that other guy’s thoughts

I was having difficultly writing something coherent, so I borrowed a bit of inspiration from my favorite writer, Aaron Sorkin. In the end, it wasn’t so hard. 1000 words later, here’s what came out:

The Unknown Happens.

“If our job teaches us anything, it’s that we don’t know what the next President’s gonna face.”

Presidencies are never about what we think they’re going to be about. The issues that face us today weren’t even on the radar 8 years ago. Even today, the biggest threat to our country isn’t a “credit crunch”, or the war in Iraq, or climate change. The biggest threat is probably some unknown or obscure foreign event or domestic policy change that will have massive and unintended consequences for years to come. Think ‘modifying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s lending criteria’ meets ‘OMG Global Economic Hurricane!!1!!1!’ It’s an unknown-unknown, and that’s what makes it so dangerous.

To head these problems at the pass, we need a president with a full view of the playing field. We need a President with intellectual curiosity and self-examination. Barack Obama has both in abundance. John McCain understands self-examination, but doesn’t have the forethought to see past next Tuesday, let alone decades from now. Joe Biden has plenty of curiosity but has yet to solve his personal case of foot-in-mouth-itis. Sarah Palin has neither, insults anybody who does, and revels in her own ignorance.

Process Matters

“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character. Then you have an old photo of the President’s girlfriend. You scream about patriotism and you tell them she’s to blame for their lot in life, you go on television and you call her a whore.”

A McCain victory changes national politics for at least a decade. It validates the Karl Rove model of electoral campaigns. It’s a giant bat-signal to politicians saying that truth doesn’t matter, facts don’t matter, smears don’t matter, the press doesn’t matter, competence doesn’t matter, governance doesn’t matter, temperament doesn’t matter. It means that the American people will elect anyone as long as you can cobble together a string of divisive single-issue voters and paint your opponent as someone to be afraid of. You can abuse power and revel in ignorance. You can refuse to answer questions, never give a press conference, and still have your hate-filled stump speeches broadcast live everyday on CNN. A McCain victory means the last vestiges of small honor in campaign politics is dead.

I don’t know what happened to John McCain, but I do know that if he governs anything like he campaigns, we’re all screwed.

Hope Matters. Always.

“I am here to tell you that hope is real. In a life of trails, in a world of challenges, hope is real. In a country where families go without health care, where some go without food, some don’t even have a home to speak of, hope is real. In a time of global chaos and instability where our faiths collide as often as our weapons, hope is real. Hope is what gives us the courage to face our greatest challenges, to move forward together. We live in cynical times, but hope is not up for debate. There is such a thing as false science, there is such a thing as false promises, but there is no such thing as false hope. There is only hope.”

Our world is crushing down on us right now. For the first time in our history we face the prospect of an entire generation of Americas having a less free, safe, and prosperous life than their parents. Right now, we’re stuck in a deep hole and we’re still digging. We’ve spent ourselves to near exhaustion, economically, culturally, emotionally, and philosophically.

If we ever want to turn it around, and have better days, we simply cannot lose hope. Because hope is the foundation of everything. It’s at the root of each of our families, it’s the promise of religion and faith, and it’s the foundation of our country. Something better is possible. Something better is ALWAYS possible.

Barack Obama understood this, and he made hope the very first, and most central theme of his political career. Before “change”, before “yes, we can”, before everything, there was Hope.

Competence Matters Most.

“There is is. That’s the ten-word answer my staff’s been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They’re the tip of the sword. Here’s my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I’ll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while… every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. I’m the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me.”

This is the lesson that should be first and foremost burned into the minds of our citizenry. Before considering the issues, before party, before ideology, before philosophy, before belief, we absolutely MUST require our leaders to be competent. This is especially true of Presidents. The job entails executing the day-to-day operation of the biggest, most-byzantine, most influential, most dangerous organization in the world. I think before we worry about who’s taxes will go up or down 3% we should figure out if our candidates have intellects and dispositions capable of running such a complex office. Our current president obviously fails this test.

