[GCFL-discuss] green McCain

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:34:24 -0400 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net> writes:
> 
> My objections to obama ... I especially do not like some of 
> his advisors, gleaned from the administration of one of the worst 
> presidents in recent memory.

Obama has advisors gleaned from the administration of George W. Bush? I
know Human Events has compared Obama favorably to Colin Powell, but
still...

I believe you to be a fiscal conservative greenBubble, so I KNOW you
wouldn't be referring to the first president in living memory to balance
the budget and pay down the national debt as one of our worst (although I
told plenty of jokes about him myself), nor referring to the president
who blew it all in less than a year, mortgaging our government to the
national bank of China, as anything but. (This is something I hear about
from my mother, whose family has been east Tennessee Republican ever
since my great-great-grandfather came home from the Civil War with
discharge papers signed by Abraham Lincoln).

But seriously, I didn't know what you meant about Wright. After I got a
link to a recent speech by Obama, which turned out to be responding to
some flap about his pastor, I backtracked what the Wright thing was
about. Like you, I could care less. A pastor is responsible to his own
congregation, nobody else, and no church member is responsible for what
his or her pastor says from the pulpit.

What DID impress me was the content of the speech, in which Wright was,
rightly, only a footnote. I found plenty to admire in Obama long before
he had a campaign, but I had found his campaign to be as fluffy as the
critics say (literature, TV commercials, etc.) The speech reinspired me
-- it was the real person behind the campaign. He put some real thought
into it, he made it something that could stand on its own, rather than a
tit-for-tat to some dubious namecalling, it was comprehensive. It
debunked what is not true, it held firmly to what is true. He made clear
what he disagrees with Wright on, while forthrightly saying what he
admired about Wright. He talked about the continuing legacy of Jim Crow
(and correctly nailed that the most lingering legacy is being fifteen
generations behind on accumulation of capital, which often gets passed
along within a family), while openly acknowledging that there are plenty
of middle class or formerly middle class families, taught to think of
themselves as "white" (my choice of quote marks, not his), who have
legitimate grievances as well, and the two are often pitted against each
other.

The word "nuance" got a bad rap in 2004, but it is exactly what I look
for in a candidate for high office. It may be a fancy sounding word, it
may be of French origin, but it means about the same as Ray Stevens's
lyrics

"the answers aren't all yes or no
con or pro
to or fro,
everything's not left or right
black or white
day or night."

Obama really looked at all sides of this one, in one speech, not saying a
little of one thing to one audience and a little of another thing to
another audience. Campaign promises are silly, because nobody, including
the candidate, knows what a new president is really going to be faced
with. I want to know what thought process the candidate will bring to
problems and crises we haven't even seen coming yet. So far, I'm still
favorably impressed.

Siarlys
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