Dunning vs Chen Button

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When None-of-the-Above is Really Needed

The Dallas Morning News made an endorsement in the nasty Republican primary runoff for the Texas House District 112 seat. The News endorsed Jim Shepherd in the primary, but now holds its nose and recommends Angie Chen Button in the April 8 runoff. Chen Button is picked over Randall Dunning because of her "involvement in North Texas civic organizations" like DART, and because of her support for funding of UT-Dallas and the Dallas Community College District. The News fails to mention that the DART board was recently embarrassed by a billion dollar budget shortfall. Chen Button is a CPA and a member of the DART board's audit committee.

The News does say that Chen Button "needs to articulate her views better." That's an understatement. A Web site that strongly favors her opponent neatly satirizes a typical Angie Chen Button response to a direct question about the DART budget scandal:

"This a very important question. Very important and I am so glad you ask this question. First of all the bridges you cross before you come to them are often over rivers that aren't there. Don't forget that. Now, the transit agency made a mistake and a mistake is simply another way of doing business. I can tell you from first hand experience that to err is human, but to blame someone is politics. And remember this: it's not the bullet that kill you, it's the hole. And so it is in the accounting business. Lots of holes but the important thing is not to believe everything you think. Am I making myself clear?

So, why did the News endorse Chen Button over Randall Dunning? In short, because Dunning is a conservative wingnut. The News uses as example the fact that Dunning signed a petition advocating ending government involvement in education. That means federal, state and local. That means no oversight, regulation, teacher certification, achievement testing, etc. That means shutting down or selling all public schools. That means no vouchers for private schools. That means no tax subsidy of any kind. The organizers of the petition helpfully suggest that friends and relatives of your children could be urged to give money instead of toys for birthdays and holidays to make up for the lost government funding. And neighbors without children could be encouraged to voluntarily donate money to their neighbors with children to fund home schooling or private schools. Really.

Dunning's wingnut ideas don't stop with government involvement in education. They extend to the subjects Dunning believes children should be taught. That doesn't include evolution. In an Amazon.com video review of Icons Of Evolution, Dunning says:

"This is a fine video that explores icons of the cult of Darwin and the fanatical attempts of the neo-Darwinians to suppress all challenges to their quaint little belief. I deduct one star because it is too short. There are so many other important frauds and deceptions in need of being addressed that permeate this amazing movement that seeks to convince rational people, through a series of 'just so stories', that they somehow descended from rocks."

It's not just education that drives Dunning over the edge. The First Amendment freedom of religion is seen as anti-Christian bigotry. In another book review, he vows:

"Many who have been abused and hectored by anti-Christian bigots are now activists who are being elected to public office. (Fear this, Liberals!) The day will come when the so-called 'separation of church and state' will be relegated to the dust bin of history."

Dunning praises an Ann Coulter book for "exposing the enemies of America for what they are: Traitors, liars, perverts, tyrants, despots, etc." He dismisses anyone who dares offer contrary opinions as liberals "venting their spleens of the yellow bile of abusive, tiresome, tormented, liberal rage and angst." And he ought to know. The Dallas Morning News says "it's hard to anticipate [Dunning] breaking with his ideology for his constituents'needs." No kidding. Masterful understatement, that.

Voters in House District 112 ought to reject both of these candidates. That means the staunchly Republican district ought to at least give the Democrat on the November ballot, Sandra Vule, a fair hearing. Can she possibly be worse than Dunning or Chen Button?

Wright and "middleclassness"

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Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Movin' on Up

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News' Opinion blog, tells us about the $1.6M house in a gated community that the Rev Jeremiah Wright is moving into in his retirement from Trinity Church, after preaching to his parishioners not to move out from the city to the suburbs, abandoning their urban community. Dreher exclaims, "Come on!"

Wow! Rod Dreher has uncovered another example of a religious leader acting hypocritically. That's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it? Left unsaid is the implication that if Wright is a hypocrite, then Obama must be, too, by association, not by anything learned here about Obama's own words or deeds. Can we get back to talking about the issues, please. Or at least the candidates?

Dunning vs Chen Button

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Failed Record, Strange Behavior

The runoff in the Republican primary for Texas House District 112 to succeed retiring Fred Hill is turning nasty. Paul Burka gives a good summary of the candidates and the party split that they represent.

Randy Dunning is supported by the far right. He highlights cutting taxes as his reason for running. He also is anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, and anti-gay. What's he for? Guns. So much so that he got fired from his job after carrying a handgun on company property. He explains that this happened during the "reign" of Bill Clinton, so I guess he felt justified. WTF?

