The Democrats' Gambit

The Indiana and North Carolina primaries are much worse for Hillary Clinton than their prima facie significance. First, Sen. Clinton was only able to eek out a small margin of victory in Indiana despite demographics similar to Ohio and Pennsylvania and despite Obama still fighting off the lingering Jeremiah Wright controversy. Those who say that Obama might benefit from some neighborly celebrity haven't noticed Chicago television news cameras and helicopters holding vigil near the embattled pastor.

Second, let's be honest, Sen. Obama beat the spread in North Carolina, scoring a double-digit thumping with broad support across the state, including overwhelming African-American support.

Clinton, and more importantly the Democratic superdelegates, have a major strategic decision to make: How do we manage Hillary Clinton's departure from the nomination process? Whatever the final plan, here are a few key components for consideration.

1. Hillary is not going tot be the nominee. She and her supporters must come to believe that because it is the truth under current democratic party rules. 

2. Hillary is out of money and accumulating a sizable debt. She must continue the charade of campaigning to maintain the illusion that she is still accepting money for a future presidential bid. The fact is she is trying to payoff her loans to her own campaign.

3. After numerous promises to see the nomination process through, for her to resign from the contest at this point might prolong the acrimony between supporters of each of the democratic candidates. Democrats must quickly begin the process of reconciliation and doing anything to add fuel to the fire of the feeling that the nomination was not fairly earned.

4. Sen. Clinton, given the extent to which she has gone to attack, undermine, and cast doubt upon Sen. Obama, must go just as far to restore faith to the nominative process or she sacrifice all belief in the minds of others that Clintons' are only a member of any political party to the extent that it advances their ambition.

So here is the gambit: Democratic superdelegates are betting that they can sacrifice time against Sen. McCain to allow Hillary pay off some debts and hopefully make nice with the democratic base without losing substantial ground to the Republican nominee. This may be a riskier gamble than may appear at first blanch given the relative inexperience of the junior Illinois senator, as his recent gaffes may indicate. 

The Rev. Wright Issue

Many have denounced Jeremiah Wright's comments as un-American, un-Christian, inappropriate for any sermon, racist, among many other criticisms. He did little to dissuade his detractors from declaring themselves justified and vindicated through his April 28th appearance at the National Press Club. The wake of the appearance brought the expectedly bland responses.

George Will summarized the Wright controversy as a nearly limitless source of political capital for McCain, which with every unfolding of the controversy seems unavoidably true. Additionally, he provides a mind-numbing analysis of Wright's rhetorical logic that tortures his Press Club words into denying that American government is representative.

Eugene Robinson takes on Wright's central claim that the controversy centers on "the black church" and not Wright himself. He concludes that Wright is wrong, that the controversy is about Wright, that he threw Obama under the now proverbial bus, and that Obama should return Wright's favor.

But there is an inconvenient truth out there: Wright has a point, in fact several. Let me lay out just a couple.

1) Wright criticizes the media for exhibiting a near-willful misunderstanding of his comments, fundamentally failing to provide requisite context, and failing to provide relevant, accurate facts. He is, to some extent, correct. His comments where he purportedly invoked God to damn America came in the midst of a sermon on the infallibility of God and the the fallibility of government. The sermon crescendoed when he claimed that God could damn America if it saw itself as God-like in its power. This is a fundamental Judeo-Christian belief that finds its roots in numerous biblical parables. One could argue that it is the dominant theme of the Old Testament (if not the entire bible).

2) Wright claims that the controversy revolves not around Wright but "the black church." First, E. Robinson is correct when he claims that Wright does not represent the entirety of the black church. But I don't think that is what Wright meant. In my view, when Wright says that the controversy is about the black church, he means that the black church (whatever that term means in any given usage) must be brought into the conversation when discussing the import of Christianity to the American social, political, and religious landscape.

One could offer further defenses of some of the now-celebrity comments. That being said, there are certainly many comments that are without evidence or merit, such as the accusation that the US government invented HIV/AIDS to exterminate African-Americans.

But what is more remarkable than Wright's comments is how unwilling many are to understand his positions, even listen to the entirety of his sermons. For example, in the context of the fallibility of governements, Rev. Wright argued that the government allowed the drug trade to continue to the US as a means for the Contras to supplement their income and help shoulder the cost of US provided arms. That is at least in the ballpark. In fact, the history of US involvement in South America should prompt us all to take a second look.

This controversy opens yet another opportunity to talk to each other, to understand each other, and substantively agree or disagree. Unfortunately, the current flash in the pan highlights our unwillingness to seek substance in debate.

VA Pays for Waterboarding

According to the Navy Times, Veterans Affairs decided to pay for medical treatment of a veteran who underwent waterboarding as a part of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. The vet will receive counseling for PTSD and medication.

When will people have the courage to denounce the use of torture? Advocates of its use have but one dubious utilitarian argument for its justification: the information that it could potentially produce will potentially save more lives than the ones it will ruin. In its most callous formulation the previous argument substitutes a single American life for "saved lives." After all, if one has committed to torture, then one has committed to the abject devaluation of at least one life to glean information that only might be true, may not be valuable, and may save none. In other words, what makes torture such a horrible transaction is that the price of admission to the event must be paid with no knowledge of the contents of the mind of the person the torturer has committed to breaking. The economics of torture sets the cost to be the minds of men on the basis of a hunch, a guess, a grotesque hope that something valuable will be learned to retroactively justify that rueful price.

Too Long a Hiatus

For those of you who don't know, I have a new baby. Unfortunately, she seems alien to a natural talent for sleeping, so we have been trying to cultivate skills where those talents may have resided.

Stop back periodically to check for updates.

Hope to write to everyone soon.

Obama and McCain: Fellowship of the Race

After a win in SC that is as stunning in its margin as it is revelatory of the voting public's thinking (very bad news for Hillary), Obama moves on to Super Tuesday states. McCain is running hard in Florida to achieve a lead and some momentum going into Feb. 5th.

But their fates are linked in so many ways. As one goes, so does the other.

If McCain wins FL, then he quickly becomes the ostensible front runner of the GOP. Democrats are increasingly concerned with electability and believe that McCain would capitalize on national dislike of Hillary Clinton and his appeal among independent and moderate Democratic voters to beat Clinton. So, if McCain wins FL, look to better than expected results for Obama, especially among the superdelegates who see the writing on the wall.

From the opposite perspective, if Obama wins the nomination, Republicans know that his appeal among independents and moderates would probably overwhelm Romney. McCain does well against Obama in a general election and may reap the benefits in FL of Republican realism. So, McCain may actually get a bump going into the FL primary.

The double-effect of excitement over a win in SC and the realism that Obama is the competitive Democrat against McCain serves Obama very well going into Super Tuesday. But McCain must win for it to happen.

Once again, FL has the potential to significantly impact a presidential election.