The Party of Lincoln

Once there was a time when there was a Republican Party that called itself "The Party of Lincoln." They sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at national conventions. Now, no more Lincoln.

Lincoln and his genius are the great enigma's of history. As Gary Wills as written, he literally redefined America at Gettysburg, re-establishing the egalitarian and populist ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the defining document of our the Republic. In one alternative history book, the Union loses Gettysburg, the South wins the war and Lincoln re-emerges as the founder of the American Socialist Party.

But even though he made his mark as a lawyer for the railroads, Lincoln was a populist. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he argued for the rights of the individual over the rights of property. And, he advocated the right of people to revolt, if government ever trampled on their liberties.

Unlike Lincoln, Obama won his Senatorial campaign in Illinois. His is also a studied intelligence. He has been gifted with an education at the finest educational institutions in America, among the very best in the world. He was a fatherless child, Lincoln a motherless one who, according to legend, whittled the feet for his mother’s casket.

The contrast between McCain and Obama personally, could not be greater.

On can not presume to call Obama a new Lincoln, Roosevelt or Kennedy. But more than any Presidential candidate since Kennedy, he embodies the very best of what we have to offer ourselves, and the world.

He is a risk, a risk of enormous disappointment if he fails. But, he has the intellect and the savvy that could lead us out of our current multiple crises.

The issue in this campaign will be whether America has the courage to follow the candidate of the real “Party of Lincoln.”

Obama and Patriotism

Once I heard someone say that the truly great democratic leader is one who dreams a great dream for us. As one whose first presidential vote was for Jack Kennedy, and whose last presidential vote maybe for Barack Obama, I have been gratified, at times stunned, by Obama’s eloquence. Is he a perfect vessel for social justice? Was Lincoln?

One of the incidents involving Lincoln's nomination in 1860 was his message to his supporters at the Republican convention that they not trade promises for convention votes and that he would not be bound by their promises. They ignored his message. After he was nominated and elected, he somehow kept every deal they had made. He was a lawyer for the railroads who was an authentic populist, who mocked those who believed the property rights were equal to human rights.

As Obama does a gandy dance* around some of the difficult issues that have been used by the right to push back the clock, not beyond the two Roosevelts, but beyond Lincoln, we might just cut him some slack. A littler obfuscation on gun control, for example, may be painful to some of us, but it might be appropriate, although the NRA, apparently, hasn't been fooled. A little distancing from Wes Clark’s blunt, but accurate, assessment of John McCain's service career, isn't the same as drinking cool aid.

Ironically, during the 1960 campaign, my eldest brother, an Air Force officer, complained about Kennedy's war record. "The only thing he did is get his PT Boat run over by a Jap destroyer." **

This is not the first time in this campaign that Obama has shown amazing insight and grace with his analysis of a complex problem. His first speech on race, when he tried to explain Rev. Wright's anger is, and will be, a classic. Rev. Wright repaid him by a self-absorbed display of petulance that nearly destroyed Obama's campaign.

I expect that some of the response to Obama’s message on patriotism will reflect the same destructive anger that marks Rev. Wright and so much of the Vietnam protest. Those protestors who burned the American flag may have actually prolonged the war and insured the birth of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush era.

Obama chooses not to burn the flag, but to wave it. God bless America, the beautiful.

*Gandy dancer refers to the footwork of railroad workers placing and resetting ties on the rail road.

** See http:/www.johnklotz.com/billy.htm for more about my family and WWII.

Is Obama channeling JFK?

A dream died on November 22, 1963.

To many Americans, who are old enough to remember, John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas was the principal reason for a long American nightmare of which Bush II is simply the culmination. Ted Sorenson, the other night, stated that the 1961 Inaugural address was only Kennedy's second best speech. The best was, in Sorenson's opinion (and mine, his June 1963 American University speech at which he chartered a course to end the cold war. That he had plans to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 election is a matter of public record now. All that ended in Dallas.

I have always felt that second biggest casualty at Dallas was Khrushchev. The Cuban Missile crisis had scared them both and Khrushchev had staked his won career on his new relationship to JFK. His leadership survived for several months but eventually was ousted.

Maybe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut gunman. To some, his cloudy intelligence background and the incredible convenience of JFK's death to those who were looking to profit from the Vietnam War is more than a convenience.

If anybody is interested, I wrote an op-ed piece on the media and the environment using Kennedy's speech American University as a starting point. http://www.johnklotz.com/new-jfk.htm

I wrote an op-ed piece for Newsday (which made the WP wire) in November 1993 which discussed the media and the assassination. http://www.johnklotz.com/new-jfk.htm

In any event, you can graph the dissolution of the Americans trust in government has beginning it sharp climb to the time when the public discovered that LBJ’s peace campaign of 1964 was a con job.