Angie Chen Button is supported by the business conservatives. Her biggest contributors are Tom Engibous, former chairman of Texas Instruments and Keh Shew Lu, former senior VP of TI. She's raised $114,000 so far and has loaned herself another $160,000. She is on the DART board, which recently was embarrassed by failing to catch a billion dollar budget shortfall. She's running on an anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-gay platform. Oh... and smearing Randy Dunning. In cable television attack ads and in an email, she attempts to bury him, in Dunning's words, under "an avalanche of fabrications, distortions, and hearsay." Burka has the text.

Dunning's response is also worth a read. Dunning dismisses some of the smears as being sourced from the Dallas Observer, "an ultra-liberal 'alternative' newspaper." Uh oh... he had better hope those guys at Unfair Park don't take offense.

Too bad there's not a way both of these candidates can lose. I guess someone has to emerge from the runoff with the Republican nomination, but if ever there's an election where Republicans ought to at least give a look to the Democrat (Sandra Vule), this November will be it. Strange behavior indeed, on the part of both Republicans.

Clinton and The Fellowship

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Triangulating Faith

For fifteen years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a Capitol Hill prayer group called The Fellowship. Apparently, members tend to practice rightwing politics. Now, because of Clinton's criticism of Barack Obama's decision to remain a member of his church, once led by the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Clinton's own membership in a controversial religious group is getting some press. Not much, but maybe enough to cause Clinton to back off her own criticism of Obama.

The story has appeared in The Atlantic as long ago as 2006 and in Mother Jones and Harpers since then. Now, Jeffrey Weiss brings the story to The Dallas Morning News Religion blog.

Hillary Clinton's long term involvement in this right-wing fundamentalist religious group is a private matter. I'm more interested in Iraq, terrorism, the economy, health care, education, the national debt, our Constitutional liberties, etc., than I am in her religious practices... as long as she upholds the Constitutional separation of church and state, that is.

Conversation on race; Rooting for death?

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Can't Make Murchison Talk? What's That He's Doing?

Barack Obama called for a national dialog on race. William Murchison of the Dallas Blog is stubbornly having none of it. He demostrates this by... writing a column about a dialog on race. There's a delicious irony in William Murchison publicly doing exactly what he insists no one can make him do.

Murchison faults "liberals" for not wanting real dialog, only "a microphone and an audience." Murchison makes this criticism in a column on Dallas Blog, where he himself conveniently doesn't have to see or hear any differing viewpoints. More irony.

William Murchison, other opinion writers, and their readers are all, in fact, having that dialog, whether or not William Murchison wants to admit it or not. Thank you, Barack Obama ... and even William Murchison, too. It's a conversation long overdue.

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Mark Davis Thinks Reporters Want Soldiers to Die

Mark Davis accuses reporters of wanting American soldiers to die in Iraq in his column in The Dallas Morning News. His evidence? ABC's decision to run a list of names of the dead during its nightly newscast. This is reported by Michael Landauer on the News' Opinion blog. My questions: Why does the Dallas Morning News give Mark Davis a column? Are there editors who aren't sickened by his offensive statements? Or are there editors who think offensive, sickening opinions deserve equal time on the pages of the News? If so, who is the left-wing demagogue that Mark Davis supposedly balances?

American notions of sin

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Sin is in the Eye of the Beholder

Bruce Tomaso reports on the puzzling results of a survey on Americans' notion of sin. For example, 63% think it's a sin to not speak up if a cashier gives you too much change, but only 52% think it's a sin to underreport income on your tax return.

Humans tend to conform to conventional morality, by and large, even if they can't explain it. It's possible that it was the evolution of morality that enabled homo sapiens to exponentially expand its population and range and dominate the planet. That morality is still more instinct than reason explains why survey responses can be as illogical as appears here.

Grammar Myths

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The Teacher Ain't Always Right

Donna Garner, a long time English teacher in Texas public schools, ruins a reasonable appeal for better English language instruction in schools with a misguided understanding of how the English language is used. In a Dallas Blog column, she laments:

"Similar to what many of you probably do, I find myself frequently yelling at the TV set! I am so tired of hearing incorrect grammar used by TV commentators, Teachers of the Year, firemen, city council members, college professors, political figures, Congressional staffers, recent college graduates, and people-on-the-street. [...] 'He sung loud and clear...The interview was between him and I...She laid down for her nap just before the house became engulfed in flames...Sally snuck out to the playground...Jim dove into the swimming pool.' "

Some of these usages have a long and honorable history. You can find them in the writings of the greatest writers of the English language, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others. Who is Donna Garner to say that these writers were wrong?

