Bless us and bless our new president

The Rt Rev Gene Robinson's invocation from Sunday's festivities. Full text here.

Reverend Rick

Since I'm updating the blog so sporadically these days, this is going to look strange coming right after my election night post but here goes.

I've been trying to figure out how much slack to cut President-elect Obama in his choice to have Rev. Rick Warren deliver the invocation at the inauguration. At first blush it seems to me a massive slap in the face to the GLBT folk (and their friends and family) who helped to elect him.

Yes, it is merely symbolic. It is not policy related. And maybe I can cut him some slack on this.

Then I read Warren's comments equating homosexuality with incest and pedophilia, and I read that until recently he had a message on his church's web site that an "unrepentant" homosexual could not be a member of his church.

And I think - couldn't we have found someone else?

The GLBT community is accustomed to being thrown under the bus at the first sign of friction, but it is almost as if the incoming administration is going out of their way to slight them with this decision. Make no mistake about it, Obama has been consistently against marriage rights for homosexuals, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised. But Warren has become a lightening rod to advocates of gay rights because of his disturbing statements linked above and because of his strong support for California Proposition 8.

To invite Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inaugural is not to encourage unity with religious conservatives - they are upset that he accepted the invitation. No, to invite Rick Warren is to say to gays and lesbians and their families, at the outset of this administration we're putting politics above civil rights and equality and there will be a powerful reminder on an otherwise joyous day that there are still second class citizens in this country.

Wherein I discuss city finances, voting, hotels, and the Trinity River

This is your last day to vote to rename Industrial Blvd over by our new Trinity River park/highway/floodway/boondoggle. Go here to vote!

And while you are exercising your right to make your voice heard to rename a street, remember that your elected representatives aren't interested in your input for things like building a 1,200 room convention center hotel for $500M with revenue bonds. Nope, we don't need a vote for the city getting into the hotel business. But renaming Industrial, now that's important stuff.

Jim Schutze points out the extra incongruity in this whole hotel business when you consider that the city is going to have to curtail basic services due to declining sales tax revenue. So the city is $50M in the hole for the next budget year but we've decided to spend $500M on a hotel. And Jim doesn't buy the argument that it's free money because it's revenue bonds. There's no guarantee that revenue generated by the hotel will cover the debt service on these bonds. And if revenue does fall short they become general obligation bonds. Translation: the taxpayers just bought debt service on their fancy hotel to add to the budget deficit. Thanks Mayor Tom and Council!

Since it's Friday and I don't want to end on a down note, here's some great news about the new Audobon Center, which is one of the bright spots of the whole Trinity River project.

"We wanted the building itself to be a teaching tool," said Craig Reynolds, a principal in Brown Reynolds Watford Architects Inc., the project's architects. "The idea was to create something that's an extension of the natural setting, rather than something that intrudes on that setting.

"We hope that because of the way it's been designed and built, this center will help convey the message that the land and the water are worth preserving."

According to the Dallas school district, there are 37 elementary schools, seven middle schools, six high schools and one Montessori magnet school within five miles of the center. Together, they have almost 38,000 students.

Most of these students are from low-income families. Some have never seen a river except from a car, a forest except on television, a fish except in fish sticks.

The opportunity to reach this urban school population was one of the things that attracted Audubon to the project, said Ben Jones, the group's director of education at the center.

Way to go Audubon Texas, Meadows Foundation, and Dallas Parks and Recreation! This will truly be a great asset to our city.

Bring on the general election

Obama passed another milestone yesterday by locking in a majority of pledged delegates with his win in Oregon and despite the drubbing in Kentucky. But can I tell you that I have been genuinely energized by his past couple of speeches. And it's because the focus has turned on McCain, the general election, and the battle of ideas.

And despite McCain's supposed advantage in foreign policy, he appears to have adopted the policies of the Bush administration from Iraq to Iran to Cuba. And if that is McCain's position, that is a debate that Obama will handily win because the American people are tired of a lack of diplomacy and a foreign policy that has isolated our country and made us less safe. Bring it on.

A Blue Lone Star State?

Perhaps borrowing a page from the Dallas Cowboys playbook, our fine state may be ready to change its Lone Star to blue. (Butchered metaphor? Perhaps, but I stand by it.)