I don't know if Obama has Kennedy’s Irish political smarts and I don’t think he has quite obtained JFK's eloquence [maybe he needs a Sorenson], but he's getting there. And beyond political smarts, he has the intellectual capacity to be a truly great President. He will bear the heavy burden of enhanced expectations.

But, after a years of pessimism about the future, and years of second rate intellects occupying the White House, I am suddenly optimistic about the future. I have seen the future and it's Barack.

johnklotz.blogspot.com

Why I am still a Catholic

The Washington Post today (Friday March 14, 2008) reported that Catholic educators in the United States were concerned about a forthcoming visit from Pope Benedict who has expressed disdain for non-Catholic influences at Catholic colleges. File this one under “Will they [the Popes] ever learn.” But that raises a question: Why do I still call myself Catholic?

The most amazing thing about the Church has been its ability to survive the power madness of so many of the Popes. Christ washed his disciples feet, this Pope seeks to wash their brains. Others have washed (laundered) money. Like most of my generation, I recall the explosion of true faith in Christ that occurred during the papacy of John the 23rd, but its been a long time gone.

The Vatican never learns. It was the attitude espoused by Benedict that suppressed Copernicus and Galileo and thus delayed the progress of human knowledge. Yet, somehow the Church survives the Vatican and truly remarkable Catholic men and women contribute to human knowledge.

The “Big Bang” theory was first espoused by a Catholic priest who was mocked by the scientific establishment until he was proven right. Teilhard de Chardin pioneered concepts that sought to merge faith and evolution (not in the "intelligent design" sense). Unfortunately, because he was under Vatican prohibition, his most important works weren’t published until after his death, Teilhard and “we” were denied the benefit that vetting and debate, over his ideas, would have created.

The Catholic faith is really quite simple and the reason why I am still a Catholic (although how Roman I am may be subject to some debate) is that the key issue of the Reformation was the Protestant advancement of “Faith” rather than Love.

Jesus taught it, St. Paul and St. John wrote it, and St. Francis lived it. There is only one measure and way, Love. As long as the Church bureaucrats flee that message and seek first not the Kingdom of God but the enhancement of their power, the Church Magister will become increasingly irrelevant to those pursuing the faith of Love. In the information era, for the Pope to seek control of the flow of information at any level, is not only bound for failure, it is ludicrous.

Yet, for all its folly, and at times corruption, the most direct way, back through the milennia, to Christ’s message of love is the Church. It’s just a bigger Church than the Vatican wishes to admit. It’s all those who love.

Obama's rendezvous with history

[The following post is derived from a comment posted on Salon.com that was designated as an "Editor's Choice]"

This has been the most pre-convention fun since 1960 and I think the result will be as good. I hope everybody relaxes and enjoys the ride.

If Obama should lose, I will have no trouble voting for Hillary, although with a slightly heavy heart. But after the results today, I don't think that is a likely possibility.

In the lead-up to this week-end (February 9-10), Maine was pictured as a toss-up and HRC's best chance for a victory. In the end, Obama did about as well as any place else this weekend. On Tuesday (February 12), barring a major misalignment of the stars, he will in fact win all three primaries in which he is favored by as much as he was favored anyplace this weekend. By the tine we get to March 4 and the two big enchiladas he will have had a virtual month of crushing victories.

I believe he and his campaign have demonstrated the talent and have the money to roll through those two and the best HRC will get is an inconclusive stand-off, a virtual draw.

The recent shake-up of the Hillary campaign is a reflection of all the things the Obama campaign has done right. No campaign is a one man band but this campaign reflects the genius and talent of a truly remarkable human being who has been its candidate and leader (or "decider" as Shrub might say). Maine clinched the deal for me.

I hope at some point, HRC understands that she is facing someone who could become very special in the history of our country. She is Douglas to his Lincoln, Adams to his Jefferson, Al Smith to his Roosevelt.

Hillary is a brilliant woman and would make an able President. But Obama is gifted beyond extraordinary. The long dark night of the American soul may really be over this time. I only hope that HRC and company, get the point soon enough. As John Edwards said: there comes a time when you have to get out of the way of History.

The most likely scenario I see is the simplest: that Obama is breaking free and running into clear field. If he enters March with nothing but victories in February after Super Tuesday, then it will be over, one way or another. I think Donna Brazile’s strong statements this weekend about the role of Super Delegates will carry the day. She is no dewy-eyed reformer but a Party insider (IMVHO). The wind is blowing and you don’t have to be a weatherman etc.