It’s taken me long enough to get here, but I know this: Picking Presidents purely based on their stance on the “issues” is dumb. Almost as dumb and picking them based on hair color. Presidents have to be more than a sum of their positions, otherwise we’re just electing and empty shirt.

This isn’t to say that issues don’t matter. No mistake should be made. Barack Obama is a modern liberal. This is at least cause for pause when considering that he wishes to govern a moderate to mildly conservative population. But one of his most appealing traits to me is his near total adherence to evidence-based policy. Everything he purposes is backed up by scores of studies and surveys and a gaggle of expects to vouch for it’s authenticity. Try as his detractors might, there is nothing radical about him. His proposals for healthcare, foreign policy, fiscal policy, education, and the environment are prudent, well thought-out, and backed up by reams of data.

I may disagree with many of his view and goals, but I’m firmly confident that an Obama administration won’t venture far from what works. It may seem like a misnomer in today’s climate, but this is a traditionally conservative governing process.

I picture an Obama administration, and I see the capacity for the best of all worlds: A call to inspire each of us to find our best selves, and when the boots hit the ground, do what works.

Back in January, I wrote some pretty quick best/worst case summaries for each presidential candidate. I’m not sure if they were informative to anyone else, but they were a great mental exercise for me.

I wanted to bookend the presidential campaign with an update version, so last week and wrote a new 1500 word version factoring in all nuance we’ve learned in the past 11 months. However, I went back and tried to edit it just now, and it’s really bad, unworkably bad, 10th grade english paper bad.

I can’t in good conscious ask others to read it, so I’m ditching the idea. In it’s place I’ll try to make my case as to why I’m voting the way I am. The long version will go up sometime on Monday, but here’s the executive summary of the executive summary:

John McCain is old, Sarah Palin is a joke, the Republican party needs an epic beat-down, and Barack Obama is smarter than everybody else.

Get Bent!

Sincerely,

Your Children

cc: China, Dubai, God,
Encl: your legacy of failure.

Economic “Stimulus” : $168 Billion
AIG Takeover : $85 Billion
Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac Takeover : $200 Billion
Financial Industry Bailout: $850 Billion
———————————————–
Total Cost: $1.30 Trillion

Total offsets (discretionary spending offsets, revenue increases) : $0

Yes that’s right, our federal government has charged $1,300,000,000,000 dollars on the national credit card in the last 9 months. That’s by far the biggest expenditure in the budget. In fact, it’s more than the entire yearly payout from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid COMBINED!

There is no plan to pay for it.

To put it in more tangible terms: You’ve just had your taxes raised, your universal health care denied, your troops de-funded, your retirement benefits cut, your infrastructure neglected, and your public education system destroyed. The money is gone and eventually the piper must be paid.

Anyone under the age of 40 who isn’t pissed off isn’t paying enough attention.

She’s a wonderful person and mother. She’s very genuine and charming. She refreshingly walks the Christian walk, rather than merely telling everyone ele how to live their lives. She seems to have good leadership instincts. She is definitely a “real” person as opposed to a ambitious power-hungry career politician.

She also has absolutely no business being the Vice-President of the United States.

…at least not right now. Because when the top of the ticket is a 72-year-old 4-time cancer survivor, the first and near singular task of the vice-president is to be prepared to take over the Presidency should he/she be called on.

Nothing about Sarah Palin remotely suggests she’s ready for that weighty responsibility. She has held two elected offices in her life, and screwed up both of them. She wasted $1.3 million of a small town’s money and abused her governing power enough to incur 2 separate bi-partisan ethics investigations.

I don’t want to the hear “executive experience” argument either. It’s hogwash. Being a small-town mayor isn’t hard. I know, I lived in a small town for 16 years, and our revolving-door mayors always sucked. Miraculously, the town didn’t burn down or go bankrupt. Something that can’t quite be said for the town of Wasilla.

Being a governor is typically nothing to sneeze at. However, being a socially-conservative Republican governor of Alaska is probably the easiest gig in the country. The legislator is overwhelmingly Republican, so no bipartisan compromises are necessary. The state gets way more federal money per-capita than any other state, PLUS it earns enough in oil royalties to hand out $3,200 to each of the 670,000 citizens each year. The state government has essentially no budget problems because it can pump money straight from the ground.