Much of this misguided effort stems from an attempt to shoehorn the English language into the grammar rules of Latin or to define rules to make English more logical. It's not that modern English has been corrupted from some earlier, more perfect age. In many cases, English speakers never followed the rules laid down by wishful pedants. Language is not mathematics. Language is the people's tool and it follows popular usage.

For example, "dove" has been gradually replacing "dived" for a hundred years. Sometimes English evolves by standardizing around, for example, "-ed" endings for past tense. But sometimes, the old Anglo-Saxon endings ("drove", "dove") hang in there or even stage a comeback.

Students need to learn that language is a living, evolving cultural organism as much as they need to learn the strict rules of today's New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. As Donna Garner's own ears tell her, plenty of people say "dove," not "dived." As Donna Garner admits, many of those same people have jobs as television commentators, Teachers of the Year, college professors, city council members, Congressional staffers, etc. These are the people who set the standards for language use. The style guide will eventually catch up to what these people say, no matter what long-time English teachers in public schools may have learned when they were in school. Donna Garner should quit yelling at the TV set and start appreciating how language is actually used. It doesn't always follow logical rules, but that doesn't make it any less "correct."

Huckabee on Wright

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Cut Him Some Slack

The Dallas Morning News' Opinion blog's James Mitchell links to a Huffington post story with a video of Mike Huckabee, former Republican candidate for President and former Baptist preacher from Arkansas, who says:

"As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say 'That's a terrible statement!' ... I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names..."

Mitchell suggests that Huckabee "gets it" and asks, "When can we expect these comments in continual video loop?" The answer is not anytime soon.

Reader Ed Friedman asks, "Why is it so difficult to understand that Wright was venting anger, an anger that's so understandable?" The answer is that many of the whites who refuse to cut Wright any slack are also just venting anger, an anger that's also understandable. Re-read Obama's speech. He gets it, too.

Hmmm... Obama/Huckabee '08?

Mark Davis on Obama

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Obama As Seen From Another Planet

Mark Davis listened to another speech than I did yesterday. His characterization of Barack Obama's speech on race relations bears no resemblance to the reality I saw and heard.

Mark Davis heard "a flimsy attempt to excuse" the Rev. Wright's legacy of venom. I heard Obama condemn Wright's remarks.

Mark Davis heard Obama urge America "not to reject [black] anger without understanding its roots." I heard Obama urge America to BOTH reject AND understand, as a necessary means to overcome.

Mark Davis says "hate is not to be endlessly analyzed." I heard Obama say that if we simply condemn each other and retreat to our respective corners, then the conflict will indeed be endless.

Mark Davis says that Obama should have said that the members of his church are not "well served by the spreading of racial hatred." I heard Obama say exactly that.

Mark Davis says hate is to be rejected without reservation, but then hypocritically drops a suggestion that Trent Lott was "undeserving" of criticism for his nostalgic memory of segregation, that Don Imus was "undeserving" of criticism for calling African-American female college athletes "nappy headed hos."

Maybe Mark Davis ought to return from whatever planet he listened to yesterday's speech from. His reception wasn't good. He ends by condescendingly saying he wishes "to give Mr. Obama credit and benefit of the doubt as the first black presidential candidate striving to move beyond the 1960s." Mark Davis wants to marginalize Obama as nothing more than an ethnic candidate. But Obama isn't running to be president of black America or white America. He's running to be President of the United States of America. And his speech was a powerful call to action towards that goal. Too bad Mark Davis didn't hear it.

Obama and Race

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Kumbaya or Fire and Brimstone

How fast things change. Just a few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was making political capital by mocking Barack Obama for being a starry-eyed dreamer:

"Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect."

Today, Barack Obama is being painted by others as some kind of racist black man who calls on God to rain down fire and brimstone on white America for sinning. He's being condemned for association with a firebrand preacher who has issued such calls from the pulpit of Obama's own church.

Obama is no more a racist than he is a starry-eyed dreamer. Both caricatures are attempts by his political opponents to undermine him and his call for a end to the politics of personal destruction that has corroded public discourse in this country, a call to turn the page, a call to change.

