith expression. I’m probably going to get involved.

(7) Freakonomics is one of the most delightfully amusing, entertaining and enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time. My discovery of Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt is one of the best things that’s happened to me in a while. I’m not at all an economics or finance guy, but they made economics come alive for me. They have extraordinary senses of humor. Read their terrific book and also visit their blog of the same name.

(8) Just a few last thoughts about books and then I’ll close. I’m a bit of a John Grisham fan. He’s published 20 books and I’ve read all of them. I just finished his most recent work, The Appeal. It wasn’t too appealing and it was very predictible. I’d put it down near the bottom of my list of his books. My two favorite of his books are A Painted House and The Innocent Man.

I also just finished Bill Bryson’s book about Shakespeare. Bryson has a very readable writing style and his sense of humor makes his books marvelous to read. I’ve never been disappointed with any of them and I think I’ve read them all. If you’re a Shakespeare fan, or if you’d just like to know more about good old Will, this would be a suitable title to pick up from your local library. Here’s a tidy review of the book by the London Times.

I’ve rambled on long enough. I’m off to the Asian market in search of some baby bak-choy.

George Bush in History

Georgie-Porgy Double-U
Georgie-Porgy shame on you
Georgie-Porgy stuck in poo
Georgie-Porgy in a stew
Georgie-Porgy boo, boo, boo
Yada, Yada, Yada! [add your own next line]
by Charlie Leck

Perhaps he is star-crossed. It would have taken an extraordinary human being – one of the type that only comes along every century or so – to handle the catastrophes that this President has so unsuccessfully faced. George-Double-U, the poor old schmoo, has really had it really tough.

• The attack on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.
  
• An astonishing, unneeded invasion of a nation with whose culture and mores we were totally out of touch.
  
• A massive earthquake that tore out the heart of a major American city.
  
• Now an economy gone completely batty and hanging on the edge of disaster.

Now, these are events that would take enormous talent and leadership and none of us should have expected that George would do well in handling them. I guess we must have thought, when we elected him, that he'd be able to pass his time jogging and playing Parcheesi. It's no wonder we're a nation in virtual melt-down and ruin. Poor George! I really feel sorry for him.

What was he to do? You know, he tried to surround himself with "the best and the brightest," and he figured that would do it: Richard ("the dick") Cheney, Donald ("the dork") Rumsfeld and Carl ("the cockelhead") Rowe. Well, Double-U should be forgiven! One must have, you know, just an inkling about who might be the best and who might be the brightest. George didn't read that book! And, he didn't get to that class at Yale. My, but Yale must be embarrassed.

Then, my goodness, George got caught in that little teenage spat between Rumsfeld and the capable CIA Director, George Tenet. There they were, these two incorrigibles, sticking their tongues out at one another and screaming about one's father being tougher than the other guy's old man. It was right there that Double-U's problems began and he didn't recognize it. Tenet was recommending a tough, but small, force that would deal with that Sadam Hussein fellow in Iraq. But no, Rumsfeld was the head of the Defense Department, and, therefore, all military operations for the U.S., and he wanted to be the "dummy in the middle" or he was going to take his ball and go home. Of course, Dickey Cheney encouraged Georgie to go along with Donny because they all needed to have the ball around the White House so they'd have something to do besides playing Parcheesi. Poor Mr. Powell, perhaps the only bright guy Georgie had on his team, was just made fun of because he was such a smarty-pants about everything. What fun is that?

So, they got rid of smarty-pants Powell and they kicked out Tenet over at the CIA. They made fun of anyone who didn't like their war. "What a big scaredy-cat!" They ran around the playground, singing it out at anyone who wondered about their fun little war.

"We'll be in and out in no time. Mission accomplished! No one even hurt or scratch, hurt or scratched, hurt or scratched!"

So Donny got his way about calling the game "Shock and Awe," and what else do you need to know? Here we are, five years and 3.5 trillion dollars later, and our economy is in ruins and New Orleans still isn't rebuilt and the guy who knocked down the World Trade Towers is still out there giggling at Georgie-Porgy! And, oh yes, there's no end in sight; for this war just keeps dragging on and on and costing us all our lunch-money.

