The one sad note on an otherwise happy day comes from the ballot measure bigotry that has found success in several states across the country.  The passage of Prop 8 in California is a disgrace.  But this battle will continue.  I rest easier knowing that we will soon have a president who can stock the Supreme Court with enlightened justices — the sort who may one day cast the decisive vote in favor of allowing equal access to institutionalized love.  Until then . . .

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As usual, I’m cautiously optimistic.  This year, I’m a bit less cautious.

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“First off, if you’d read my article yesterday, you’d know that you should always be wary of forwarded e-mail messages.  Now as to as the content of this particular fear-mongering e-mail, here is my response:

I am thrilled that Hamas and Iran and Gaddafi want Barack Obama to be president.  I am thrilled that dangerous Middle Eastern groups see Obama as a potential friend.  This gives us much better leverage in dealing with these groups.  Why?  Several reasons.

1. Problematic Islamic groups are more likely to make concessions or make peace with Obama as a negotiator.  They think he’ll give them the best deal, so they’ll work with him.  It is in their interest to act nice while he’s in office rather than risk dealing with a Republican president whom they distrust.  This gives Obama leverage that McCain will lack.  Now, do you honestly think Obama is going to sell out Israel’s security or our own?  No.  He’s not stupid.  He’s going to work hard for peace and stability according to American terms.  The evil thing about articles like the one you forwarded is that they imply he would do otherwise.  These articles stop short of actually making this accusation because there is NO support for it, but they do everything to imply it, usually with guilt-by-association and flawed enemy-of-my-enemy logic.  Here’s the thing: once you remove this false implication, the “Obama is bad for Israel” naysayers have nothing to stand on.  If he’s not about to sell out Israel or America, then what exactly is this article trying to say?  That he’d be open to the idea of a divided Jerusalem when negotiating peace?  Shouldn’t any U.S. president be open to that option?

2. Obama will weaken terrorist organizations by denying them a recruiting tool.  George W. Bush was Al Qaeda’s dream president. Their goal with 9-11?  It was to provoke an American over-reaction that they could use to grow in strength.  Bin Laden has said as much. Did it work?  You betcha.  GWB played right into Al Qaeda’s hands. Rather than a strategic response that brought the world together united against extremism, he over-reached by invading Iraq, demagoguing about Axes of Evil, and generally being an arrogant bastard.  Islamic extremists (much like Fox news — but that’s another argument) thrive on fear and hate.  They need it to survive.  GWB was so hated by them that he became their dream recruitment tool. Now … if we hand these guys the president they think they want (Obama), what will happen?  Suddenly, recruitment goes down.  How can you stoke the fires of hatred when the U.S. President (a.k.a. “bad guy numero uno”) is suddenly someone you don’t hate as much?
Don’t fool yourself into thinking extremism can be eradicated by dropping the right bomb.  Kill one terrorist and his two brothers join the fight the next day.  It’s about hate*.  Obama can take a little wind out of that sail  McCain, by contrast, has as much or more bluster than GWB, and will fill his role as recruiter-in-chief quite nicely.
(* it’s not just about hate; it’s also about unemployment/poverty/hunger/and lack of economic opportunity, all of which lead citizens to, yes, hate)

3.  Aren’t you appalled by the idea of letting the preferences of our enemies determine who we elect to lead our country?  I am.

4.  Guess who else wants Barack Obama to win this election?  It’s not just dangerous Middle Eastern countries.  It is MOST countries!  Most of the world has figured out what we are too dense to figure out in our own country: that it’s time for a steady, Democratic president who is more prone to diplomacy than bluster.  The rest of the world has watched appalled as GWB has fueled the fires of radicalism and driven our economy into the toilet .  The rest of the world realizes the importance of the U.S. restoring their image internationally.  When Bill Clinton was president, he was one of the most popular leaders in the Middle East and the world.  That was a good thing.  Bush is reviled. That’s a bad thing.  The world loves Obama.  That’s a reason to vote for him.  Not against him.