Make no mistake. Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a problem that can do serious harm to Obama's campaign, even if guilt by association is unjustified. Many voters will hear only the sound bites, decide that Wright preaches racism and nothing else, and that Obama buys into everything Wright says, no matter that they cannot point to anything Obama himself has ever said or done that is racist. Just the fact that Obama didn't leave the church years ago is enough to condemn him in many people's minds.

Instead, Obama denounces the expressions of anger and division by the Rev. Wright, without disowning the man who brought him to Jesus, the man who also preaches a message of hope and renewal for his black community. Obama filters the good from the bad to craft his own positive, uplifting message of change. A unifier can emerge from a church that sometimes harbors anger and frustration. This should not be surprising. One who has personally experienced the polarizing effects of race in America from both sides understands the kind of change America needs. Obama's own background (white, black, Hawaii, Kenya, Kansas, Indonesia, Harvard, south Chicago, Washington DC) positions him to rise above the crippling effects of racial divisions in America. If America turns its back on Obama for things his pastor said, the racial divide will only deepen. America would be the loser, not Obama.

Planned Parenthood

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Aborting Black Babies

A representative of a right-to-life student publication at UCLA made phone calls to numerous Planned Parenthood offices, posing as a donor, saying he wanted to donate to Planned Parenthood in order to abort black unborn children. If the person at Planned Parenthood didn't immediately denounce the caller as a bigot, the call was published as evidence of racism at Planned Parenthood.

So far, nothing more than a stunt by college journalists. But here's how this story was presented by Rodger Jones on the The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. In its entirety, the story is "Aborting black babies is a program you can underwrite an Planned Parenthood, apparently." This was followed by links to the "awful discovery."

Planned Parenthood is not racist. There's no program for "aborting black babies." The "awful discovery" is not what Rodger Jones leads readers to believe, but the fact that anti-abortion extremises use deceptive tactics and racist behavior themselves to embarrass Planned Parenthood. But you have to follow the links to learn all this. Rodger Jones and The Dallas Morning News ought to be almost as embarrassed as Planned Parenthood.

Obama's Iraq Policy

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Don't Go In; Now, Get Out

Mike Hashimoto and Rodger Jones are up to some very creative historical revisionism today, trying to paint Barack Obama as a flip-flopper on Iraq.

On The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, Hashimoto quotes at length from other analysts who call Obama's position a "circular path" of "ad hoc judgments" and "cynical judgments." Jones himself calls Obama's Iraq position a "zig-zag." This is called attacking a candidate's strength. It sounds foolish, it is foolish, but repeated often enough, it might just get enough voters convinced that Obama wasn't right on the war, after all, to make a difference in the election.

Let's get real. Obama opposed the war from the beginning. Once the fatal mistake was made, Obama supported the troops, not the war. He was always looking for ways to redirect America's attention back on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. If additional military action in Iraq was needed to stabilize the country enough to allow a safe withdrawal of American forces, Obama was willing to give it a chance. Time demonstrated the limits of that strategy. The "surge", coupled with ethnic cleansing and millions of refugees leaving their homes or their country, has led to a reduction in violence, but not to a political reconciliation. Obama now sees gradual withdrawal as a way of prodding the political factions to resolve their differences. There's no guarantee it will work. But there's no guarantee that the Bush/McCain "stay the course" strategy will lead to any better outcome if and when American troops eventually do withdraw. McCain's contentment with a 100 year presence in Iraq is simply unrealistic.

In short, Obama's position on the war has been consistent. He opposed it, first, last, always. His judgment proved correct then. His judgment can be trusted now, as he says, "We have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as Bush was careless getting into Iraq."

Obama's pastor

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What Does Obama See in Wright?

I seldom agree with Rod Dreher and hardly ever where religion intersects politics, but I think he asks the right question in today's blog post on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. Dreher references some of the "combustible, racialist rhetoric" of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's long-time pastor and spiritual mentor. Dreher asks, rightly, what does Obama see in this man? Obama says he doesn't agree with everything Wright says, but there's just so much to disagree with, that that attitude by Obama doesn't go far enough. Obama should either reject and denounce the man altogether or do a better job of introducing the good qualities of his pastor to Americans, so they can see in this man what Obama apparently does. Because so far, there's not much good that Americans are getting to see. The thought that this man is Obama's mentor does not sit well.

Dream Ticket; RISD scoreboard

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Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama

Mark Davis expresses the conventional wisdom by ruling out a so-called dream ticket of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in whatever order. He does so for all the conventional reasons.

