President-Elect Obama went to see his new digs today. Anyone who sees the video or still images of the two couples meeting can’t help but comprehend the uniqueness of the sight. Not only are the visual images of the two Presidents different but could the ideology of the two men be any farther apart? With the economy in shambles, the foreign policy a disaster and the current American leader effectively neutered, is there anyone out there who would just as soon see Obama become President, say, yesterday? I would make a hunch that even those who didn’t vote for Obama would like to see him President sooner rather than later just to get on with it. Gallup issued a poll today that contained the clearest indication of what a folly President Bush’s administration is. In the history of Gallup tracking no President, not Truman and his seemingly endless Korean War, not even Carter following economic woes and the Iran hostage crisis dipped as low as President Bush. President Bush now stands at 27% approval (For some reason Nixon’s favorability rating was not listed on the Gallup poll). As the economy melts down around us we are forced to endure a lame duck period which seems to have gone on for four years now with the exception of Iraq.

We are starting to get a hint at what Obama wishes to do when he becomes President. As is usual, the executive orders that were signed by Bush will be reviewed. It appears the ban on government funded stem cell research will be ended. We can only hope that science will now be king again. Bush is planning on opening up more areas for drilling, principally areas of Utah with an executive order. Obama will surely shut this down. The crazy Republican chant of “Drill Baby Drill” will go the way of Dick Cheney. Obama has also addressed the possibility of closing Guantanamo as an enemy detention center. As a Constitutional law professor Obama has a unique understanding of the complexities of the situation.

But it is the economy that is dominating the Obama timetable. Usually, winners of Presidential elections take a couple months before they begin filling their cabinets. President-Elect Obama has already begun to fill his. All indications is he plans to hit the road running on January 20th. As a student of history, Obama, by all indications, comprehends the errors made by the Clinton Administration in their early going and will do all he can to avoid similar missteps. For example, Clinton took his time naming his cabinet and quickly became embroiled in the debate over gays in the military while dealing with a changing situation in Somalia that led to poor decisions and withdrawal.

There is little doubt Obama will have one key asset. He will go into office as the most popular President perhaps in the history of the United States in terms of world perception. Even in the US he has a 70% favorability rating. How long it will last is anyone’s guess but with two wars to fight I’m sure some of Obama’s actions as a wartime President will not always jive with the wider world. But Obama has a wonderful opportunity to bring in allies to put pressure on the those who endanger us. As Thomas Friedman eloquently says, Obama must get the world to “show us the money“. Patting the new President on the back and smiling will not be sufficient under the current political global climate. It seems like with all the problems that face our nation and the world there are many that just want to get on with it. Maybe we should ask DSL and Circuit City workers how they feel about the effectiveness of a lame duck period.

There were some amazing images from Tuesday night. As a liberal I cannot remember a more memorable positive political night than November 4th. The feeling of joy from Chicago, to the White House gate, to my house, to London and beyond were sights I would never forget. It was like waking from the most horrible nightmare to realize I am 10 years old and it is Christmas morning.

The 2008 election was a repudiation of the Bush Presidency and everything it stood for. For a junior Black Senator to win the highest office in the land required a perfect storm. It was no narrow victory, either. Barack Obama won 53% of the vote. Ronald Reagan in 1980 won just under 51% (granted Reagan cleaned up on the electoral college map).  The 2008 electoral map is very revealing. By stretching the playing field Obama was able to seize all but the Deep South, Western Appalachia, the Prairie Midwest (with Missouri being on the fault line), and the underpopulated Mountain States plus Arizona. Is this the result of a poor campaign run by McCain or does it reveal the diminishing support of the Republican party? Only time will tell. The result of the vote, no doubt, was largely influenced by the economy. And finally there is Sarah Palin. That darling of the anti-intellectual right wing so epitomized by Joe the Plumber found a way to spend campaign dough that nearly matched the “Bridge to nowhere” earmark. McCain’s selection of the Alaska Governor was a disaster. Not only was she ill prepared for the job but she didn’t have the political savvy to follow a game plan.

One is seeing in these days what a serious person Obama is. One would think after a grueling campaign that lasted 21 months he would be on some Hawaiian beach somewhere but the President-elect has not slowed down a bit. He is now privy to all the highly classified information that a sitting President receives. After an intelligence briefing he met with key figures to begin working out a way to approach the economic mess he will inherit. As I have always said about voting for Obama, you begin with smarts and you go from there.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

       Barack Obama

       President Elect of the United States of America

Tonight Barack Obama spoke in front of a throng of supporters in Manassas, Virginia. There is significant symbolism to both the occasion and the location. Manassas was the site of the first land battle fought during the War Between the States; the most violent conflict in American history and the event that began the long process of creating a society that would better perfect the founding documents; the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. The fact that Barack Obama had gathered the night before the election in Virginia speaks volumes about this election. The last time Virginia voted for a Democratic nominee for president was in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson of Texas who would go on to sign the Civil Rights Act that ensured the fracturing of the Democratic Party. Neither Jimmy Carter in 1976 nor Bill Clinton were able to carry the state despite their geographic affiliation. In 2008 a Black man is on the precipice of of taking a state that is the home of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave holders and was the location of the capital of the Confederate States of America in Richmond. To look at that huge crowd that had gathered to hear the northern politician speak and understand the historical significance of time and space should make you proud to be an American no matter your party affiliation.

