The Rev. Warren Fiasco

For eight years, the United States has been ruled on ideological grounds by a President who promised to be "a uniter, not a divider". Instead of being a uniter, he consistently put ideologues in positions of power and actively sidelined anyone with divergent views. President Bush was not the President of the United States of America—he was the President of NeoConservative Americans and left the rest of us without any leadership at all.

President-elect Obama has chosen a man with views I cannot stand to perform the invocation at his inauguration. Many on the left are outraged at this selection. I think it's a great selection. President Obama is showing that he will be a Democratic President of America, not a President of Democratic Americans.

This inauguration does not belong to Obama or those who voted for Obama. It belongs to every single American, from progressives like myself to fundamentalist evangelicals like Rev. Warren. Everyone has a place at this inauguration.

Liberals who are outraged at the selection are no better than George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Hillary Clinton's Speech

Hillary Clinton delivered a near-perfect speech last night. 

Then the pundits jumped in.

I switched between CNN and Fox last night and, had I not been paying attention, I would have thought they were analyzing two different speeches. Fox News was talking about all the things Clinton did not say; CNN was talking about all the things she did say. The result: Fox News "analysts" universally determined that the speech was good for her, but bad for Obama. CNN, on the other hand, said she did exactly what she needed to do.

Who was right? Well, Fox News was loaded with right wing blowhards like Bill "Always Wrong" Krystal. CNN was loaded with a bunch of old party Democratic Hillary Clinton ass-kissers like James "Jackass" Carville. Obviously different perspectives were in play.

 The Fox pundits were panning the speech because it did not contain language stating that Clinton believed Obama had the experience to be commander-in-chief. The CNN pundits liked the speech because it drove home the point that, if you really believe in the causes Hillary Clinton represents, then you must support Barak Obama because he will bear that torch for you.

When analyzing the success or failure of a speech, you need to know who the audience for the speech is. The right wingers mistakenly believed they were the audience for her speech. The audience for that speech was people who backed Hillary Clinton during the primary and were considering voting for McCain or not voting at all because Clinton lost a primary in which they feel (rightfully) that the media engaged in overtly sexist behavior and (wrongly) that the process was unfair to Hillary.

In the context of her target audience, her speech was magnificent. She believes the same things they believe about the media and the process. Right or wrong, nothing anyone is going to do will fix those issues. But she can remind them of why they wanted her to be President in the first place. And the truth is, if you care about 

• a woman's right to control her own body...
  
• the ability for everyone to have access to basic healthcare...
• the need for America to engage in diplomacy before war...
• the need for America to become a nation to be admired, not feared...

Then you cannot allow John McCain to be elected President, as he stands for the opposite of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama on all these things. And she made that very clear in her speech tonight.

There will be plenty of time for Hillary to point out what a good Command in Chief Obama will make to the wider public during the campaign.

The Alternatives to Diplomacy

Barak Obama suggests we should engage our enemies in diplomacy; John McCain suggests that to engage our enemies in diplomacy is only to embolden them.

But what is our real objective?

The real objectively, ostensibly, is a peace that supports American interests and carries moral authority.

It turns out that there are two paths to peace: diplomacy and genocide. Perhaps, along the way to genocide, you will bomb your enemy into complete submission allowing for diplomacy entirely on your terms. But when was the last time the USA was engaged in a war in which that happened? World War II? What would it look like for us to bomb Iraq into submission?

But the real issue here is what is going to happen with Iran. And Hezbollah. And Hamas.

Iran is a corrupt government run by bad people. However, most Americans don't realize that Iran has the moral high ground (as low as it is) in its confrontation with the USA. The USA helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected government and installed a pro-Western dictator much worse than many of the dictators we refuse to speak with today. Iran engaged in illegal acts against the USA (the hostage crisis, funding terrorists), but for good reason: Iran has no reason to trust the USA and has every reason the USA has illegitimate intentions towards it.

The Iranian people are also one of the most pro-American cultures in the middle-east. It is the closest thing to a functioning democracy in the Middle East outside of Israel and the people tend to think more positively of the USA than any other nation.

So why won't we talk to the Iranians? Because we don't like the megalomaniac Ahmadenijad?

He's a pretty scary individual. He denies the Holocaust. He would pursue a campaign of genocide against Israel if he had the power. In short, there just is nothing good about him.

But that's not relevant. He is, in fact, the "legitimately elected" leader of Iran. And even if you don't like Iran's style of "legitimately elected", he is the leader of Iran.

So, we have three choices:

1. Ignore him and hope he does not develop nuclear weapons while we cover our eyes and ears and say "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU"...
2. Launch a pre-emptive war against Iran and hope we can bomb them into submission.
3. Engage Iran in diplomacy and follow Ronald Reagan's sage advice: Trust, but verify.

It's hard to tell which approach McCain really supports. It is either #1 or #2. #1 is the naive approach. It suggests that if we don't talk to our enemies, they cannot grow stronger. On the contrary, we have seen Iran and North Korea grow stronger and stronger when we ignore them. And #2 is, of course, war not peace.

There simply is no alternative to diplomacy.