Burnt Orange Report

I read this over the weekend and was very impressed with Sen. Obama's grasp of the situation. It is becoming more apparent, everytime he speaks, that he has become the voice of the Democratic party's future.

It is an essay written by a gentlemen who has yet to understand that the rabid right eats his kind for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

One can only hope that Obama, as well as Salazar from Colorado, will sometime soon come to their senses.

Since you cite DKos, read today's entry regarding Bush's problem with the nuts. Pay particular attention to Buchanan's observations re the court and Christians.

Then consider Roberts' attack questions, hardly the stuff of a "brilliant" judge willing to enagage in intellectual inquiry (read patriarchal sermonizing) in yesterday's right-to-die case. And yes, we were warned. Then read Obama one more time.

When I want inspiration, I'll go back to the editorials in "The Daily Texan" way back when the young people took on the rascals who ruled the university.

Better yet, I'lll recall poet Charles Simic's marvelous statement to the Irish Times: "There are moments in life when true invective is called for, when it becomes an absooute necessity, out of a deep sense of justice, to denounce, mock, vituperate, lash out, in the strongest possible language."

In my seventy-first year of life, I have little patience of politicians like Obama and Salazar, who don't seem to appreciate that the country cries out for rescue, and who, at a time when the media have collectively disgraced the First Amendment, waste their talents at playing tiddly-winks, but honorably, for they are, above all, gentlemen.

Jesus,

This country will not change course if we duplicate the ultra-conservative strategy of going for 50%-of-the-electorate plus 1.

We need to build a consensus. That will involve a tolerance for compromise.

Obama knows that. I'm encouraged by his words and his leadership.

Personally I think Obama is correct, and this is exactly why Hillary will not make it back to the White House. While a majority of citizens can rally around true social justice, they will not rally around socialistic injustice. And they will not in large numbers support a party that puts forward its outermost fringe on either side of the aisle. If Democrats desire to win control of Washington, they must muzzle the leftmost fringe just as the Republicans must muzzle those furthest to the right. If the pot smoking, anti-war, tree-hugging, non-fur-wearing, transgender, anti-gun crowd leads the charge up the hill, we probably won't have many people following them because the majority of folks in the country don't identify with them.

Let's also remember that if we ignore these types of warnings we'll soon be left with a party that isn't worth fighting for and a country devoid of hope. The far right and the far left have very few good ideas between the two of them--I'd say it probably adds up to a grand total of ZERO. The men and women who founded this country and sheparded it through its most crucial moments (the Civil War, the Two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement) were not extremists. They were dedicated to a cause that transcends petty differences like ideology or even party--they were committed to the Civic Religion (which is an idea I've been obsessed with lately and it is almost providential that he uses it here!) that stems from our creation myth (the nobility of our republican--small "r"--revolution), our values, our founding documents and our rituals of republicanism. We must return to this foundation and abandon the technocratic snobbery of European/academic leftism for the heart and soul of American liberalism if we are to make this party into the great movement it can become and if we are to rebuild this country in a way that extends the American Era into the next century.

I thought he looked like a president at the convention, this sealed the deal. This man should be our Commander in Chief. I can't think of a finer, smarter, more visionary and inspiring leader in American politics today. Not even Kinky Friedman.

(you didn't think I'd post without even ONE snide comment, huh?)