As you prepare to go to the polls I make one final appeal to assuage your vote; one final attempt to influence you to vote for Obama during this election.

1. Of the two candidates who is the smartest man to extract us from the problems that face this nation?
2. Barack Obama is loyal to both his wife and his two children. Those who rightly found Bill Clinton’s dalliances objectionable should look long and hard at the marital history of the two candidates.
3. The foreign policy problems that face this nation cannot be solved unilaterally. With the world holding its breath in anticipation of a Barack Obama victory, we may be able to hit the reset button on the affection and support this nation experienced following 9-11. Barack Obama will have unprecedented international support to begin his presidency; something that will be greatly needed in the wake of economic woes and ballooning national debt.
4. Barack Obama’s middle name has been a negative during this campaign but it may be an ace in the hole when dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Since Clinton and his foreign policy team were inches away from drafting a peace deal in the twilight of his administration, perhaps a renewed vigor from an Obama administration can do what no president has been able to do in the region.
5. Barack Obama’s favorite book is Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln and the people who Lincoln surrounded himself with that would go on to help him win the Civil War, people who had once run against him for the presidency. Obama has promised to create a bi-partisan cabinet. I hold him at his word.
6. Barack Obama has never openly courted the Black vote. He has run an inclusive campaign but anyone who has been paying attention knows the weight African Americans are putting on this election. It is said the Black electorate tomorrow will be off the charts. Obama’s calls for Blacks to take responsibility in their lives and the mere role model he represents will at the very least force the community to take a long hard look at themselves.
7. Finally, the fact this nation elected a minority as President will send a signal to the world like no other that the America they always loved and admired once again is the beacon of freedom and liberty and not torture and war. Obama will be a symbol of that like no other man we could have elected.

Whatever your preference please get out and vote tomorrow. It is the greatest symbol of love and acknowledgement you can give for the sacrifice of those who have given their all for this great nation and for what it represents.

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I would like all my readers to post who they think will win tomorrow and what the electoral college tally will be. You can go to the following website to play around with the electoral college map:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/

It should be no surprise that  I predict an Obama victory. My guess is Obama 332, McCain 206. Of the battleground states I think Obama will win Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Nevada. McCain will take Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri.

Let’s hear what you have to say.

When I was in the Peace Corps a volunteer friend of mine received a subscription to a magazine called The Economist. I remember asking him about the periodical and he said, well it is a right wing magazine but the articles are real good. I have since checked out their web site from time to time and tonight I clicked on over and what did I see? The Economist is endorsing Barack Obama. The right wing magazine is endorsing the socialist, pinko commie, terrorist comrade. Outside of Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Alaska Daily News endorsing the Democratic candidate, this may be the most surprising.

The Economist

It’s Time

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.

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You always heard, back in 2000, that George Bush was a guy you could sit down and have a beer with. He was just like you. I thought then, as I think now, that this isn’t a quality that makes a good President. I was always looking for someone I knew was smarter than I am or someone who was inquisitive. In the 1990s and before 2001 we had the luxury of electing those who had significant flaws. With Clinton it was moral flaws. He was plenty smart enough and had tremendous political skills but that one flaw diminished the status of the office and torpedoed his potential Democratic successors chances. And then there is Bush, Jr who had so many flaws that his own party didn’t want him to attend the Republican convention. His brand is toxic. But we no longer have the luxury of electing an average president. The conservative columnist, David Brooks, has one of the most eloquent articles I have read in sometime about what is wrong with his party and how the decisions they have made has harmed the country:

September 16, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Why Experience Matters

By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

Read More

The far left has rightfully been vilified for their antics. For example, it is common for the loony left to shout down  right wing speakers at college campuses or to degrade  those who proudly wear the US uniform. But we are seeing there is an element on the right that is as equally dubious. As the presidential campaign enters its final phase, the McCain-Palin rallies have attracted some Republican party faithful with some hateful and inherent bias that is indeed troubling. It begins with those who choose to highlight Barack Obama’s middle name. What is the insinuation? Is it that he is a closet Muslim or is it simply to equate the notion that anything associated with the Near East is unworthy? Obama = Osama and Hussein = Saddam. It is the word association of the ignorant, of those who have never stepped one foot beyond this hemisphere or Europe and who have been insulated behind the walls of American bias and infused with a sector of the media that caters to an insular world view.