I hope my ranting did a little to reassure you that a Barack Obama presidency is something to be welcomed and not feared.  I believe strongly that if we let fear drive our decisions, we will only have more things to fear.  That is the history of war and violence.  Fear (both founded and unfounded) is always to blame when man strikes out against his brother.  You may think “hope” is a wishy washy concept, but a candidate who operates from a place of hope is more apt to produce peaceful results than one who operates from a place of fear.

If you find any of what I’ve written to be the least bit persuasive, I hope you’ll forward these words with the same energy you forwarded the ones below.

Happy voting.

Bill

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Here it is:

MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T VOTE

Voting is a skill. It’s like basketball. Not everyone is good at it. Sure, everyone likes to think he or she is a good voter, just like everyone likes to think he or she is attractive and has a sense of humor. Sadly, the numbers do not support these claims. If everyone was a brilliant voter, we would never elect bad leaders, and the last eight years might have turned out quite differently. So this election year, before you step into a voting booth and possibly screw things up for the rest of us, I ask that you take a moment to answer the following questions and determine whether you have the skill and the know-how to vote responsibly for our next president.

1. Do you feel you made a mistake in 2004 when you voted for George W. Bush?
If your answer is yes, then maybe you’re just not good at voting. Every single thing you probably hate about Bush’s second term was either already in evidence during his first term or was a direct result of actions taken during those first four years. The arrogant foreign policy, the massive deficits, the deregulation, the cronyism, the wasteful spending, the endless war, the bad environmental policies–all this was on the table in 2004. In fact, Bush probably made more mistakes in his first term than in his second. But why didn’t that sway your vote when it mattered? Perhaps you were uninformed or perhaps you were misinformed. Perhaps you were fully aware of Bush’s faults but chose to cast your vote on the basis of personality rather than policy. We’ll deal with all of these points in a moment. For now, you should ask yourself this: if I got it totally wrong in 2004, how do I know I won’t get it wrong again in 2008?

2. Do you believe Barack Obama is a Muslim? Do you believe he “pals around with terrorists”? Do you believe John McCain wants us to be at war in Iraq for one hundred years?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to ask yourself where you are getting your information. If you actually believe any of these voluminously debunked claims, your grasp on reality might be looser than you realize, and this could very well make you a bad voter (see next question).

3. Do you believe any of the following to be unbiased and even-handed sources for political news: The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, Air America, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or the Fox News Network?
Seriously? There’s nothing wrong with getting your partisan fix, but you need to know the difference between news that attempts to be objective and “news” with an agenda. If you are relying on any of the above as your exclusive source of news, then you are watching the world through a skewed lens, you are hearing only one side of the story, and this doesn’t make you a good voter. Spend a few months varying your media diet, and then maybe you’ll be ready to step into a voting booth.

4. Are your political opinions easily swayed by forwarded e-mails, messages on your answering machine, or frightening campaign commercials?
If yes, you might be a bad voter.

5. Do you vote based on who you feel is the more “patriotic” candidate? Do you worry about having a president who is a member of the “elite?”
These are made up issues, meant to distract you from real things like the economy and foreign policy. If you fall for this stuff, it might be an indicator of poor voting skills. Every president in U.S. history–the good ones and the bad ones–have been both elite and intensely patriotic. McCain and Obama are no exceptions. To ask who loves their country more is akin to asking which candidate is a bigger fan of oxygen. Nobody would ever put him or herself through the public rectal exam that is a modern political campaign without a passionate love of country. As for being a member of the “elite,” just remember that Franklin Roosevelt, who couldn’t be more elite if he bathed in money, was also the president who probably did more for the working man than any in our history. The lesson: these labels don’t matter. If they matter to you, you may not be a good voter.

6. Are you planning to vote a certain way because of Barack Obama’s skin color or Sarah Palin’s gender?
If yes, what century are you living in? Please do not vote.

7. Are you afraid of accidentally electing a socialist president to the White House?
Please reread the responses to questions 2 through 6.

8. Do you want your president to be just like you?
Are you the most brilliant person you know? Are you smart enough and experienced enough to be the sort of president whose face is put on currency? If you are not, then I, for one, do NOT want a president who is just like you. You shouldn’t either. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt were not ordinary men. Good voters vote for extraordinary. Or at least they try.

