Barack HUSSEIN Obama

Some Republicans allow themselves to see some insidious meaning in Barack Obama's middle name - Hussein. It's used as a kind of code at rallies, as we saw recently in Florida when Sheriff Mike Scott introduced Sarah Palin at a rally. The idea is that Obama's true loyalties reside within his middle name. It's clearly a bad idea, in this time of national danger, to allow a man with this middle name to lead the war on terror. The Moose Goose Gazette thinks having Obama in charge during the war on terror would be as bad as having a guy with a Native American middle name be commanding general during the Indian Wars of the late nineteenth century (William TECUMSEH Sherman). Or as bad as having a man with a German last name lead the armies against Hitler (Dwight David EISENHOWER). Or to have a man with an Arabic last name lead the fight against Al Qaeida in Afghanistan and Iraq (John ABIZAID). A curious person may wonder why, of these and other examples, only Barack Obama is being portrayed in a suspicious light.
The point is this: conservatives have plenty of policy differences with Barack Obama to justify not voting for him. Demonizing him on top of these legitimate issues only promotes divisiveness, stunts honest debate, and is ultimately harmful to our country.

Beating The Spread

Just a thought prior to the VP debate on Thursday.

Sarah Palin will almost certainly perform higher than expectations. That's partly because her recent television exposure has set the bar so low, partly because the structure of the debate will help her to focus, and partly because her preparation will pay off. If she does better than expected she could win this debate, even if Senator Biden shows himself as the more competent of the two.

Presidential debates are unlike most other contests in this sense. Take an example from college football where a team that is supposed to lose by 40 points loses by only 20 points. They did better than expected, but clearly they are still the lesser team. They didn't win the game, they only beat the spread. I just hope that voters use the same criteria for the debate that they do in football. Governor Palin should not be declared the winner simply by beating the spread.

Sarah Palin Sentence Generator

I'm a professor who teaches computer science courses at the college level. When I teach my students about artificial intelligence (AI), I show them examples of computer programs that are able to create English sentences. The simplest, least intelligent programs randomly select pre-programmed phrases and string them together to make sentences. The resulting sentences don't have to make sense and usually don't. Here's an example. This is exactly what I see with Sarah Palin. Her handlers have filled her with little 5- and 6-word catch phrases and she tries to make sentences with them. You can see her searching for them as she pauses, selecting one almost randomly. The resulting sentences don't have to make sense and usually don't. Using this AI related measure, she is demonstrating the lowest level of intelligence.

Now, I don't literally mean that is her functional level of intelligence. Clearly she is more than that. Her progression from PTA member, to mayor, to governor implies that she can operate in the public view successfully. However, during her interviews on the national stage, she has so far shown only that lowest level of capability - the ability to mimic intelligence. It is most likely due to having to learn too much too soon in terms of volume of information on the issues and how to manuever on the national stage. It is a palpable demonstration that she simply isn't ready to lead this nation and by definition that means she is not ready to be in the VP slot.

Tea Leaves Redux

So another possible reason that the media is so thoroughly fact-checking the McCain-Palin claims is that they're mad at the campaign. As we all know, Governor Palin has been kept virtually isolated from the media since her selection as Senator McCain's running mate. It appears the media has finally had enough of this and showed their displeasure at the UN today. The campaign managers were restricting access to the photo-op events and CNN threatened to boycott the event, taking away the only television coverage.

So, should the media be upset? I think so, and I think we all should be upset. America at large was introduced to Governor Palin with only 60 days to decide on her capabilities and qualities. We've known Senator McCain and Senator Biden for years. We've seen Senator Obama being grilled by his opponents for eighteen months straight. But we have no way to gauge Governor Palin. She may be great. She may be incredibly gifted. But, We The People have the right to decide that for ourselves by watching her in the public spotlight. If she were truly competent, one would think she would be making appearance after appearance. The McCain-Palin campaign would be shoving her ability down our throats. The argument that the media might be unfair to her is not valid - a real (self-professed) bulldog would tear apart any interviewer who stepped out of line. Since they are choosing to hide her and protect her at every turn, it is hard to conclude that she is the competent woman they wish us to see. It is even harder to conclude that she should get our votes in any substantial way.

Tea Leaves?