Obama cannot be the change candidate by picking a Clinton for VP. Obama cannot risk being upstaged or embarrassed by Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton cannot risk being upstaged by the more energizing Obama. And America may be barely ready for either the first African-American president or the first woman president. It's hardly ready for both on the same ticket.

There's nothing wrong with the conventional wisdom. These are all good arguments against pairing these two candidates on the same ticket. But sometimes conventional wisdom has to give way to an irrefutable argument. The Democratic Party is at risk of coming apart at the seams. If this nomination fight goes all the way to Denver, the Democrats' hopes for victory in November may be left in tatters on the convention floor. A "dream" ticket may be the only way to salvage a Democrat victory. Whether it comes about will depend on the candidates. If Obama and Clinton want to make it happen, it will happen, regardless of conventional wisdom. And if they don't, it won't happen, regardless of irrefutable logic. It's not up to the voters. It's not up to the delegates or the superdelegates. It's all up two people. And only they can decide whether it's to be or not to be.

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New scoreboards for Richardson ISD

The Richardson ISD is considering replacing the ten-year-old scoreboards at its two high school football stadiums. The reason given for needing to replace them is that the old scoreboards are "on their last legs." District officials say they've spent $11,000 on repairs. So, to avoid, say, another $11,000 in repairs, the school board is considering spending up to $2.4M for new scoreboards. It doesn't take an accountant to see that something other than saving money is at work here.

"It is really frustrating to fans who come to a contest if they don't know how much time is left in a quarter," said Bob Dubey, Richardson ISD's athletics director. Regular attendees of RISD football games can attest that this has not really been a problem at RISD games, and the situation is not much better or worse at games at Plano or Garland stadiums. Regardless, it doesn't take $2.4M to show the score and game time. Every school gym, every YMCA gym, every church gym has a scoreboard that displays the time and score and none of those scoreboards cost $2.4M. What would be really frustrating to fans is learning that the school district spent $2.4M to display the score at the football game.

The rest of the story hints at what's really at work here. The consultant that the RISD school board paid to study the scoreboard matter was Titus Sports Marketing, the "firm that will handle advertising for the school district." Everything falls into place. A marketing company that sells advertising sells an ISD on the benefits of new scoreboards with "flashy graphics, instant replay, gigantic displays" and, ... advertising. The ISD can pay for it all through the advertising. How convenient.

Did anyone on the school board bother to research whether flashy graphics, instant replay, and advertising enhance the experience of attending a high school football game? Did anyone on the school board bother to attend a football game in some stadium where such scoreboards are already in place? Did they notice that during timeouts and at halftime the student bands are playing, the student cheerleaders are performing stunts, the drill team is performing? Did they notice how dismaying it is to have the students' efforts drowned out by a scoreboard blaring commercials? Does the school board want to see the post-game ritual where the football team, the cheerleaders, the students and parents in the stands all rise for the playing of the school song by the marching band, interrupted by a local auto dealer's commercial blaring from that fancy new scoreboard? It happens at those other stadiums.

Advice to the school board: Just say no to professional scoreboards at student football games.

Shaw murder-suicide; Benedict on tour

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Press Pounces at News of Deaths

Like many other bloggers in Dallas, the The Dallas Morning News' Rodger Jones commented on the deaths of Rufus Shaw and Lynn Flint Shaw, whose bodies were found in their home Monday after an apparent murder-suicide. But whereas all of the other commenters limited themselved to expressions of shock and sorrow, Rodger Jones quickly dispensed with the condolences and jumped immediately to speculation about the details of the deaths, even before both bodies had been identified. And not just explaining the legal, financial, and possibly health issues the couple faced. No, Rodger Jones had only one question on his mind: "Was she going to implicate him in the fraud case that the DA was bringing against her? Did that trigger the violence last night?"

Readers immediately pointed out how the speculation was tasteless (as one put it), how Jones had no facts or evidence to support his fantasizing (as another put it), how Jones' blog might even border on schadenfreude (as yet another put it, which I agree was "piling on", as the commenter himself admitted).

That last accusation brought Rodger Jones out in public to defend his sadness as genuine and his questions as legitimate. None of the other blogs (Frontburner, Unfair Park, Dallas Blog) engaged in such unfounded, idle speculation. Maybe they have a higher journalistic standard than does the The Dallas Morning News.

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Find the Popes in the Pizza

The Dallas Morning News' Bruce Tomaso reports on Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to the United States, from April 15 to April 20. I just love the excitement generated by a papal visit...

