I rarely reference or highlight Peggy Noonan’s writings and today is one of those rare occasions. In her Wall Street Journal piece, Noonan focuses on Jeremiah Wright in a rather nuanced way. She is critical of Wright, but doesn’t employ the same bitterness and rage that Wright turned on Americans, nor does she resort to the vengeful, condemning rhetoric of the Rush Limbaughs, Bill Kristols, and Hillary Clintons. More importantly, Noonan demonstrates her intelligence by not declaring Obama guilty by association.
Instead, Noonan posits just the opposite. Her take is, Obama’s values and attitudes are reflected in his actions and history, per se, and are not remotely indicative of Wright. She further emphasizes voters should judge Obama on his merits and not the actions or beliefs of Jeremiah Wright.
Noonan’s writing style does not lend itself to quick sound bites and small excerpts, which is why the quote is rather long. In spite of the amount quoted here, it’s best to read the entire piece.
Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama’s stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be "one of us," that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race….
I have seen Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers, the Black National Anthem, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan. I came to see their radicalism as, putting the morality of policy based on rage aside, essentially unhelpful and impractical. It wouldn’t work as an American movement, not long-term. Hatred plays itself out, has power in the short-term but is nonsustaining in the long. America, and this is one of its glories, has a conscience to which an appeal can be made. It may take a long time, it may take centuries, but in the end we try hard to do the right thing, and everyone knows it. Hatred is a form of energy that does not fuel this machine and cannot make it run.
And all the time I was watching the old days of rage, blacks in America were rising, joining the professions, becoming middle class, assuming authority, becoming professors and doctors. No one is surprised anymore to meet a powerful man or woman who devises systems by which others should live – that would be a politician – who is black.
I came to think all the talk of radicalism and extremism amounted to little, and was in the end rejected by the very people it was meant to rouse. They didn’t buy it.
This week I talked to a young man, an Irish-American to whom I said, "Am I wrong not to feel anger about Wright?" He more or less saw it as I do, but for a different reason, or from different experience.
He said he figures Mr. Wright’s followers delight in him the same way he delights in the Wolfe Tones, the Irish folk group named for the 18th-century leader condemned to death by the British occupying forces, as they say on their Web site. They sing songs about the Brits and how they subjugated the Irish and we’ll rise up and trounce the bastards.
My 20-year-old friend has lived a good life in America and is well aware that he is not an abused farmer in the fields holding secret Mass in defiance of the prohibitions of the English ruling class. His life has not been like that. Yet he enjoys the bitterness. He likes going to Wolfe Tones concerts raising his fist, thinking "Up the Rebels." It is good to feel that old ethnic religious solidarity, and that in part is what he is in search of, solidarity. And it’s not so bad to take a little free-floating anger, apply it to politics, and express it in applause.
He knows the dark days are over. He just enjoys remembering them even if he didn’t experience them. His people did.
I know exactly what he feels, for I felt the same when I was his age. And so what? It’s just a way of saying, "I’m still loyal to our bitterness." Which is another way of saying, "I’m still loyal." I have a nice life, I’m American, I live far away, an Englishman has never hurt me, and yet I am still Irish. I can prove it. I can summon the old anger.
Is this terrible? I don’t think so. It’s human and messy and warm-blooded, as a human would be.
The thing is to not let your affiliation with bitterness govern you, so that you leave the Wolfe Tones concert and punch an Englishman in the nose. In this connection it can be noted there is no apparent record of people leaving a Wright sermon and punching anyone in the nose. Maybe they’re in search of solidarity too. Maybe they’re showing loyalty too….
And yet . . . it doesn’t get my blood up. It doesn’t hurt my heart. It doesn’t make me feel I need to defend my country. Because I don’t see it as attacked, only criticized in a way that is not persuasive.
Mr. Wright seems to me to be part of the great "barbaric yawp," as Walt Whitman called the American people fighting, discussing, making things and living. I like the barbaric yawp. I don’t enjoy it when it makes me wince, but at least when I am wincing, I know the yawp is working.
The Center for American Progress (viz. Think Progress) seldom, if ever, weighs in heavily against one of the Democratic presidential candidates. I’ve heard a few pundits critically comment that it leans towards Hillary Clinton, but I have personally seen no evidence of any substantive bias towards Obama or Clinton. McCain, of course is a different story. They routinely bash him, but now they’re bashing Clinton and McCain over their "destructive nuttiness."