We received our fresh clean shiny new copy of Texas Monthly on Saturday with a very craggy Willie Nelson on the cover. He’s still going strong no doubt. We should probably go ahead and institute a monarchy and crown him King of Texas.

But what caught my eye were not Willie’s weathered hands (OK, those caught my eye as well), but Paul Burka’s column asking if Texas is about to be a Democratic state again? (Almost Blue, May 2008). Fascinating to even ponder the question.

Burka notes that there were scads more Democratic voters in the March primary than Republicans in several key counties including Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, Collin, and Denton. And there were just about as many total voters in the primary as there were in the 2004 general election.

Of course Dallas county Dems swept out the Republicans last year, in what has been considered the first possible sign of a realignment. Even competent smart officeholders were not spared (paging Margaret Keliher, we miss you!) if they had an R next to their name.

There has been quite a bit of speculation that some of the strong numbers in the Democratic primary came from cynical and insincere Republicans who were trying to extend the Democratic primary as long as possible by voting for Senator Clinton. Burka thankfully notes that the numbers do not seem to bear this out.

Is Texas becoming a blue state again? Not even King Willie knows, but we’ll find out in November (watch out Sen. Cornyn!)

And on it goes

The presidential race continues to Indiana and North Carolina. I like the metaphor that Clinton is "running out of runway." Give her props, she won Pennsylvania, a state whose demographics heavily favor her. But the math just doesn't work for her to overtake Obama in pledged delegates or popular vote (which everyone has been saying for about six or seven weeks now).

Look for the Clinton campaign to once again raise the specter of Michigan and Florida primaries and taking that fight to the convention.

But look for her advisers to encourage her to drop out if she can't win Indiana (North Carolina should be a lock for Obama) on May 6.

Meanwhile, let's consider if we want more careless blustery rhetoric in the White House. In an election day pronouncement yesterday morning, Clinton suggested that the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran if they attacked Israel. Oy.

Tag Team Character Assasination

My quickly dashed off thoughts about the Democratic debate on ABC.

We should launch an investigation looking for links to RWNJ swift boaters who must have brainwashed George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson to relentlessly question Obama's credibility based on such things as his not wearing a flag lapel pin and his sitting on the same board with a 1960s radical.

They really were digging for skeletons in the closet. Maybe they just didn't want to be accused of giving him a free pass on SNL. I was ready for them to ask him if he isn't really a secret Muslim.

They also tried to entrap both candidates on tax issues by getting the candidates to pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class, which by some amazing stretch just became people making less than $250,000 a year. Excuse me, but what freaking planet do these folks live on? Then they questioned the candidates' openness to raising the ridiculously low 15% capital gains tax which has helped to usher in a second Gilded Age (that's not a good thing, folks, if you care about massive gaps in income inequality not seen since the 1920s and stagnant wages for average Americans) and said that would affect middle class taxpayers. So then George and Charlie grilled the candidates on going back on the pledge the moderators just extracted from them because the capital gains tax impacts the middle class as well as the wealthy. Is this a debate or do they have them on the witness stand?

I know it must be fun to try to insert yourself into the story, but we could have used more moderating and a little less attack dog journalism last night.

I got so angry watching that so-called debate, which didn't even have a question about an actual issue until about 50 minutes in, that I had to shut it off and go for a run.

Maybe I've become a little too personally invested in this. I didn't like seeing my candidate, the probable Democratic nominee, on the defensive. But I was also embarrassed for our democracy by the ridiculous display by the moderators on ABC last night.

Update: See Tom Shales' analysis of ABC's performance last night. We miss you, Peter Jennings.

Update 2: Apparently the blogosphere is abuzz about how poorly this debate was conducted. Good to know I'm not alone.

Hump Day Quick Hits

As we wander through that twilight zone that is the space between Tax Day and Earth Day, I offer you the following Wednesdaylicious rapid strikes.

I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Proof that outrage over the words "bitter" and "cling" is mostly media-manufactured: Obama's poll numbers in Pennsylvania are basically the same as they were last week, down to Hillary by high single digits.

The Boss endorses Obama!
I have no idea how much this helps, but it is really cool nonetheless.