I would like to tell a story that occurred to me recently.  In the late 1980s I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Yemen. I taught in a small village named Oozla that was serviced by a single lane dirt road. The classes were huge by American standards; often well over 60 kids in a room with benches as seating and their laps as desktops. I left in 1990. Last week I received an e-mail out of the blue. It was from an ex-student of mine named Mohammed who went on to study English and became a productive member of society there. Though his English is not perfect I would like to share an e-mail he sent to me:

It`s nice to hear from you.Is Yemen mentioned in the history subject you teach?I hope a great future for your daughter.
I want to know where do you live in the States.
Mudir Abdulwahab lift the school in 1992 and replaced him Mr. Ali AL-Duais.He has now  a grocery in Oozla and his son got top 7 in high school certificate in Yemen and left for Germany to study university.Regarding your crazy neighbor he kicked the bucket 15 years ago.Of course I do know Mohammed AL-Omary,he taught me geography at high school.He is also my friend and his hair still like monkey`s.I promise to provide you with pictures for Oozla and all your friends when I go there.
Actually, the economy is going bad everywhere and hope you cope up with these bad situations. For Yemen, there is a massive raise in prices and we are suffering from unemployment.However Yemen was developed during the past 10 years, but the live is still hard.
My personal life, I am engaged and getting married in January 1st 2009. You are invited for my wedding in Oozla and hope you come with your family.I am wondering for the srtong memory you have got because you still remember funny characters from Oozla.Say hello to your family for me.
my best,

Mohammed

Mohammed is in his mid 30s now and despite all that has happened since 9-11 there is still that bond that links people not by their names or what their governments do but what is inside all of us. In January I could go back to Oozla to Mohammed’s wedding and be welcomed as if I was a member of his family. So when you see people single out Obama’s middle name, know they possess the ignorance that is the worst that America has to offer, a bias that is not based on one’s character but on the implausibility that his father was African, gave him an Arabic name and that he had the ability to perhaps be the most powerful man in the country despite that fact. And that is what is best about the American spirit.

It is ok, conservatives, you can vote for Obama. The current climate in this nation is going to require energy and vigor and let’s face it, John McCain ain’t no spring chicken. Also, (I had to throw that in there for Sarah’s sake) Sarah Palin is too risky to have as a number two for a very old President. If I can’t convince you, how about listening to the son of one of America’s most famous conservatives…and a conservative himself.

The son of William F. Buckley has decided—shock!—to vote for a Democrat.

The Daily Beast

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention,” but it’ll have to do.

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The discourse among the McCain campaign has become angrier than that of the candidate himself. The clips from the stump speeches, especially Palin’s, border on ugly. After Palin’s ridiculous statements of Barack Obama having associations with radicals you could hear the most offensive things being shouted from the audience. “Kill him”, “traitor”, etc… Those who introduce Palin now take great pride in referring to Obama’s middle name to make him seem somehow unamerican.  It is obvious the McCain camp has tacked hard toward a negative campaign, hoping the race will turn in his favor through character assassination. This tactic has come from the most unlikely of sorts.

Lee Atwater was the driving force behind McCain’s faltering in the 2000 race by linking the Arizona Senator to an illegitimate Black baby (the baby in fact was a Bangladeshi child which Cindy McCain adopted and brought back from Asia). This tactic was utilized in South Carolina and would eventually give us the illustrious George Bush. They say time heals all wounds. Many people thought it was remarkable in 2004 when McCain campaigned with George Bush after the 2000 incident. But now we are seeing the essence of a man that prides himself on character. We are learning McCain’s time spent in the Hanoi Hilton did not create a moral man. When he returned from Vietnam he found a wife handicapped from a car accident while she waited for the POW to be released. He left her for an attractive wealthy heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley. And to trump it all he has hired the same Lee Atwater who brought down his campaign in 2000 with racist overtones. Are you seeing the picture clearly? So now you have the last desperate gamble from the heroic Vietnam veteran who has made character the central theme of the campaign even though we are facing some of the greatest challenges this nation has faced in sixty years. The Republicans are invoking the name Hussein, not just among the elite but among all loyal Republicans. The name itself is used to replace the N word. In my mind one’s birth name is no different than one’s skin color; it is something of which one has no control. And why would Senator Obama wish to change his name since the name Barack means Blessed and Hussein means Handsome? We can be sure that neither blessed nor handsome are terms that describe the nature of either McCain nor his campaign.

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Senator John McCain’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Barack Obama’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Joe Biden’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Claire McCaskill’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Kit Bond’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card