Probably every one of us knows what it's like to watch an interview of our favorite political villain and ask "How can you not ask about ?" Sometimes it can get pretty bad and your spouse has to remind you that the people on TV can't really hear you. And so you ask your spouse "But... how could they not ask about it?" This phenomena happens most often during election season when the politicians are taking their usual liberties with reality and the news people look the other way.
Something new has been happening lately during this election cycle. I noticed it shortly after Senator McCain picked Governor Palin as his running mate. The major media markets have been calling his and her bluffs. Not just the markets you would expect, either. Normally bland news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC are fact-checking the McCain-Palin claims.
I think it started with Governor Palin. Her "No thanks" claim for the Bridge to Nowhere has been challenged repeatedly and pretty well run to ground. Her trooper-gate claims are being challenged by ABC. And when Charles Gibson was hand-picked to give the first interview to Governor Palin, he did not give her the softball interview and "deference" the McCain campaign demanded. Now the NY Times is reminding us that while the McCain-Palin campaign has criticized Barack Obama for receiving donations from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, McCain's own campaign manager earned $2 million as president of an advocacy group set up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations. We've seen the Today Show question why John McCain rails against CEO's who are given golden parachutes while their employees are being laid off while one of his top advisors, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, received a $45 million golden parachute bailout while 20,000 Hewlett-Packard employees were laid off. And the low road approach of the McCain-Palin campaign has been criticized by numerous newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and even Karl Rove on FOX (though to be fair, Karl Rove also said that the Obama campaign has gone too far).
I take this as a sign that the media outlets are betting on an Obama win. There are some out there who believe that the liberal media are simply trying to ensure that Obama wins, but that doesn't take into account past behavior of letting similar claims slide. Nor does it take into account that major media outlets want to be on good terms with the victor, no matter who it is. That's just good business. There was a real change in the pre-Palin and post-Palin actions of the press. I suspect that the major media players were underwhelmed with the choice and believe that the Obama campaign can overcome her positive aspects to win.

Defending the Constitution

I was thinking about the ongoing discussions as to whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be the President of the US should the need arise and re-read the Presidential Oath of Office as a reminder of what the job entails. The Oath reads as follows:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Judging by what I see and hear, the vast majority of people interpret the "protect and defend" clause in its most obvious sense, whereby we are threatened by a foreign military power. Clearly, this is a highly unlikely scenario. We are still the only remaining superpower. Our military budget equals the rest of the world's nations military budgets combined.
Loss of Constitutional power through other actions, however, is always a possibility. Internal power grabs or slow erosion may occur. Preserving the Constitution in this sense requires a deep knowledge of the Constitution itself, as well as a familiarity with Constitutional interpretation and the historical court cases developing that interpretation. In this sense, Barack Obama certainly has the most credentials. He has a JD from Harvard and taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years. Next would be Joe Biden, who earned a JD at the Syracuse University College of Law and has a long career in the Senate. Senator Biden currently chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Next is John McCain. His academic career at the Naval Academy was not directly related to law, but his long service in the House and Senate has clearly given him direct experience with the checks, balances, powers, and limitations laid out in the Constitution. Sarah Palin has none of this. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications-Journalism, two terms as the mayor of Wasilla, and is in her first term as the governor of Alaska. There is nothing in her resume indicating a sense of Constitutional Law, or issues that may arise. This unfamiliarity leaves her vulnerable to attack, and by extension, We The People are vulnerable if she is in office.
Sarah Palin has some good qualities. She's confident, articulate, intelligent, and aggressive. But, she doesn't have the training or experience to work within a Constitutional framework. Will she be able to protect Executive powers from a greedy Congress? Will she push back if her advisors attempt to push her further toward the Unitary Executive that George Bush's administration envisioned? I doubt she could gain that kind of insight in such a short time. Regardless of our political leanings, we should be able to agree that putting a Constitutional amateur in the White House is not the most likely way to ensure that the President can fulfill the Oath of Office.

Reform Who?

The Republican campaigners have chosen to focus a lot of attention on reform. By definition, reform refers to dismantling a long-standing political system or process. So who are they reforming? George Bush has been President for the past eight years. Republicans have been in the Oval Office for twenty of the past twenty-eight years. Republicans held both the House and Senate for twelve years prior to the Democratic party gaining a slight majority in 2006. The long-standing power structures are Republican. John McCain himself has been in the Senate for the past twenty years and was implicated in the Keating 5 scandal in the 1980s.

Sarah Palin herself is already under investigation for abuse of power of the Governor's office, has ties to Senator Stevens, the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere", and the Alaskan Independence Party. These issues may be resolved in her favor, but it's hardly the environment in which to run a reform ticket.

Political campaigns thrive on powerful, emotional words. You will hear both parties using them to motivate voters to get out to the polls, preferably without stopping to think. In both cases, though, it is our responsibility to stop. Think. This choice of themes seems misguided. If enough people stop to think and ask "Who are we reforming?" it could be bad for the McCain-Palin ticket.