9. Are you upset because you don’t know where the candidates stand on the major issues? Do you feel there is no real difference between the two candidates?
If you answer yes to either question, you clearly have not been paying attention. Barack Obama and John McCain represent two very different philosophies of government, and if you don’t understand that, please don’t vote. These men have spent the last two years explaining where they plan to take the country. If you still don’t know where they stand, then go online and do some research. If you’re too lazy to figure out the differences between the two candidates, or if you plan on waiting until you are in the voting booth to listen to what your gut tells you, then please do not vote. This election is too important to be left to the mood swings and ignorant guesswork of bad voters like you.

You’ve reached the end of the quiz. Thank you for taking this time for self-examination. Now let’s be honest: How did you do? Are you a good voter or a bad one? If you’ve just discovered that you are a bad voter, do not despair. Remember, not everyone can be good at everything. I, for example, am terrible at bowling. That’s okay. There’s no reason to feel ashamed. And there is an upside too. This year, you don’t need to vote! You are officially absolved of your responsibility. Across the nation, millions of more skilled voters will happily pick up the slack, and we will shatter participation records even without you. So, on November 4th, I ask you to take it easy this time. Please, for the love of your country, stay at home.

[Do you have opinions about what makes a good voter? If you have questions you would add to this quiz, please let me know by leaving a comment. I’ll post the best questions soon.]

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Brilliant.  How could it fail?  My question: does this actually qualify as news?  Doesn’t a potential criminal mastermind need to clear some competency bar before he/she/they are rewarded with free publicity and their photos on the network news?  I mean, c’mon.  These guys never even got so far as step one: ”rob a gun store.”  Incidentally, if you’re looking for an easy store to rob, I wouldn’t put gunstore on your list.  Usually armed robbery works best when the robber is more heavily robbed than those he is robbing. 

We should all consider ourselves lucky that racism and stupidity go so neatly hand in hand.    

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Prior to getting married two months ago, I had what I refer to as “crap insurance.”  It was an individual health care plan that I paid for out of my own pocket.  My monthly bill was high.  The deductible was high.  My choice of doctors was limited.  Rather than paying a set copay when receiving medical care, I would get bills in the mail which sometimes made sense and sometimes did not.  Misunderstandings/disagreements with the insurance company over what was covered and what was not happened multiple times.  Here’s the best part: only generic drugs were covered.  “Hey, what are the odds I’ll ever need a non-generic drug?” I thought when I decided to save 50 bucks on my monthly bill.  Do you want to take a guess?  This is life on a crap insurance policy.  And to be fair, this is the life of a relatively healthy youngish person on a crap insurance policy.

I’ve been on a number of these plans from different carriers throughout my time as an inconsistently employed artistic type.  They are all for the birds.  And guess what?  With John McCain, this is the direction health care will be headed in.

Most experts agree that under McCain’s healthcare plan, more and more people will be moved from employer-based plans to individual ones like the one I’ve described above.  But surely, you say, with McCain’s tax credit, people enrolling in those individual plans will be able to afford better policies than the crappy one you describe?  Perhaps.  But will they?  Will a family who is tight on cash really spend the extra money for an expensive plan, when they have the option of pocketing hundreds of dollars a month and purchasing crap insurance instead?  Probably not.  Some free-market Republicans will call this a cost-cutting solution.  I call it giving bad health care to the poor people.  What happens when someone in that family gets sick?  What happens when non-generic drugs are required?  What happens when the restrictions of this limited crap insurance plan start costing that family thousands of dollars?

McCain likes to argue that his health care plan gives people “choice,” but this is misleading.  McCain wants you to hear the word “choice” and think “doctor choice.”  But this isn’t about doctor choice. Yes, we all want to be able to see the doctors we choose, but nobody is trying to take that choice away from us.  What McCain is really saying is that he wants to give Americans the choice of having a crap insurance policy instead of a good one.  That’s the “choice” on the table.

It may seem like a decent proposal to some.  Perhaps some younger healthier folks would rather buy bottom-of-the-barrel coverage and spend their extra money on other things.  That works out great as long as everyone stays healthy.

