There Will Be Truth

Snide, demeaning nicknames may make the speaker feel smug and superior, but they simply turn thoughtful people off.

Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr (video below) actually makes an intelligent point or two in the few seconds I watched. He might have made some more, but his “McBama” (pronounced mic-BAM-a) and the rest of his sour attitude were such a total turnoff, I didn’t bother to waste time on the rest of it.

If you want to rant and vent, then be as demeaning and snide as you like. If you’d like to persuade someone to listen to your point of view, then put the polemic aside and present your case.

The London daily Telegraph reports that scientists are studying cow farts in their attempts at fighting global warming.

The article, Cow farts collected in plastic tank for global warming study suggests ways to help reduce emissions from Congressional gas bags.

Just switch the orifice to which the bag is connected. Think of it: noxious hot gases from Capitol Hill could be reduced in instants. Absence of toxic cloud allows clear thinking.

Yeah, just a fantasy, that.

Soaring gasoline prices.

Violence in the Middle East.

Iranian-government-supported terror rampant. The Mullahs reach new levels of belligerence.

Unemployment rising.

Economic indicators falling.

Individuals struggling to make mortgage payments.

On the international currency market, the dollar dropped to dangerous lows, stimulating inflation and raising concerns about the ability of America to service its debt.

In the presidential race, the Democrats fielded an outsider, a virtual unknown. He’s a decent, personally likeable, successful, self-made and highly intelligent man of faith that any good person would welcome into their homes.

That was 1976 and the candidate was Jimmy Carter.

Will 2008 = 1976?

Let’s put the symbols and platitudes aside for a moment.

Let’s also start from a common ground of understanding that actions speak louder than words.

Now, let’s look at the act of caring for the United States of America. Actually caring which often requires suppressing instant gratification for the good of the entire republic.

That last characteristic is is damn short supply.

Politics has become all about “winning” not governing. When winning becomes an end in itself, it is a selfish, self-indulgent act of betrayal.

Those who place winning at the top find ways to justify bias, distortion and outright lies. That betrays the truth.

When loyalty to a political party, party line or single political cause rises above loyalty to the United States, that betrays every citizen.

When winning becomes the ultimate political goal, the act of governing the country, of hammering out solutions, falls by the wayside. That betrays the very idea of America.

In this polluted political atmosphere of dishonesty, it’s small wonder that the first thing that winning candidates do the day after election day is to begin raising money and plotting the next winning strategy.

Little wonder that the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast a ballot has plummeted.

Little wonder that the burning issues of the electorate never find solutions. Hell, a Congressman or Senator can’t actually cast a vote to do the right thing: the party whip is there to coerce compliance with the official ideology.

Perhaps even more importantly, every vote has to be cast (or the member conveniently absent) with an eye on whether this is a “winning” vote or one which could be spun to an opponent’s campaign advantage.

The same points apply in spades to the demagogues and flame-meisters behind partisan blogs, irrational independent committees and ideological militants.

The political insurgents on both extremes have effectively “Iraq-ized” America. Like fanatical Shiites and Sunnis, their stock in trade includes verbal car bombs and a relentless parade of suicide bloggers whose every blast polarizes and poisons any attempt at good intentions or collaboration for the good of the country.

Intolerance never breeds tolerance.

Intemperate speech never breeds discussion.

Polarization never creates solutions.

Liberty and justice for all demand cooperation and self-sacrifice on the part of every individual.

The good of the country demands that politicians and their acolytes refrain from the next polemical paroxysm of invective.

Stop. Think. Do the right thing. For once.

Proposition 7, a California initiative to mandate utilities to generate minimum levels of electricity from renewable sources has environmental groups teaming up with their long-time enemies — power companies — to defeat it.

Is this a case of a badly written initiative or are the greens in a snit because an outsider has walked in and stolen their thunder with a measure that the environmental groups can’t grab political credit for themselves?

According to a July 4 article in the San Francisco Chronicle: “A November ballot measure to boost the amount of renewable energy generated by California utilities has attracted a wildly diverse group of opponents – from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Democratic Party and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

“‘It’s kind of like I’m uniting every warring group in the state’, said Jim Gonzalez, the former San Francisco supervisor who’s behind Proposition 7, the Solar and Clean Energy Act of 2008.

