Political Housekeeping

I'll try to close the books on some of the political stuff of the past few days FIFO style as I had brought each up in my posts. Plenty of new and old-new stuff, too.

WHO WON THE OHIO DEBATE?

Clinton forceful, Obama measured in debate was the capsule description. That says "draw," which means Clinton won it. ABC News had "Democrats Trade Blows" as a headline. Same deal.

CHALK-CHARLIE BEATS LONGSHOT-LARRY

I have been very concerned about the Bush Administration's plans for Warrantless Wiretapping to be codified into law, especially as retroactive violations of the constitution have been excused by Congress. I felt so strongly about this issue that I offered to switch from Clinton to Obama should Obama answer the question "no way" in the Ohio debate and Clinton either answer "yes" or waffle in some way. I made a book on the question, and the 6/5 favorite, "QUESTION NOT ASKED" was the winner. Moreover, neither Clinton nor Obama felt strongly enough about the issue to bring it up in an unsolicited way. I must conclude, therefore, that both approve of the Bush plan. This means that at least in terms of a person's right to privacy and due process, I'd rank the candidates in this order: McKinney, Nader, Paul, Clinton, Obama, Huckabee and McCain last. If Gravel and Keyes are still in it, I'd put Gravel after Nader and before Paul, Keyes dead last.

Nothing has changed my opinion that Clinton is stronger than Obama, however, on issues of privacy overall. I must confess to liking a Green Party led by McKinney and as unworkable as Paul's own private utopia is, you cannot fault him on this issue. He's rabidly anti-abortion but not anti-choice from what I read. Huckabee's advocacy of Fair Tax places him ahead of McCain on privacy (it's hard not to be!) despite Huckabee's bizarre religious views, which, to be fair, all save maybe Nader share. Huckabee is that extra step beyond given his views on Creationism but has in the past made the point that evolution is valid but he Mike Huckabee is uncomfortble with the concept.

OBAMA'S TURBAN

Liberality http://liberality-liberal.blogspot.com/ assured me that the circulation of the photo of Obama in a turban was not a dirty trick by the Clinton campaign. She wrote that TennesseeGuerillaWoman http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/ makes a convincing case. Read it for yourself. I don't call it a slam-dunk case but the Drudge connection is enough to suggest a McCain or Swiftly-Wrapped-Turbans-For-Peace hand in it.

I tend to agree with Liberality and TGW because while Clinton likes to play rough with Obama, this kind of stuff has never marked her campaigns because of disposition and her own problems in that area. I used Bob "Kill-The-Village-In-Order-To-Save-It" Kerrey's casual use of Obama's middle name as a possible way in to believe this was a Clinton move. I now believe that was just more fun-and-games from good old Bob "Did-A-One-Legged-Man-Ever-Win-An-Ass-Kicking-Contest?" Kerrey. He's not a nice man. Not one little bit.

BOW-TIES AND BEAN-PIES AND ISRAEL AND ALL THAT GOOD STUFF PLUS MORE STUFF ABOUT WHICH YOU HAVE NOT BEEN THINKING

Democrat Taylor Marsh http://www.taylormarsh.com/, a pro-Clinton blogger whom I really like even if I don't agree with her all the time, continues her very comprehensive coverage of the race for the Democratic nomination. She has a TPM-muckraker debate clip of Russert grilling Obama on Louis Farrahkhan with the connection being Farrakhan's endorsement of Obama last weekend and the closeness of the Reverend with Reverend Wright, Obama's own pastor. Of course, you cannot have a rational discussion about Louis Farrakhan because the phrase "Judaism...is a gutter-religion" invariably comes up.

I'm what we call here "un judio moderno" (an atheist, agnostic, humanist or generally skeptical, but still cultural Jew) so I'm not in a position to say whether Judaism is or is not a "gutter religion." It certainly is no more a gutter religion than the Nation Of Islam is. In fact, I kind of think all religion belongs in the gutter myself. Maybe 85% of the world doesn't feel that way at all. Like REALLY, REALLY, SUPER-DUPER, DOESN'T FEEL THAT WAY. So, out of respect for many of the fine people I know who DO believe in the supernatural, I'll state my position by quoting Steve Hovley the former Seattle Pilot and Oakland Athletic as quoted in Jim Bouton's most recent update of Ball Four: "religion is like baseball. Great game. Terrible owners."

So, now that we have that cleared up. I want to remind everybody that Malcolm X in the year before his death had taken a second look and had become convinced of the validity of the ideas of two maybe sort of well-known atheist cultural Jews, Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse. I don't know how much I am in accord with most of Marx and Marcuse myself but if we're ranking Black Muslims I've got to put Malcolm X way ahead of Farrakhan on most levels. That said, I'll give both Farrakhan and Felix Rohatyn, the former head of Lazard Freres & Co. as well as the "Big MAC" of NYC during its debt crisis. The latter's a Jew with some Zionist leanings. The two of them would host discussion evenings in the mid-90s with the purpose of doing what Obama claims he'd like to do in Obama's long-winded, doofy yet decent answer to the question, i.e., re-establish the Black-Jewish alliance. Perhaps, to quote Lenny Bruce a sort of "Leibowitz And The Scottsboro Boys: An Evening Of Poetry And Jazz"!

In other words, I don't care for Louis Farrakhan but he's not all bad and he's way, way down my list of villains. I'd reject him, too, for political reasons if I were running for office in the USA, but I pay him no mind whatsover. I hadn't even thought about him for 5 years or more since his name came up this last weekend.

Ah, the "Jewish question"...Obama and Clinton: please stop talking about Israel this Israel that Israel the other. Israel is way, way down the list of most American Jews' concerns even if they won't admit it. Israel, the way the debate is framed in the USA, is way down the list of Israelis' concerns for heavens' sakes! The problem is that AIPAC gives these candidates a lot of money and support so for a campaign to so something so simple as to read Ha'aretz online http://www.haaretz.com/ is completely forbidden because of fear that the truth about what Israelis really think might come out and spoil the Middle-East domination/rapture-conversion fantasy.

And the truth about Israeli people might become apparent, too. I've written this before but American culture makes Israelis seem very grim and religious and bellicose. The opposite is true. They are secular, learned, peaceful more or less, and most of all the opposite of grim. They probably like sex, partying, gambling and making dumb jokes more than any people on Earth. And I'm neither Israeli nor even have a drop of Sephardic blood in me. I've just happened to have lived in a couple of places where I've shared a whole bunch of common interests with a large Israeli population.

Nobody should understand this better than Obama. He probably has a lot of Kenyan friends because he's half-Kenyan but he also has to know that Kenya is pretty low down on the list of issues important to African-Americans.

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