Father Guido Sarducci: "Going along with this Papal mania, I've kind of designed a contest about the Popes. It's called 'Find the Popes in the Pizza' ... All two hundred and fifty-four Popes, they're in here. ... While you're looking at the pizza for thirty seconds, I'm gonna play a cut from Pius XII's album. ... Here is Pius XII singing 'On the Sunny Side of the Street' ... And now find the Popes in the pizza. Good luck to you. All two hundred and fifty-four. ... Some are easy to find, some are hard. ... Here's a little clue for you. Most of the Popes have red faces."

Obama's Faith

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Silly Season

Barack Obama calls it the silly season. Others call it gutter politics or Swiftboating. Regardless how serious you view it, there's no denying that the 2008 presidential election campaign has entered that stage where smears, slurs and slanders begin to drown out serious discussion of the issues.

One false rumor that just won't die surrounds Barack Obama's faith. He's a Christian, but the rumor suggests otherwise. In its most malevolent form, the rumor is that he is actually a secret Muslim terrorist. In its mildest form, it's that he used to be a Muslim and is hiding that fact for political purposes. Even Hillary Clinton nurtures the rumor, saying in a debate that Obama is not a Muslim, "as far as I know."

An example of the rumor at work can be found in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. Below is an exchange I had with one spreader of the rumor:

Posted by Howard Richman @ 2:35 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

The main thing that you have to understand is that Senator Obama's own campaign views his political positions as tactics.

1. He came out as a strong Christian in South Carolina while at the same time his campaign was assuring secularlist supporters that he was just doing so to counteract the perception that he is Muslim.

2. He took a strong anti-NAFTA position in the Ohio debate, while at the same time his campaign was assuring Canada that it was just campaign rhetoric.

3. As you pointed out, he takes positions on Iraq in public to win votes, while his campaign assures the British press that he will not follow positions "he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator."

How can you trust what a candidate says when his own campaign views his statements as tactics?

Howard Richman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Ed Cognoski @ 3:41 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Howard Richman, Obama is a Christian. He favors renegotiating NAFTA. He plans to pull US combat troops out of Iraq. Call these positions tactical or strategic or just setting the record straight. It doesn't matter. Democrats are showing they trust Obama. On the other hand, you're entitled to your own minority opinion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Howard Richman @ 5:09 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Ed,

You may be correct. His campaign may view these positions as tactics, even though he is sincere about them. I've also noticed another pattern, he has a tendency to hide things:

1. He was a secret smoker.

2. He expresses his pro-Palestinian sympathies in private, but not in public.

3. When speaking to the Cleveland Jewish leadership, he hid the fact that he was raised as a Muslim until age 10.

4. Events keep coming out in the Rezko corruption trial in Chicago that he has hidden.

5. In "Dreams From My Father" he hid the last name of his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, a prominent Communst party member.

Howard Richman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Ed Cognoski @ 5:40 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Howard Richman, Obama is a Christian. He was not "raised as a Muslim." You are spreading lies. Obama's popularity derives from his disavowal of the politics of slurs and smears that you practice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Howard Richman @ 6:24 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Ed,

I certainly agree with you that Senator Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, and I wish to thank you for making my point that he has hidden from you the fact that he was raised as a Muslim until he was 10.

When he lived in Jakarta Indonesia with his mother and his Muslim stepfather, he attended first a Catholic school for two years and than a majority Muslim public school for two years where he took 2 hours a week of Koranic studies. My source here is a pro-Obama biography.

Howard Richman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Ed Cognoski @ 7:36 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Howard Richman, Obama hasn't hidden his background. The facts that you twist and spin into falsehood are well known. The truth is that Obama was no more raised a Muslim than he was raised a Catholic. You continue to practice the politics of personal destruction. Obama is attracting voters who are sick and disgusted with your old-style smear politics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Howard Richman @ 10:26 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Ed,

Obama hid his two-hours-per-week study of the Koran at the public school in Jakarta when he spoke to the leaders of the Cleveland Jewish community. This is what he said:

"If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, in fact I have never been a Muslim. We had to send CNN to look at the school that I attended in Indonesia where kids were wearing short pants and listening to ipods to indicate that this was not a madrassa but was a secular school in Indonesia. Where I attended for two year prior to coming back to Hawaii. If you look at Nicholas Kristof’s article today it gives you an indication of where I got my name. My grandfather who was Kenyan converted to Christianity then converted to Islam, my father never practiced he was basically agnostic and so other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years when I was a child I have very little connection to the Islamic religion."