Georgie says we don't have money for schools; yet, we could have rebuilt every school in America and given all our teachers handsome raises for just what it cost to invade Iraq. On top of that, we could have secured Social Security and Medicare for another generation. Can you count the ways you could have spent 3.5 trillion dollars on our nation? Double-U did not take counting at Yale. He was too busy with that 99-bottles-of-beer-on-the-shelf game.

So, Georgie Double-U is almost home free. In another few months he'll begin planning his library, trying to figure out where to put his little picture book. He'll be going back to the ranch to write his memoirs (oops, sorry, forget I wrote that).

So what do we do now? As the ever-so-bright nation we are, we're probably going to choose John McCain to run the asylum. Not a bad choice. Like Georgie, with glazed over eyes, he can just keep looking into the camera's lens with a big smile on his kisser. He'll probably hire that smart fellow who ran that Bear Stearns Bank and let him really run the country. What's his name? Little Alan Schwartz! Oh yes! He's got a big green ball and he's so much fun! Like Georgie, he missed the class on counting.

However, I can count. I didn't miss that class. Over 1 million Iraqi citizens have been killed by the invasion and our subsequent occupation. And, over 4,000 American military personnel – most of them lovely and promising young people – have been killed in the war.

But, who's worried? None but the lonely, unheard prophets!

Double-U did not take the class on the prophets either.

The Anonymous Reader

It's difficult to reply to anonymous persons
by Charlie Leck

I'm pleased that I have an average of 300 or so people who read each of my blog posts. We're guessing that they amount to over 3,000 different folks who have come to the blog site at least once. Not bad for an unpublicized blog.

I hear from a few dozen people each time I post a blog. Most write to my regular email address since they know me. A few post blogs on the web site. If those who comment don't show a mean streak or any vulgarity, I gladly approve posting their comments even when they disagree rather vehemently with me.

Lately I've been getting some comments from an anonymous person. I had to think long and hard about approving the posting of them, but, in the end, I let them go up. One showed some strong disagreement with me, but it was reasonable and rational. Yet, I wanted to respond to that criticism because I thought the writer wasn't understanding me. The other was positive and creatively written.

I would have enjoyed responding to those two posts in order to continue the dialog. That's difficult, however, when someone is anonymous. So, to you, whoever you are, I'm sorry not to dialog with you, but it's just too difficult to discuss these matters with vapor.

Broken Promise to You

There's been too much written about THE speech already!
by Charlie Leck

"New Gallup Poll Daily tracking finds Hillary Clinton with a 49% to 42% lead over Barack Obama in national Democratic voters' presidential nomination preference."
[Gallup Poll, 19 March 2008]

In the last couple of days, I dutifully cranked out a few thousand words about the national reaction to the Obama speech. As I promised, I was ready to publish it here, citing a few dozen links so you could examine the range of reaction. When I gave the blog its last, serious proofing, I set it aside and said: "Enough already!"

It's been ground into the ground and stomped under foot! And, worse, the speech came too late to save Obama from his awful fate. It's tough to be black in America. God forgive us for that, but it really is tough!

Even Obama had to get away from it. He headed to the Caribbean with his wife and children, to escape the madness.

The issue has turned too suddenly and completely to Obama's association with a Christian pastor. Now, did you ever think that would get you in trouble? Had the friendship been with Jerry Folwell,or even Ted Haggard, do you think it would have gotten him so deeply stained. But with a stomping, shouting, passionate preacher of the black church, like Jeremiah Wright? Well, my, that's a different story! It's damned tough to be black in America! And, don't you forget it!

Never mind how loudly, in the past, we've shouted our defense of that precious and guaranteed commodity called "freedom of speech" so carefully delineated in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It has limitations that an American presidential candidate ought to impose on his pastor!

"Throw him under the bus!"

"Never mind that he's one of your dearest, closest friends!"

"Condemn him for what he said!"

It's damned tough to be black in America! It's all about this awful climb, out, up and along a precarious, narrow ledge that runs high above certain disaster if one's foot slips just a little bit. It's a climb that we white folks simply don't know about. We've never had to make it.