She would be a single lack of a heart-beat away from being the leader of the free world. Yet bizarrely, your humble 25-year-old author, from the middle of nowhere, has more international experience. You probably do too. Let’s have a quick mental exercise: Have you been to more than 3 countries? Yes? Well then, you’re more worldly than Sarah Palin. How sad is that?

No, I’m not kidding. Canada, Mexico, and a brief trip Kuwait last year. That’s it.

Of course all that could be a bunch of pretty circumstantial snippets stated to make her look bad, which is partially why I’m very reluctant to dismiss someone for mere lack of “experience.” The truth is that “experience” is useful to the electorate only insofar as it helps us judge the abilities of our candidates. This isn’t a resume contest, we’re choosing real people for these offices. Real people aren’t wholly encapsulated and defined by a list of the previous jobs.

Skills come from many different places, not simply elected positions. I have no doubt being a working mother of five has made Sarah Palin and superb household administrator and role-model. Unfortunately, she’s not running to be time-manager-in-chief. This is the big leagues and the future of civilization hangs in the balance. This is a serious time and a serious job, and it requires serious people to govern effectively.

Much can, has, will, and should be said about Barack Obama’s thin resume. However, there is no doubt now that he is a serious man. He’s spent the fatter half of 2 years talking, campaigning, proposing, and debating the issues that this country faces. It could even reasonably be said that he has spent his entire post-collegent life studying or serving big ideas.

There is absolutely no evidence that Sarah Palin has had a serious thought about issues of national or international scale in her entire life. For evidence I submit her first (and only) interview concerning foreign policy. God told George W. Bush to invade Iraq as revenge for 9/11. What’s the Bush Doctorine? Georgia should join NATO so we can declare war on Russia!

The thought of putting someone like that next in line for the presidency scares the hell out of me.

She even had the gall to suggest that she knows foreign policy because, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”

That’s so stupid I’m speechless. Except to say this: I can see the moon from my bedroom window, but that doesn’t make me a rocket scientist.

Of course, none of this is to say that she wouldn’t be a good president. I have no idea, and neither do you, and neither does anybody else. We don’t know because she hasn’t given one single pre-screened interview and zero press conferences. She has been a nominee for national office for three full weeks and hasn’t said anything that wasn’t written by somebody else or put on a teleprompter.

I’ll say it again: She could still be a good vice-president. But no one without a personal relationship with her can credibly make that judgment yet, including John McCain. That doesn’t sit well with me at all.

We need to know more, a LOT more.

I’ve waited more than 2 weeks, done my research, and prudently reserved judgment until I could clearly form an opinion. Now the time has come for me to share my careful insight of Sarah Palin…

…but you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow because I’m too lazy to proofread what I wrote tonight. No worries though, I wouldn’t just leave you hanging like that. I’ll give you my gist, wrapped up in a metaphor, and served with a side of deep-fried mockery:

“I can see the moon from my bedroom window, but that doesn’t make me a rocket scientist.”

wait, bad example. Hmmm…I might need some more editing.

Maybe the middle of the Olympics isn’t the best time to mention it, but Alex said it too perfectly to pass up.

America is more than just the land located between certain sets of borders, and it’s more than just the institutions of voting, checks and balances, and all that. At its heart, the United States is a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In other words, the heart of America is its ideals.

True patriotism, in the American sense, has nothing whatsoever with putting a flag on your car’s antenna or saying the Pledge of Allegiance. It has everything to do with being devoted to the idea that all human beings are “endowed with certain inalienable rights.”

As a citizenry, we don’t share a religion, language, ethnicity, or culture. What we do share an idea, an idea way to big to be contained by the bonds of mere nationalism. Anyone demanding a pledge of allegiance or requiring displays of devotion is begging to be lied too. Alex called those that do “Pharisees of Patriotism” I like that, I hope the term catches on.