Yes we do, Mr. President.
President Bush, who started a war of choice with a nation that was not a threat and has therefore caused the deaths of thousands, welcomed the Pope to the United States with the following statement: "In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred.”

I'm an old man and old men read their news from dead trees, dammit!
Someone else feels my pain about the lousiness that The Dallas Morning News has become. So I found it a bit late. Tim Rogers over at D Magazine says it very well:

...here’s my two cents: I don’t want my newspaper easier to read. I want it smarter to read, more engaging to read. I actually want it more challenging to read.

And the idea of making it “easier to use” is patently silly. It’s not a universal remote. It’s a newspaper. If the DMN is trying to reach people who are having trouble using a newspaper, they are in worse trouble than I imagined.

I have made the decision to cut the cord and let loose my hometown newspaper for now. I'll cancel as soon as my Wall Street Journal subscription starts. Luckily there are some decent hometown blogs that should keep me well apprised of the goings on in our fair burg. (Yes, the Journal is a Murdoch-owned property and their editorial page is a far right mouthpiece which shall line our cat box, but it still has excellent original reporting.) Here is the letter I am sending to the DMN, if there is still anyone there to read it:

As The Morning News has slimmed down every couple of years I knew that eventually the time would come that I would have to cancel my subscription because spending my morning with the paper was no longer a valuable use of my time. I’m sad to report that time has come.

The latest incarnation of The News is only slightly less useful than the previous, but over the years as the paper has cut costs, reduced staff, reduced content, and reduced quality, it has become but a shell of the newspaper I subscribed to when I first moved to the area in 1997.

Best of luck to you, and if you ever decide to invest in The News rather than relentlessly cut costs I’ll be willing to give you another shot.

Party leaders, now is the time to intervene

It appears that Senator Clinton cannot win the nomination without the superdelegates overturning the will of the voters. And the only way she can make a convincing case that she is "more electable" than Obama, despite trailing in both the popular vote and the delegate count, is to tear down Obama so much that his campaign is too badly damaged to compete in the general election.

It is time for this to stop.

Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi need to step in and ask Clinton to exit the race for the good of the party. Those two have the necessary clout to pull it off.

I'm not anti-Hillary. I will vote for whichever candidate is the Democratic nominee in November. But she can't beat Obama without the superdelegates.

And more than one observer has noted that if the superdelegates overturn the will of the voters, thus shutting out the only black person to ever have a real shot at the presidency, the party will spend years recovering from the ensuing scandal. Yes, the whole furor about race has entered the campaign and you can't get rid of it now. It's out there. And if the party perceives Clinton as "more electable" than Obama, there is a large constituency of the party that will hear "more acceptable to whites." Fairly or not, that is how it will be perceived.

Leaders, it is time to lead. The Republicans are licking their chops in a year they should be resigned to a punishing loss.

One more thought on the Texas primary

Just wanted to say thank you to the Fort Worth Republicans who kept creationist Barney Maddox off the State Board of Education. This was a very important election for the whole state and y'all came through. Thanks!

Memo from the Scooter Libby Chair in Political Ethics

SMU is planning for the eventual George W. Bush presidential library and public policy institute. The Orwellian-monickered "Freedom Institute" has raised much resistance among SMU and Methodist types concerned with the complete lack of university oversight this partisan "think tank" will have. Here is a great Unfair Park blog post about Rev. Andrew Weaver, SMU Perkins School of Theology grad and opponent of the Bush Institute at SMU. Someone posted some stuff from Weaver in the comments section that is worth a read. Here is the petition, which I will sign directly as an alumnus. It may already be too late, but there is a possibility that Weaver can force a vote on this by the South Central Jurisdiction of the Methodist Church.

Here's my position: a presidential library managed by the National Archives (assuming everything isn't shredded and classified) is an asset to any university. This is the place where scholars will come to study the documents and help write the history. A school of public service and even a non-partisan policy institute would likewise be assets to SMU. But a partisan policy institute associated with this administration and with zero oversight by the university should be rejected out of hand by SMU, the Methodist Church, and SMU's stakeholders - faculty, alumni, etc. The Bush administration should not get to use SMU's good name to further their cause.