Does this thinking sound familiar?

It’s a perfect plan.  So long as . . .

a) everyone stays healthy
b) housing prices continue to rise indefinitely
c) nothing ever goes wrong

Deja vu.  Are you scared yet?  And this is only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the wrongheadedness of McCain’s policy.  I haven’t even mentioned people with pre-existing conditions.  What a nightmare they will have, trying to find a decent individual insurance policy that covers them — nevermind one they can afford!  I also haven’t mentioned how crap insurance policies will take the focus away from prevention and wellness.  And let’s not forget how much more power we wilI be placing in the hands of the insurance companies who set the rates for these individual policies.  Do we honestly think they will be responsible and resist ganging up together, raising their prices, lowering their benefits, and generally acting like one unified evil conglomerate if their individual insurance plans become the biggest show in town?

No thanks.  Could there be a worse philosophy for this moment?  I love my wife’s new employer-based health care plan.  For all my increased benefits, I am also paying a fraction of the price for my monthly premium.  I don’t want to go back to crap insurance. I am scared that a McCain presidency will lead the entire country in that direction.

In case you needed yet another reason to vote Democrat . . .

(Sorry to stay on my soapbox.  I need to fit in all my ranting before the election.)

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Barack got a slow start again tonight, but finished strong.  He was evasive during the question about Joe Plumber’s taxes, and McCain scored big points there.  In debate #3, John McCain finally managed to sustain a consistent message for the duration of the evening.  It certainly wasn’t original, but McCain’s classic “this liberal will spend all your money” attack was hammered home repeatedly throughout the 90 minutes with some success.  McCain may have gained a little ground tonight, though I doubt he gained much.

Obama started to come alive again once the question of negative campaigning was raised. Here he found his footing, and from this point on, the debate was all his. McCain seemed petulant, angry, cranky, and downright curmudgeonly, while Obama was Mr. Cool: eloquent, reasonable, and thoughtful.  Every attack of McCain’s after that first 30 minutes was effectively defused by Obama, while many of Obama’s attacks were rebutted with less skill.  Obama continued to be effective at addressing his answers to the middle class, looking deep into the camera’s eye, and oozing presidentiality.

I continue to be amazed by McCain’s obvious contempt for Obama.  He so clearly hates him with every fiber of his being.  At this point, I find myself watching and just wondering when John McCain’s head is going to spontaneously explode.  The Arizona senator has one of the world’s worst poker faces.  My wife has a better poker face, and trust me, you would love to play poker with my wife.  (On a side note, I’ve just realized that, as a married man, I can now tell “my wife” jokes.  Oh, I know someone in the next room who is going to be thrilled to find this out!)

On the whole, another fun night for us political junkies.  To put this in CNN speak: a red-meat night, all about Main Street, but no game-changers.  Ah, CNN, how I tire of thee …  And yet I continue to watch.

More soon, my friends …

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“With all due respect, Governor, your answer is gibberish.”

Yes, of course, you shouldn’t condescend.  Of course, you shouldn’t call her “Sarah” or “Sweetie” or act frustrated with her.  Of course you should be polite and wear a broad smile for the duration of the debate.

But please don’t be too nice.  Please don’t pull any punches.  Lord knows, she won’t.  Sarah Palin will be in attack mode, and you can’t just be playing defense.  Attack.  Attack.  Attack — gently, and with a smile — but attack, please.  Don’t be hamstrung by all this caution that your handlers are preaching. 

And, for crying out loud, when she is inarticulate, call her on it.  Draw attention to it.  Will you be criticized for this afterwards?  Yes, but that will happen anyway.  By calling out Palin’s verbal gibberish, you will force her words to be re-examined and replayed.  And that’s as it should be.

PREDICTION: Joe Biden will be mostly gaffe-free, Palin, more articulate than expected, but still shaky.  All of her ills will be blamed on moderator Gwen Ifill’s ”biased” questioning. 

CONSPIRACY THEORY: McCain’s campaign knew about Ifill’s Obama book before she was announced as moderator, but chose not to say anything about it at the time.  Why?  They knew she would be an even-handed questioner, but a late hour revelation of the book would allow them to use her as a scapegoat, pegged with their new favorite expression: “in the tank for Obama.” 