Obviously his campaign will have to perform extraordinarily well in Texas and Ohio, but based upon its performance thus far, it will.

Clinton, Obama, Jesse Jackson and the Jewish vote in Florida

There's a reason why Ted Kennedy got angry about Clinton's brandishing of a Jesse Jackson comparison to Obama: it was an attempt to tarnish Obama in the Jewish community. That may sound harsh but all last week, former Clinton adviser and somewhat psycho anti-Hillary pit bull Dick Morris was praising Clinton's genius in his use of the Jackson thing and that by paining Obama black in SC, the Clintons was guaranteeing victory everywhere else on Super Tuesday. The Clintons were doing this for "fun." (Hillary's description of negative campaigning). There is a dark side to the Jesse Jackson analogy and that was the extent to which Jesse Jackson became anathema to the Jewish community because of perceived anti-Semitism, aggravated by his infamous description of New York as "Hymie Town."

Would you really doubt that B. Clinton, the great triangulator, was unaware of this. And, by the way, do you doubt that Teddy Kennedy, whose been around for a few years in politics, isn’t aware of the unfortunate connotation attached to Jackson's name by some older Jews - particularly I can assume - the ones retired in Florida by the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.

Having spent the last 38 years of life in the Bronx and seeing the "Scoop" Jackson" 1976 Democratic primary vote in Coop City, I can assure that the Jesse Jackson as enemy mentality was prevalent at the time. Coop City is largely Black and Latino now. The Jews who lived there have either died or moved – to Florida.

Given the enormous micro-polling that goes on in the Clinton campaign orchestrated by Mark Penn, I'll betcha a poll of Florida Democrats revealed (would have revealed) that among the Jewish emigres, Jesse Jackson had strong negatives. Ergo, link Obama to Jackson repeatedly and often. If you have ever taken, or answered a poll, you know how its done. A list of names is read and for each name you are asked: “If XX is endorsed by YY, would it make you more or less likely to vote for him?” Or simply: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of YY.” In this case “YY” would be Jesse Jackson.

I had a dental appointment this morning. My Dentist is second or third generation Jewish and market-tested this theory on him and he agreed immediately that by linking Obama to Jackson, Clinton was playing to the Jewish vote, including his.

The fact that Bill Clinton and Hillary can express amazement that anyone could believe that it was deliberate ploy is testament to their acting ability and their low estimation of the intelligence of the American voters. They should win an Oscar, not the Presidency. I only hope that Jewish voters don't fall for it.

Of course, Obama has another Jewish issue going for him: The more he talks about his mother and father and his love and respect for them and his roots, although different from typical Jewish roots, he plays to the strong sense of family that underlies Jewish culture. That’s targeting with a heart. "He's such a nice boy."

It's all about him

There was a time when Americans valued "class" with a small "c." I'm not talking about economic "class" or social "class" but a genuine understanding that it's not all about me and the ability to congratulate a successful opponent with grace and dignity, understanding that there is a tomorrow and that in politics (and sports) today's adversary may be tomorrow’s ally or teammate. Among the classless moments of my memory are Nixon's "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more" and Roger Maris's comment after the Yankees lost to Pittsburg in the 1960 World Series: "Everyone knows we were best team. It's too bad we didn't win."

Right up there is Bill Clinton's Fred Thomasesque speech in Missouri Saturday night. It was all about Bill and not much about Hillary. The anchors at CNN and MSNBC didn't make that up. It was there on the screen.

There's empathy and there is pseudo-empathy. There is the empathy of one who truly feels your pain and the pseudo-empathy of a narcissist who adopts empathy as a mask for his or her self involvement. In Missouri, after Hillary's lost, Bill Clinton by talking about himself and his administration definitively defined himself. It was all about him. His empathy has all the sincerity of Mitt Romney's smile.

Maybe it's time that the Clintonistas started reviewing the great accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Was he better on the environment than Bush - by a million millions. Was he better on the economy: Clinton rode the Wall Street wave and left office just before the deluge. We also lost the Congress in 1992 and didn’t win it back until 14 years later in 2006.

NAFTA was his, remember? Not to denigrate his entire administration. To me, the most pressing issue for electing almost any Democrat will be, and remains, the reactionary packing of the Supreme Court. We lose this one and the Court may be gone for a generation.

In 2000 I played a minor role in helping Hillary get her the Sierra Club endorsement. I have no regrets. I wish her a long, long productive career in the United States Senate. I hope she will have one.