[...] Economic analysts of all stripes have responded with horror, pointing out that "the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers." Even if a suspension of the gas tax led to lower prices, the rich would benefit the most, since "the more a family earns, the more they drive," notes Sam Davis of the Center for American Progress. Len Burman of the non partisan Urban Institute calls the proposal "a huge windfall for refiners." New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues, "This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks." Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter agrees, stating, "Suspending the federal gas tax is a crass ploy for votes." The Atlantic Monthly’s James Fallows calls cutting the gas tax "destructive nuttiness" and "embarrassing." Economist Gilbert Metcalf called it "very short-sighted," noting, "If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings."
Although Hillary Clinton cannot find a single expert to support her gas tax holiday plan, Clinton intends to introduce legislation for it. Nancy Pelosi spoke out against it today, and anybody that can’t see Clinton is pandering and votes for her simply on that issue alone, deserves exactly what the get.
It is impossible to make happen, but the best thing that could happen would be for the Senate to vote on her bill Monday morning. Absent that, lawmakers should follow Pelosi’s lead and make it known publicly this is nothing but a scam.
[Economists] say the oil companies may end up the biggest beneficiaries, while the aid to families wouldn’t be enough to buy a $35 backpack.
The trouble with the plan, they say, is that oil prices are rising because of low supplies, and companies will continue to charge the average $3.60 a gallon and just pocket the money that would have gone to federal taxes.
“That’s $10 billion, and it’s going into the pockets of oil refiners,” said Leonard Burman of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. “The last time I checked, they didn’t need it.”
Supplies are “being cleared at the current price,” said Donald Parsons, an economics professor at George Washington University in Washington. “If you take away the tax, you’ll have the same number of consumers willing to buy the gas at the same total price.”
Senator Clinton, 60, a New York Democrat, embraced the proposal that McCain, 71, an Arizona Republican, floated in a speech on April 15. McCain’s idea originated not with his economic advisers but with Republican pollster Bill McInturff….
“I don’t know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal,” Greg Mankiw, former chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and author of a bestselling economics text, said on his blog….
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank called the proposal a “bad idea.”
“I think it would be counterproductive,” Frank said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” to be aired later today. “I don’t think it would be a significant savings for the individual. It would be more of a cost.”
Well this is indeed telling coming from the beer-drinking, whiskey-shot-chugging, gas-pumping, 7-11-coffee-drinking, Hillary Clinton.
On Bill O’Reilly’s show last night Hillary said: "You know, rich people, God bless us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessingscontinue to the next generation."
On today’s “state of the race” conference call, a reporter asked about an exchange between Hillary Clinton and Bill O’Reilly on yesterday’s show in which Clinton uttered the words, “Rich people—God bless us.”
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson denied that’s what she said: “She said ‘God blessed us.’ B-L-E-S-S-E-D.”
That simply is not true. Listen to the video. There is no mistaking what Clinton said.
Pull up a chair — you may need it. David Addington, Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, has indicated he might testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
Anyone familiar with Cheney’s Cheney, a commonly used reference to Addington, will know that Addingtion even acknowledging the Congress exists is completely out of character for the notorious Chief of Staff to the Veep.
Kathryn Wheelburger (Cheney’s counsel) wrote a letter, on behalf of Addington, to Chairman John Conyers indicating Addington might appear before the Committee’s hearing on torture, provided the Committee agreed, in advance, to ask questions “substantially narrower in scope” than those set forth in Conyers’ initial request.
Conyers scheduled the hearing after ABC News ran a story on April 9 about the White House “Enhanced Interrogation” program, which involved top Bush administration officials including Cheney. Although Wheelburger indicated Addington would consider appearing, it is doubtful Addington will offer anything substantive based on the prerequisites Wheelburger specified.
Addington will not answer any questions related to any communications between Addington, Cheney, and Bush; presidential powers; torture policies; Cheney’s “Senate functions;” or detainees. In addition, Addington may invoke executive privilege at his pleasure.
So, the question is, what can Addington talk about? He can "share" his "professional expertise" as an attorney.
Wheelburger wrote that if the committee “still wishes to pursue its request” and accepts the White House’s conditions, Addington will as a “matter of comity” accept the “timely service” of a subpoena. As repugnant and arrogant as that may be, it seems to pale in light of where Addington’s allegiance resides, which is not the people, as evidenced in Wheelburger’s closing statement:
We hope and expect that the Committee will recognize the importance of protecting the institution of the Vice Presidency under the Constitution, so that present and future Vice Presidents can continue to serve America effectively.
Indeed. The Unitary Executive must be protected above all else.
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Pull up a chair — you may need it. David Addington, Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, has indicated he might 