“The measure requires all California utilities to generate at least half their power from alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal by 2025, well above the 33 percent level Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to see by 2020. Utilities currently must reach a 20 percent goal by 2010.

“‘This does no harm to the environment and only toughens up the rules we have now,’ Gonzalez said.”

The Chronicle pointed out that environmental groups such as the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), had been working on energy legislation for a long time, but had not been consulted by the Prop 7 sponsors.

“There was very late consultation,” said NRDC’s Ralph Cavanaugh in the Chron article “We asked them last November to step back and take a look at the measure, but by then they already had a finished product.”

“The initiative sets up such a detailed plan for dealing with renewable energy and siting and building the new, greener power plants that it opens the way for many unintended consequences, Cavanaugh said. “If you’re going to legislate at the ballot box, keep it simple, don’t write 70 pages,” he added. “Our objection isn’t to their good intentions, but to their bad initiative.

“But is that the real issue? Cavanaugh gives no details on why the initiative is “bad” nor why 70 pages is necessarily a reason to oppose the measure.

A search of the NRDC web site turns up no mention of Proposition 7.

On the Other hand, the “Yes on Prop 7″ website offers a wealth of details which don’t seem congruent with the NRDC concerns.

Could the real reason be resentment over outsiders injecting themselves into an issue the NRDC and its allies “owned?”

Might it be embarrassment that citizens — tired of the Greens and the do-nothing legislators in Sacramento — took matters into their own hands?

Would this have happened if Prop 7′s sponsors genuflected to those who have amassed vast political power in California?

Does Prop 7 pose a threat to back-room horse-trading that the NRDC and its allies feel they — and they only — are entitled to?

Proposition 7 can be read in its entirety at the California Secretary of State’s web site.

In addition, the non-partisan analysis of the measure by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office does not back up the NRDC claims.

Until the NRDC can detail the specific reasons for its vague reasons, the electorate can only assume it’s an ego thing and a political “dog in the manger” issue.

The NRDC’s vagueness and lack of transparency on this issue hints of the discredited back-room politics that the electorate find reprehensible.

That hurts the environment and the people of California. And continues a broken political process where scoring political points takes precedence over proper governance.

Well, the angry emails and profanely un-postable comments have started to arrive. The immoderate outrage seems about evenly divided between Dem and GOP party line loyalists. I suppose I must be doing something right if both sides are upset. The conservatives seem to think I was a liberal shill and vice-versa.

As I said in the explanation box, I will address the truth where I find it. I will do it with facts, examples, attribution and unbiased, unemotional, straightforward language. I happen to believe in the truth and will try my best to convey that.

I do realize that truth is elusive, but only facts and civility can lead you in the right direction. Distortions and emotions lead you astray. Bias in the defense of your cause leads to ruin.

I am amenable to being corrected when my facts are wrong, when I have not offered full context, or when information is brought to my attention that I have not considered.

Significantly, none of the wild and emotional comments I have received addressed any of the facts in my posts, offered more facts or proffered a rational explanation.

I do welcome comments. Be forewarned, however, that your posts must be civil. Flames, rants and polemical ventings will not be posted. If you cannot employ facts and moderate language, your comments will not be posted.

Rants and ideological flames create political ghettos populated by a mob mentality that thrives on mutual incitement. That never leads to a solution, good government or advances the common welfare.

Facts and civility advance discussion and offer a path to solutions. Rants and flames simple divide, usually by exaggerating false premises.

The Republican National Committee ought to know that this is certainly not a good way to earn people’s trust. Here is what the RNC displayed on their “In The News” page today.

It was certainly an intriguing headline. But when I tried to click on the articles to read them, I found there were no hot links (that’s clueless enough in its own right).

So I surfed over to The Politico, searched for the date and reporter mentioned. But what I found was far different than the RNC said it was.

Obama said he will rename the office and reorganize it. But scrap it? That’s not what he said. Like any politician, one will need to see what he would actually d0 in office.

BUT — this sort of misleading thing certainly makes the Democrats’ case that the GOP is gearing up a smear campaign. Someone at the RNC needs to shape up the RNC Research Department, the source of the misleading headline.