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If you happen to be reading my blog and have not yet read my book (a small demographic, I’m sure), you may suspect the book to be quite the polemic–particularly given my last two posts. Rest assured, this is not the case.  I take great pains to avoid beating anyone over the head with a political agenda in my fiction.  The book is meant to be enjoyable for readers of all political persuasions, and my goal as a satirist is to raise questions rather than answer them.  So please forgive me if I get a bit heated in my blog posts these days. We’ve reached that all-too-familiar moment in the political season where I start to fear the rest of the country is living in a different reality than I am, one in which facts are subjective, where up is down and down is up and who wears lipstick is more important than who lives or dies.  It’s crazy season.

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Walter Mondale’s pick of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 was applauded by women but viewed with skepticism by many Republicans.  Ferraro was not the most experienced potential vice president, having served only three terms in the House of Representatives. Was this a gender-based affirmative action pick?  Was it stunt casting?  If the motives behind Mondale’s choice of Ferraro were at worst questionable, the motives behind McCain’s choice of Palin are at best transparently calculating and monstrously hypocritical.

Sarah Palin was not picked because John McCain thought she would make the best vice president.  Fact.  She was picked because he thought she could help him win the election, because John McCain cynically believed that Palin could get both the religious right and disaffected female Hillary supporters onto the big red bus.  She was picked because she had extreme right wing views, folksy charm, and a vagina.  That’s it. That’s the reason–and if you think otherwise, you are clearly drinking the Kool Aid.

The reasons behind McCain’s choice of Palin are so transparent as to be insulting.  Particularly, when one considers the first couple months of McCain’s campaign, during which time, all we heard from the senator was how critical it was to elect someone with experience to the Oval Office.  Experience!  Experience!  Experience!  And then he chooses an obscure governor with less than two years experience who has only traveled outside the continent one time as his pick to be the next potential leader of the free world?  Is your intelligence being insulted here, voter?  Does this bother you?  AND … have we started to notice a theme here with McCain’s hypocrisy?  One needn’t go back to 2000 to play the “let’s listen to old John McCain debate new John McCain” game.  One need only go back a month!

Which leads us to a new theme, one that should be the Democrats’ rallying cry for the next 50 days: “John McCain will say and do absolutely anything to get elected.”  His principles have left the building.  The dirty campaign ads, the flip flops on energy, on the Bush tax cuts, on …

But now I’ve gotten off track.  I was talking about Sarah Palin.  Oh, yes.  And how she is like Ferraro.  But much worse.  And Dick Cheney.  But much worse.

“Much worse than Dick Cheney?” you say, “Dick Cheney, evil overlord of the Bush presidency?  Surely, you must be joking. How can anyone be worse than Dick Cheney?”  Let’s look at what she believes.  Is she all that different from Dick Cheney?  Are her views any more moderate?   Would she be the slightest bit less trigger-happy as commander in chief than he?  Does she express any more enthusiasm toward the idea of diplomacy?  Is she at all less likely to be accused of cronyism?  Surely, his social views are more in the mainstream than hers.  When you look at the issues, Sarah Palin is every bit as extreme as Dick Cheney, but with less experience to back up those convictions on almost every count.

And here’s how she’s worse: she’s likable.  Dick Cheney’s bad judgement and underhandedness may be colossal, but I’ll say this for him: at least he looks the part.  His exterior is a caricature of his interior.  This makes him, on some level, less dangerous. As the movies teach us, the most frightening characters are not those with fangs and a cape; they’re easy to avoid.  No, the scariest ones are those who look and talk just like us, those with appealing exteriors, those who know how to charm us, even as they trick us into privatizing social security and fighting made-up wars.

In fact, maybe I’ve made a mistake in my Sarah Palin comparisons.  I’ve over-looked the most obvious and frightening of them all.  Now who was that inexperienced governor they called a reformer?  You know, the one who held grudges and tried to make us believe his lies even after they were proved false …

I think I’ve blocked the name.

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