Do you have the slightest friggin' idea about what it must be like to be black in America? Mind your P-s and Q-s and cross every "t" and dot every "i" or you're in big trouble. Become too kind and friendly and you'll be called "Uncle Tom." Act too much like the black man of the deep south and you'll probably be called "Jim Crow."

What must it be like to live without really knowing who you are and how you're supposed to act – probably one way among your own people and another in front of the precious "white community."

Do you have even the teeniest idea what the black church is all about and what it means to the black community? Do you know how different it is when compared to that brick and white columned, colonial-style community church in white, suburban America?

An obviously rational woman wrote an awfully sensible letter to the NY Times after reading an awkward opinion column by William Kristol that stated that "the last thing we need right is a heated national conversation about race…"

"We have never had a national conversation about race! We carefully walk on eggshells as if the race problem does not exist. Barack Obama has made an entire nation and possibly an entire world think and reconsider. The truth is we don't know one another, and what better time than now?"
[Judy Konos, Slidell, La., March 24, 2008]

Do you sense that I am angry this morning?

Damned right!

I see Barack Obama being driven into the ground because he is different. He's brilliant! He's gloriously honest! He is of high principle! He is a great communicator! He understands the art of compromise and diplomacy! He's a damned good man! Yet, he's not dancin' that Jim Crow jig.

Those who wanted to get him only had to wait patiently in the wings. All of Barack Obama's loyalty and devotion to his black community would bring him down!

And now, there he is. He's teetering on that dangerous ledge. He's being driven to condemn a friend by frightened white folks who only needed the slightest excuse.

Folks, it's damned tough to be black in America! I thought things were really changing. They're not!

So, it doesn't matter about that brilliant speech – the one I listened to in solitude, during a quiet, lovely, morning hour in my peaceful home! No matter that I was stirred to tears and my nerves tingled. It makes no difference now that I wanted to jump up and clap and shout, even there in the silence of a dark, private morning.

I thought the speech might be regarded as a turning point in American political history. It made me think of the cadences of Abraham Lincoln, the smoothness of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the brilliance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the passion of Martin Luther King, Jr..

Did I think it was a good speech? Shit!

It doesn't matter anymore. Barack Obama is not going to do the Jim Crow for all you white folks. So, now he's just a footnote in the story of American political treachery, beaten by white folks who don't understand what it is to be black in America.

"Far more people will see the endless loop of Senator Obama's frenzied former pastor than will ever read or hear the sober, thoughtful, constructive words of the senator himself."
[Bob Herbert, NY Times]

"The chickens have come home to roost!" [Jeremiah Wright, 2001]

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog,
was a good friend of mine.
I never understood a single word he said
but I helped him drink his whine.
And he always had some mighty fine wine.
Singin'
Joy to the world...all the boys and girls
now , joy to the fishies in the deep blue sea
and joy to you and me."
[Creedence Clearwater Revival]

It's tough to listen to the prophets. This morning I feel like the cranky, weeping, angry prophet, Jeremiah. He saw a world in darkness. The people were moving deeper into that darkness and away from the light.

"Your trusted friends have seduced you
and have overcome you;
Now that your feet are stuck in the mud,
they desert you."
[Jeremiah 38:22b]

Never mind what all the pundits have said about the speech. What all of the commentators, about whom I was going to write, have said about the speech pales in importance when measured against the significance of the speech itself. If you haven't listened to it, shame on you! Here's a You Tube link to the speech. Or, if you'd rather read a hard-copy, here's the text of the speech.

And, unlike most of those self-righteous commentators who have condemned Pastor Jeremiah Wright, I've actually listened to or read the sermons for which he's been chastised. If you've got the gonads to listen to more than the 22 second sound-bite everyone plays, the sermons move around with a definite logic and end up making sense. Jesus, man! If you judged the prophet Jeremiah by one a little clip from this spot or another in his scriptural writing, you'd demand he be thrown under the bus, too. You, who shouldn't want to be judged, listen up! Don't be so quick to judge.

Stanley Fish, one of my favorite commentators, who is unfortunately not widely enough read because he doesn't spew pabulum, probably had the wisest thing to say about the demands that Obama condemn his former pastor.