No matter whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you mislead voters, they will not trust you or your candidate.

Much has been made of John McCain’s tulmutuous relationship with U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. Earlier this year, Cochran told the Boston Globe that, “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Cochran, endorsed Mitt Romney in the primaries.

None of the above is new.

What is new and significant is an interview conducted by the Biloxi (Mississippi) Sun-Herald Newspaper. Cochran describes an incident 21 years ago, in which McCain throttled an associate of Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega during a trip to Nicaragua.

“McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don’t know what attracted my attention,” Cochran said. “But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don’t know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don’t know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him.”

McCain says it didn’t happen. He told reporters at a press conference today during his trip to Colombia, “I had many, many meetings with the Sandinistas,” McCain said. “I must say, I did not admire the Sandinistas much. But there was never anything of that nature. It just didn’t happen.”

But more to the point of this post: lower in the Sun-Herald interview, we get to the point of Cochran’s reason for relating the 21-year-old story in an interview today.

According to Cochran spokeswoman Margaret McPhillips:

“I think Sen. Cochran went into as much detail yesterday as is necessary to make the point that, though Sen. McCain has had problems with his temper, he has overcome them.

“Though Sen. Cochran saw the incident he described to you, decades have passed since then and he wanted to make the point that over the years he has seen Sen. McCain mature into an individual who is not only spirited and tenacious but also thoughtful and levelheaded. As Sen. Cochran said yesterday, he believes Sen. McCain has developed into the best possible candidate for President.”

Okay, so what does this have to do with the Associated Press? Well, the AP’s summary of the Sun-Herald interview stated that,

“McCain sought to smooth things over with Cochran this year after the Mississippi senator said the idea of McCain as the GOP presidential nominee sent a chill down his spine.”

The AP then concluded with a partial quote that misleads readers and clearly misinterprets Thad’s remarks: “Asked about the incident, Cochran spokeswoman Margaret McPhillips told The Associated Press: ‘I think his quotes in the Sun Herald speak on that issue’.”

That’s the WHOLE quote from Associated Press.

Read the Sun-Herald‘s quote of McPhillips again. Then read the truncated AP version.

Obviously, an astute reader will note that Cochran’s “chill down his spine” statement is barely half a year old. One could surmise that Cochran’s most recent statement and change of heart might be a political decision for party unity, especially with a faint endorsement in the last sentence calling McCain “the best possible candidate.”

Reality? Politics? A little of both, perhaps? The same can certainly be said of the Obama-Hillary unity detente and all of the harsh charges she made against him in the primaries.

Regardless, that is NOT a decision for an AP reporter — or any other reporter — to make. News should be reported completely and in context so that readers can maker their own decisions.

Associated Press has clearly sinned by omission. And that violates every standard of journalistic ethics. It also destroys the reporter’s credibility. It raises the question, what other things in which other articles have been left out?

The entire interview is at: http://www.sunherald.com/pageone/story/660742.html

DISCLOSURE: After working as a top aide to Governor Bill Waller (Democrat, Mississippi), I served as Thad’s press secretary when he was in the House of Representatives. I have not visited, spoken nor corresponded with Thad about this nor any other political issue in decades nor do I have any contact with the McCain camp.

Neither presidential candidate supports gay marriage.

McCain issued the following statement:

“I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions.”

As U.S. News & World Report puts it: “As McCain’s stance on same-sex marriage comes as no surprise to political analysts, since he has never varied widely from the mainstream of the Republican Party on the issue. While McCain voted against a federal constitutional amendment supported by President Bush in 2004, he has said he thinks states should be able to determine their own approaches to marriage—and he has repeatedly said the matter should be left to voters, not judges, to decide.”

Previously, Obama told the Chicago Daily Tribune, “I’m a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”

Obama has gone much farther than McCain in supporting issues of importance to the gay community.

And while the Mormon and Catholic churches are ginning up efforts to defeat gay marriage proposals, other denominations including Episcopalians and even Presbyterians are re-examining their own prohibitions. The American religious mainstream may arrive at its own acceptance far sooner than McCain & Obama.