Howard Richman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Ed Cognoski @ 11:07 PM Sun, Mar 09, 2008

Howard Richman, whether or not your quote is accurate, it's entirely consistent with what Obama has said elsewhere. He never hides the fact that he attended a Catholic school and later a public school when he was a child in Indonesia. Public schools in Indonesia are unlike public schools in the US in that they have religion classes. Obama has never hidden this. It's in his own book.

CNN went to Indonesia to investigate the elementary school Obama attended there. CNN reported, "There are religion classes once a week - most of the 450 students are Muslim, and are taught about Islam. The handful who are Christians, learn that Jesus is the Son of God. The deputy headmaster tells me he's unaware that his school has been labeled an Islamic Madrassa by some in United States, and bristles at the thought."

So, quit lying. Obama is a Christian. He has never been a Muslim. He wasn't raised a Muslim. And he isn't hiding anything. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Howard Richman @ 12:25 AM Mon, Mar 10, 2008

Ed Cognoski,

Thanks for the information that Obama's mother and stepfather had a choice as to which religious classes Obama would attend. The fact that they chose the Islamic classes, rather than the Christian classes, confirms that they were raising him as a Muslim.

So you see, you have proven me to be accurate in every particular. The irony is that at the same time you were proving me to be correct you were calling me a liar.

Howard Richman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by Ed Cognoski @ 7:52 AM Mon, Mar 10, 2008

Howard Richman, you are a proven liar. Obama was not raised as a Muslim. Obama has not hidden his background in Indonesia. Readers can find the whole story in his book.

"During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."

-- Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

Super Delegates

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Why Have Super Delegates?

On The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, Mike Hashimoto continues to act as Hillary's best friend. Yesterday, he pitched his argument that Barack Obama's lead in pledged delegates didn't reflect the will of the voters because by other measures Clinton was ahead. Clinton counts only "big" states or "blue" states and discounts caucus states. Hashimoto counts Electoral College equivalents. But none of these measures are the scorekeeping rules that Obama and Clinton have been playing by for a year. It's the delegates, stupid.

So, today, Hashimoto admits defeat on that line of argument and tries a new tack to help Hillary. If Clinton can't win on the basis of the pledged delegates awarded in the primaries, maybe she can win by getting super delegates to go against the popular vote ... just because they can. Hashimoto asks, "If you want super-D's to robotically vote exactly as a subset of the popular vote, why have them?"

To rebut Hashimoto's line of reasoning, all that's needed is to examine his premise. In this case, it's that Obama supporters want super delegates to do anything "robotically." On the contrary, Obama supporters want super delegates to carefully examine this year's contest and ratify the voters' choice.

If Obama is indicted by a grand jury or censured by the Senate or collapses in the polls due to a series of embarrassing indiscretions or serious gaffes, the super delegates are there to rescue the party. But none of that is the case. Clinton's arguments about "big" states or "blue" states or momentum are bogus reasons for super delegates to overturn the voters' choice.

Even though the super delegates are not needed to rescue the party this year, their ratification of the voters' choice still serves an important role. Their votes help turn a narrow, perhaps divisive outcome into a clear majority for one candidate. This signals to all that the contest is over, that one candidate has prevailed, that it's time to unify and prepare for the general election. Perhaps that's the outcome that Mike Hashimoto most fears. Perhaps he isn't really Hillary's best friend, after all.

What if the Winner Took All?

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It's the Delegates, Stupid

On The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, Mike Hashimoto asks a hypothetical question. If the Democrats awarded delegates in each state in a winner-take-all fashion instead of proportionally, and if the delegate count for each state matched its Electoral College vote, then how would that affect the current delegate totals? By his calculation, Clinton would have 219 electoral votes and Obama only 193. Hashimoto asks, if you accept that analysis, whose will should the superdelegates consider now?

Obviously, no one should accept that analysis. The fact is this primary campaign has always been about one thing and one thing only: delegates to the national convention. Clinton is now desperately trying to recast it as something else. She can't use pledged delegates (Obama's ahead). She can't use total delegates (Obama's ahead). She can't use popular votes (Obama's ahead). She can't use states won (Obama's ahead). She can't use national polls pitting Clinton or Obama against McCain (Obama's ahead). So she wants to use "big" states, or "blue" states, or primary election states. She's down to arguing about some immeasurable quantity called "momentum" (defined so that only last Tuesday's primaries count, but not Vermont and not the Texas caucuses), and before it's through she might even want to use Hashimoto's Electoral College votes.