"In politics, and in much of the rest of life, being held responsible for your own words comes with the territory. Once you've opened your big mouth, others have a perfect right to ask, "Do you really mean that?" or "What did you mean by that?" or "If you say that, would you also say…?" (a question that usually has you frantically disassociating yourself from Hitler). But why should you be held responsible for words spoken by someone else, even if that someone else is a person you work with or share a bed with? I frequently say things that make my wife cringe, but whatever blame attaches to my utterances certainly should not be extended to her, and it would be entirely inappropriate to ask her to denounce me or to fault her if she didn't.

"Yet this is the position we routinely place our public figures in. The demand that Barack Obama denounce and renounce his pastor, who delivered himself of sentiments a million miles from anything Obama has ever said, is only the latest and most publicized example. In previous little dust-ups Obama has had to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan (after Hillary Clinton demanded that he both denounce and renounce) and from his own middle name. Clinton, in her turn, has been called on the journalistic carpet because of remarks made by Robert Johnson, Geraldine Ferraro, a campaign manager and her husband. John McCain has had to repudiate a talk show host who introduced him and a minister who embraced him. And it's only March. What do we have to look forward to? Denunciations of grade-school friends who grew up to become neo-Nazis or sub-prime lenders?"

"…The odd thing is that the press that produces these distractions and the populace that consumes them really believe they are discussing issues and participating in genuine political dialogue. But in fact they have abandoned genuine political dialogue and have committed themselves to a conversation that differs only in subject matter from conversations about Eliot Spitzer's and David Paterson's sex lives. It's not politics; it's titillation clothed in political garb.

We should collectively denounce and renounce denouncing and renouncing."

If you don't think the Republican Party will begin dancing all over this association Barack Obama has with his former pastor, you'd just whistling past the grave yard. As Ron Klain says in his blog: "If there is one thing that the Republican Party of the past decade has mastered, it is electoral victory based on fear."

In her opinion column, Maureen Dowd says: "Hillary got a boost from the wackadoodle Jeremiah Wright. As a top pol noted, the Reverend turned Obama – in the minds of some working-class and crossover white voters – from 'a Harvard law graduate into a South Side Black Panther.'"

And, by the way, while I'm this angry, let me say congratulations to my wonderful Democratic Party! One more time it has been totally successful at carving itself up in plain sight of all of America. As Frank Rich wrote in his latest column:

"For Republicans, the prospect of marathon Democratic trench warfare is an Easter miracle. Saddled with the legacy of both Iraq and a cratering economy, the G.O.P. can only rejoice at its opponents' talent for self-destruction. The Republicans can also count on the help of a political press that, whatever its supposed tilt toward Mr. Obama, remains most benevolent toward John McCain."

If a lot of you are out there wondering if I'm nuts to think things have turned so sour for Obama, just read this blog from the sound thinking Strata-sphere .

"Clinton is well on her way to a Pyrrhic victory: Obama is losing to McCain too now, thanks to the infighting which is clearly turning off voters. But Hillary will get her place in history - as the first woman candidate for US President. Which is her second choice to being President herself. Trust me, she wants as much history out of this as she can squeeze - and too bad what it means to the party, the voters or the country. Blind ambition is just like that."

How can I not be angry?

Well, I'll tell you what! I and a lot of other pissed off Democrats may just end up sitting this one out!

END

The Obama Speech

Reflections on the Day of Resurrection
by Charlie Leck

The last thing in the world I wanted to do on Easter Sunday morning was to write about “the Obama speech,” as it is being called by everyone. I should be writing about hopefulness and new life, joy and celebration, compassion, justice and peace. Hold it! Maybe I am.

The opinions about Obama’s speech last week certainly “cover the waterfront.” They range from the hyperbolic praise that called it “one the greatest and most important speeches in U.S. political history,” to downright hateful expressions cast in racist ugliness. I’ve read hundreds of thousands of words of analysis in the aftermath of the speech and they’ve indeed got my head spinning.

It’s time to step back, to see if I can apply some fresh thinking to the subject. Just remember this: There is a chance this blog may crash and burn before making a safe landing. Hold on for the ride!