The rest of the country is ready to move on from this administration. Are we going to be stuck with him here forever?

FV engages in what ifs

I am pleased with the results of the Florida Republican primary. McCain, while an Iraq war supporter, is still the sanest voice in the GOP field and could gain wide support in a general election. True, he would make it harder for the Democratic nominee to win in the general election, but wouldn’t it be great to have a contest between two good candidates? Granted, by November we’ll be sick of whoever the nominees are, but we’re not there yet.

If McCain remains the front-runner, the Republicans will be making a pragmatic choice by nominating their best chance to retain the White House. And as Andrew Sullivan points out, a McCain nomination means the sure end of U.S.-sanctioned torture, for which we can all be thankful.

On the other hand, if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, the Dems will be chancing fate by selecting the most polarizing figure of the entire field. I’ve talked to a few people who are interested in Obama and his message, but would vote against Clinton in a heartbeat. These are folks who will vote; they’re not staying home. I think the Democratic leadership has realized this, with the vast majority of endorsements going Obama’s way. But I never underestimate the Clinton campaign and their ability to get what they want. And Edward’s exit could aid Clinton next week.

I’m not calling a Super Tuesday winner for either side. As far as I'm concerned it's still all up in the air. But my hope is for a McCain vs. Obama match up. And a plea that whoever the nominees are try to keep it about the issues and not about tearing each other down through lies and misrepresentation. This may be a silly hope, but as one candidate keeps reminding us, it’s not always naïve to hope.

Back to the future

“The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor, young versus old, and it’s not about black versus white. This election is about the past versus the future.”

Senator Barack Obama

And we call California the land of the fruits and nuts

Yet another reason why we need Rick Perry out of the Governor's Mansion ASAP. (Did somebody once say we were a "weak governor state?" Wrong!)

Barry Smitherman, Perry's appointee for chairman of the Public Utility Commission, who sees his job as saving electricity deregulation (not as seeing that consumers pay fair rates and that we plan responsibly for our future energy needs), once wrote a book titled If Jesus Were an Investment Banker.

And apparently he was perfectly serious. Sometimes I feel like Eddie Albert on Green Acres.

Oy.

Inmates running asylum

File under: "why ideologues have no place in government" OR "this concerns me as a parent of future public school students."

Apparently we have to worry about our math texts not passing muster with conservative Texas Board of Education members now. Who knew that math textbooks could be an ideological battleground? Apparently these folks are now authorities on how kids should be taught math, because they rejected a 3rd grade math text on the grounds that it didn't teach math the right way.

That's right, it meets all state requirements, but doesn't teach the way these folks think it ought to be taught: in a "traditional manner." I wonder if they checked to see if it's been successful. From the DMN article:

In Dallas, officials rolled out Everyday Mathematics books in kindergarten through sixth grade at 19 schools with low math scores during the 2000-01 school year. By the end of the year, only two of those schools still had low scores; a year later, none of them did, said Camille Malone, DISD's director of mathematics.

I'm no expert, but that's an astounding success rate.

This was a 7-6 vote and there is question as to whether the action of the Board was even legal. The Board is currently suppressing the "minority report" of the members who voted to keep the text. So now they're censoring math text and themselves.

My question: is anyone paying attention to these nuts?

Shades of 2000

Does anybody know who actually won the Nevada Democratic caucus? We all know Clinton won the popular vote, so her name had a check mark next to it. Many news reports say that Obama won more delegates (13 verus 12 for Clinton). This delegate scorecard from CNN says that they each won 14 delegates. Do we even know how many were actually available? (CNN seems to include superdelegates - party and elected officials who get to vote at convention, so maybe that's the difference.)

At any rate, the day went to Sen. Clinton, as she got the momentum boost from winning the popular vote.

Ellen Goodman, columnist for the Boston Globe, had a good column about a Clinton-Obama ticket regardless of who wins the nomination. She does finally acknowlege near the end of the article that Clinton would not be likely to agree to be number 2 on the ticket.

Here's a good article from the NYT about how nobody really has any idea of how the primaries are going to finally play out.

Just in case the Texas primary matters...