The only fair way to score a contest is to use the scorekeeping rules that were set up before the contest began, and that's delegates. And by that count, Obama is ahead and will almost certainly be ahead when the last states allocate their delegates. Clinton can take the nomination only by changing the perception of what the scorekeeping rules ought to be. And Hashimoto is generously helping her find a new formula that works to her favor. Hillary seems to have a lot of conservative friends these days.

Hashimoto's exercise reminds me of the old question:
If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
Answer: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

Slanders, slurs and smears

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Slanders, Slurs and Smears

Yesterday, I was looking forward to the Texas primary being over and the candidates packing up and leaving Texas. Not because I was tired of the candidates, but because I was tired of the slanders, slurs and smears the candidates' supporters were slinging. Well, it's Wednesday and the mud is still flying. Today's The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog brings us these choice comments by readers:

"I can't wait until your Communist collaboration as a POW comes out into the open this fall. John McCain, you are a traitor to the United States of America and should not be nominated but tried and convicted instead"
William Denbow

and this:

"Look at McCain's record. He lost a plane in flight school. He lost another on the deck of an air craft carrier where 130 men died. And he lost a third over Hanoi. Not a pilot I'd want to fly with. He also finished 5th from the bottom in his class at the Naval Academy and would have probably been kicked out if Daddy wasn't an admiral. Don't we already have a Daddy's boy for President? A guy who never would have made it without nepotism? A guy who prided himself on being a C student?"
Don Hartley

These posters don't say whether they are Democrats turning their guns on McCain or disgruntled Republicans unhappy with McCain winning their nomination. Regardless, they have the M.O. of Swiftboating -- don't bother to promote your candidate, just slander the guy you hate. Maybe it will take a day or two for the emotional high of an election to wear off and for the hate mongers to disappear from Texas blogs. I can dream, can't I?

Primary Day

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No blogging today, as I was too busy following the election returns. My Richardson precinct caucus went 2 to 1 for Obama. Everyone was very civil, a welcome change from the way Obama and Clinton supporters treated each other in the various blog comments leading up to this primary election. As I said before, I'll be glad when the candidates pack up and leave Texas. Unfortunately, it looks like the nomination will drag on, giving both sides plenty of time to tear each other apart in the next state in the schedule. Then again, even if the Democratic nomination had been settled tonight, all that would do is lead to Democratic and Republican partisans turning their smears and slurs full bore on each other. I guess the fighting will go on until November no matter when the Democratic nomination is finally sewn up. Sigh.

Democratic Party Fissures

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Democratic Party Fissures

It's been twenty years since Texas voters have played a part in the selection of a party's nominee for President. This year brought plenty of excitement and, for me, ultimately disappointment. Not in the results, which won't be known until tomorrow, but in the behavior of Texans.

Just a month ago, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama held a debate in Los Angeles before the Super Tuesday primaries. They conducted themselves civilly, agreed on most issues, and expressed honor at sharing the stage. The final debate question, in which both Clinton and Obama expressed themselves open to the possibility of a so-called dream ticket of Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton, brought cheers from the partisan Democratic crowd.

A month later, the two candidates have sharpened their language, but their debates are still civil. It's their supporters who have sunk to the lowest depths in smearing the opposing candidates. The comments sections in The Dallas Morning News political blogs are filled with vile insults, slurs, slanders and outright lies. Today, it's impossible for me to imagine Democrats celebrating a ticket shared by Clinton and Obama. Bitterness has burrowed way too deep, not into the candidates themselves, but their supporters.

I don't know if all the other states experienced the same level of dirty politics as the campaigns came through, or if Texas is seeing something different because it comes so late in the process. All I know is that a month ago, the Republicans were unhappy with any of their choices and the Democrats were thrilled with their wealth of satisfactory candidates. Today, the Republicans have reached, if not peace, at least a cease fire. But the Democrats are tearing each other apart. Texans were eyewitness to the whole sorry spectacle.

P.S. I single out The Dallas Morning News mainly because that's the source I am most familiar with, but it also seems to be a source that does the least moderation of readers' comments. Just about anything goes. The reporters admit they are overwhelmed with volume, yet are doing the best they can. If they are moderating anything at all, I'd hate to read the kinds of posts that get censored. The ones that get through are offensive enough.