Here’s the way I approach the columnists across America who write opinion about politics and life in our nation. I’ve been a junky of political commentary for so long, that I know who I like and who I trust. More importantly, I know who, over time, proved to be the most correct and accurate in their commentary; that is, when they are judged months and years after their expressed opinions. So, I read the commentators I trust the most first. Then, if I have time, I scan through a bunch of those at the second level to see what they’re saying. On Tuesday, the 23rd of April, I’ll give you a summary overview of what the commentators have been saying.

This morning, however, let’s start with the opinion of an 18 year old African-American young man from Saint Paul. Danez Smith doesn’t want this to become a national issue.

“The question is,” Smith said to a local reporter, “can he keep it an issue without it becoming the issue?”

Now there’s a young man with some common sense about politics.

“He can’t let that happen; otherwise the whole campaign will be about a black man running for president.”

Here’s the interesting phenomenon that has been set in place by the Obama speech. Up to this point, as Shelby Steele predicted in a number of speeches, essays, and in his book, Barack Obama has been an unknown quantity. He’s been viewed as safe, even though many of us wouldn’t be able to say a lot of substantive things about him. I’ve written about this in the past. Now Obama is being viewed by many people in the light of the remarks that have been made by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Those remarks, in a number of sermons he preached to his Chicago congregation, have shown the mother-lode of anger, hate and pain that runs deep in the black psyche. We, who are white, simply can’t understand nor identify with the intensity of the black pain caused by slavery.

“Get over it!” That’s what many white people in American scream back at a remark like the one I just made. I have two brothers who shriek it at me. “Get over it!”

The problem with that attitude is that it misses the point all together. It isn’t the black American who needs to get over it. We, who are white, are the ones who need to move past this.

We are the ones who have been too proud to beg the forgiveness of those who were so unfairly dragged in chains to the shores of this nation.

Oh no, the white attitude is that it wasn’t we who did this. It was another generation from another time and in a different situation. We need to understand that neither was there a great apology from those earlier generations of white people. Even the great emancipator said that he freed the black man only because he could do no else and still save the Union. There was no great, agonizing speech from Abe Lincoln that begged those slaves’ forgiveness on the part of the land of the free and the brave.

Today’s white person, in chorus, must admit to the sin and then set things right for those earlier generations of Americans who failed to do it – whether northern or southern citizens. Once we understand the depth of the wound with which black people live, then real reparation may begin. Perhaps, then, hatred and fear may come to an end.

Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s great preaching ability lay in its hyperbole. Lord, if I don’t understand that only too well. He is a man who can scream all those things at the top of his lungs and then come down out of the pulpit to hug every man, woman and child, regardless of color, and express the love of Jesus to them.

Most people who listen to a 20 second sound bite of one of Wright’s sermons are just too literal in their orientation. Wright is carefully educated in the terms of mythology, metaphor, allegory and symbolism. To understand the soul of his rants, one has to appreciate the breadth and depth of his mind and experience. This is not easy for the white man (and I used the gender specificity advisedly because it is easier for the white woman) to appreciate Pastor Wright’s comments.

As for me, I am not going to turn my back on Pastor Wright and walk away from his comments. I’m going to understand that he has a point. The black American has a perfect right to deal with his hatred. I can handle it. Wright, in the long run, is an understanding and forgiving man and I am willing to seek that forgiveness so that real communications with him may then commence.

Barack Obama understands all this. It has been a part of his life and he has had to juggle these feelings within his own life even while he sought success in the white world. In doing so, he has shown his genius. This is what his incredible speech was all about.

If you are going to be a literalist, you are not going to understand.

If you weren’t able to read Moby Dick and understand it was NOT a story about a white whale, then you will not understand the complexity of being Barack Obama – a white man and a black man, at the same time – in America.

My appreciation for Obama only grows with each passing day, as I understand how well he deals with the complexity of his life. To steal from his book, “what audacity” to hope so fiercely for a new day and a new world!

On this Easter morning, the sun has just broken out from behind the clouds and sprung through the windows of my study and it is blinding me. If you are a literalist, you will miss the point of the resurrection; and, instead, you will run around arguing about evidence, physical bodies, wounds in the flesh and your place in heaven.

To those of you who can really appreciate the truth of Easter day, I have the audacity to say one single thing only: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!


END

Come back on Tuesday for a summary review of thecommentary on the Barack Obama speech.