File this column away, candidates. If there is still a race after Super Tuesday (I refuse to call it Super Duper Tuesday - that's just silly), you will want to get to know the Lone Star State, a big supplier of delegates and campaign cash. William McKenzie has done a good summary job of where to get votes and from what groups. Hopefully the candidates already know that they can find Democratic votes in the cities and Republican votes in the 'burbs. Of course not all 'burbs are created equal; our older inner ring suburbs probably have quite a few Democratic voters.

The most interesting point McKenzie makes is the wooing of a demographic that many of us have not considered: the Hispanic evangelical. So says Will:

In talking regularly with Latino evangelical pastors, what strikes me is that their Latino identity matters as much as their religious identity. And I'm hearing that this GOP-leaning group loves John McCain for his broad stand on immigration.

He would have a natural constituency among the many Pentecostal and evangelical iglesias across Texas. More so than Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Southern Baptist pastor who has not been as identified as Mr. McCain with modernizing immigration laws.

McKenzie sees even odds that the GOP nominee will still be in play when Texans go to the polls on March 4, and an increasing chance of the same happening with the Dems.

The races seem wide open right now, but I'll have to go with the conventional wisdom on this and bet that Texas will not be a factor. But if by some chance there is still a race, all that crying you heard about Iowa and New Hampshire having an unfair influence in the primaries will seem like nothing once the country learns that Texans will choose the candidates. Still, I say it's not gonna happen. Mark it down.

...of course I could be wrong.

Macho macho Huck

File under Huckawha?!

So the Republican debates temporarily turned into a locker room pi$$ing contest over the subject of Iranian seafaring vessels. Per the Times Online:

Asked whether the American commanders on the scene were right in not attacking the Iranian boats, Mr Huckabee said he backed their decisions, before warning Iran: "Be prepared, first, to put your sights on the American vessel. And then be prepared that the next thing you see will be the gates of Hell, because that is exactly what you will see after that."

So much for the funny likable modest minister routine. Fred Thompson picked up on this with his own zinger: "I think one more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they're looking forward to seeing."

This should scare the crap out of every American who thinks our foreign policy should engage in a minimum of blustery inflammatory rhetoric.

Does anyone remember "axis of evil" and how it helped turn Iran from a U.S. supporter in Afghanistan to enemy number 3 (or number 2; did we rank the "axis" according to attackability)?

We can do better. Yes we can.

Sen. Clinton's tears

Maureen Down has a column today about Hillary Clinton's teary moment on Sunday. This was the scene at Dowd's office Monday morning:

A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary.

My wife and I had basically the same reactions. I don't think it was calculated (even I'm not that cynical), but I don't think it was bad to show a more human or vulnerable side. My wife said it was a pretty bad move and that none of the men had to cry to show their humanity. I just found it interesting that our reactions were replicated in a NYT newsroom. And probably lots of other places.

Dowd goes on with very little sympathy for Clinton and comes to this line which I think sums up where her campaign has gone:

Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism, which is probably the lowest and most unlikely point to which any Clinton could sink. The people from Hope are arguing against hope.

Pollsters can't be right all of the time...

...but sometimes they can all be wrong. Still a strong showing by Obama. Not so much for Edwards. There's still momentum for Barack going into South Carolina.

The CSPAN coverage was much better last night, just showing uninterrupted candidate speeches. After watching several speeches I have these observations and ruminations:

* Ron Paul alternately makes sense (foreign policy) and freaks me out a little (gold standard, nanny state rhetoric).

* Obama and Edwards have the ability to inspire folks to share in a new vision of America. Clinton has a strong and disciplined campaign, but doesn't stir anything in me when she speaks. And yes, I do think that matters in the current polarized political climate.

* Edwards had the best music (Mellencamp and Springsteen). McCain used the theme from Rocky. I kind of like John McCain as an independent spirit, but Rocky? You can do better.

* Wondering how Edwards will fare in S. Carolina. If he can't do well there, is he playing for second place? He would be a really strong VP candidate.

* Was that the guy from Desperate Housewives behind Edwards last night in the Steelworkers t-shirt? Yes it was.

* I may be turning into a political junkie. Healthy interest in the future of our country or need to get a life? I'll say it's the former.