What does that have to do with the Olympics? Nothing I hope. Certainly you can root for your team and feel good about it. I, for one, will be cheering on the man-beast otherwise known as “Michael Phelps” all week. Also, I want to see Lebron James dunk over Yao Ming, Vince Carter Style. We can all revel together in the shear wonder of the 1000m Canoe race, right?

The next time I hear someone complain about having to choose between “the lesser of two evils” for president this year, I’m gonna punch somebody in the face. Maybe them, maybe myself, maybe an innocent puppy. Either way, I’m walking away with a broken hand.

Humanity in general and politics in specific is necessarily a pragmatic beast. Considering the alternatives, we lucked out. Think for a moment about the filthy disgustingness of a Hillary v. Romney campaign season. How many dozens of rounds of culture war TV ads would we have to sit through. Every last trollop of Clinton 1990’s baggage would come out. And that’s before we got saddled with 4 years of a waffling panderer or the dynamic duo of petty and pestilence.

We could face the option of a President Giuliani shudder Who likely would have become the most ill-tempered, secretive, power-hungry president ever. I don’t exaggerate.

The simple fact is that I would take McCain or Obama of ANY of the “also-rans” from either party. Neither are assholes or pansies. neither are beholden to political parties or special interests or rigid ideologies.

Of course we’ll still have to face insane pandering and ridiculously cynical sniping from both campaign. The the beast we feed. Until the American people stop acting and voting like morons. This is the only king of game in town. Still, give the other options, it could be much, much worse.

“The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.”

From contesting the inevitable candidate to the doorstep

• Jarhead trailer

of the most powerful position on earth in 6 months. I want to see what’s next.

Clinton Compares Herself to ‘Rocky’

“Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up.”

Not to rain on your parade Sen. Clinton, but Rocky loses to Apollo Creed at the end of the movie. But lest we get caught up in the minutia, let think for a moment about the larger metaphor of this film.

Rocky is a young nobody, comes from nothing, everyone thinks he’s a bum. Apollo is the heavy-weight champion of the world and is scheduled to fight a big shot challenger. The challenger backs out and Apollo taps Rocky to take his place, not because of any quality he has, but because Apollo likes his nickname, “The Italian Stallion”

The fact the Rocky gets a shot, an opportunity, ignites his drive and turns him into the dawn jogging, meat punching, jump roping, chicken catching, stair climbing, fist raising, beast of a man we all love. However, it takes more than a ripped body to best the champ, and Rocky is still rattled with doubts. So he walks the streets of Philadelphia on the night before the fight and thinks.

He comes back to Adrian, confesses that he can’t beat Apollo, and delivers one of the most honest and real lines ever:

“Ah come on, Adrian, it’s true. I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.”

So for 15 rounds, Rocky and Apollo wail on each other. In the end, Apollo wins by decision. The fact that Rocky loses that fight doesn’t invalidate the experience, in fact in enhances it. The movie was NEVER about winning, it’s about self-respect and the things we human beings do to find it.

Whatever Sen. Clinton is fighting for now, it isn’t self-respect.

If we were looking for a more apt analogy, Rocky II would be a good place to start. But Sen. Clinton wouldn’t be Rocky she’d be Apollo. The aging champ with a superiority complex against the character-driven young upstart with loads of potential. It’s another vicious fight, but the champ is a step too slow and weak and gets knocked out in the final round.

Nobody quit in that movie either, but I don’t think Sen. Clinton would like the way it ends.

Dear fellow Obamanauts (I’m looking at you will.i.am),

What did I just say?

Apparently it didn’t get through. I’m not down with repeatedly chanting the name of our dear leader while celebrities brag about how much they love their kids. Can’t we just be happy that our guy isn’t a narcisstic, secretive, obsession-prone, fear-monger?

Love,

Kyle

P.S. I do actually realize how arrogant I’m being. It’s not enough that my guy wins; everyone has to support him for my reasons and in a way I don’t deem stupid. At least I’ll readily admit my elitist feelings. It’s an honesty that’s been missing from the Democratic party for a while. Don’t say I never brought you anything.