Rick and Barack? Yuck!

This week, we have witnessed the first scandal of the Obama Administration-to-be. Or so say the media.

Barack has invited evangelical pastor Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Rick Warren is one of the religious leaders who give a powerful voice to the activists of the religious far-right which has supported the Republican party for years, and the Bush Administration in particular.
This move by Obama can be seen as a brilliant one. Keep your friends close and you enemies closer. By inviting someone representing the very people who hate him the most, those who call him a Socialist Muslim terrorist who eats babies alive for breakfast, Obama is sending a signal that he won't be the President of the people who voted for him only. He reaches across the ideological divide. He explains his move by repeating his mantra: "We can disagree without being disagreeable."

Warren, among other negative and positive -- he notably encourages Christians to confront problems like AIDS and climate change -- characteristics, is anti-abortion and anti-gay, which makes his participation at the inauguration of Obama very controversial. The gay community, in particular, is very upset.

The anger of the gay community is very understandable. Warren -- whose church refuses non-repentant gay people and sponsors programs to cure gay people -- equates gay marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. This kind of statement is clearly unacceptable and shocking.
After the shameful passage of Proposition 8 in California, a proposition banning same-sex marriage a few months after it had been made legal by the California Supreme Court, many gay people already feel that their fellow citizens are doing everything they can to deprive them of the right of the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence.
After the announcement of Warren's presence at the inauguration of the President they overwhelmingly supported, they understandably feel betrayed.

However, there is one aspect of the whole thing which I think should be very controversial but that the media have not mentioned at all. Not even the very liberal media like MSNBC.

What in the world is a religious leader doing at the inauguration of the President of the United States?

Even a representative of an activist group called Association for the Separation of Church and State has protested against the participation of Warren on the grounds of his homophobia but has never mentioned that this should not even be an issue, since no religious leader should be praying the Lord at the inauguration of the President.

I have mentioned to a friend of mine who happens to be a quite liberal Southern Baptist pastor that it seems strange to me that the separation of church and state does not guarantee that religious leaders will not participate in the inauguration ceremony. He replied, That's the American tradition. Just like "In God We Trust" stamped on the banknotes. It's ridiculous.

It is a tradition indeed. It is so ingrained that it is not even questioned when an anti-gay pastor is invited to give the invocation at the inauguration of the new President. It is so deeply rooted in American society that people will tell you that this is what the Founding Fathers wanted. They simply ignore that most of the Founding Fathers were a bunch of atheists disguised as deists.

When tradition keeps people into such apathy, it is time indeed for change.

Obama's move is a bold one indeed, and I am pretty sure that he will regain the favors of the gay community by other bold moves. After the Warren participation was announced, Barack declared at a press conference that he was "a fierce advocate of equality of rights for the gay community." I do not think that any president, or any major candidate had declared such a thing before.

However, I wish Barack had made an even bolder move, by not including any religious act in his inauguration ceremony.

I hope Obama is going to win this election

I am very nervous today. For the last month and a half, I thought we were safe, I thought Barack had won the election, but I -- as well as approximately everyone else -- had just forgotten one little detail.

The vote that took place on November 4 did not count for anything.

The real vote takes place today, on December the 15th, or, as the Constitution so clearly puts it, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of the third December month after the September month of the year two years before Election Year (I hope I am getting that right).

Today, the Electors meet in the capitols of their respective states and cast their ballot. Presumably, they will cast it for the candidate that the people of their state voted for, but they do not have to. They can cast it for whoever they want, or not cast it at all.

This is the Electoral College, a very complicated electoral system that leaves even most American voters confused. Every year I teach the American Presidency, I have to learn it again before my class on the American electoral system. Every year, one student asks one question I don't have the answer to.

As a simplistic reminder, here is what it boils down to.

The American voters do not elect their president directly. They elect a list -- it is really called a slate -- of Electors. This year, they chose either the list for Obama, or the list for McCain. In Oklahoma for example, they chose the list for McCain. On the list in Oklahoma, there are seven Electors, which equals the number of congresspeople Oklahoma has in Washington (5 representatives and 2 senators). Today, these seven Electors meet in the capitol in Oklahoma City and presumably cast their ballot for McCain. They will be 7 of the 173 Electoral votes won by McCain.

At the end of the day, 538 ballots will be cast through the nation. They will be counted by the Congress in joint session on January 6.

Why such a system in "the best democracy in the whole universe"?

Well, because the Founding Fathers did not trust the people back in 1787. The US government was doing so poorly under the first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, that many people started to feel nostalgic of the British tyranny. So to make sure elections would go as planned, the Founding Fathers made sure that people who knew better would cast the final votes, the votes that counted.

Of course, that is not the official explanation. The official explanation is that with this system, small states, with a small population, can have a weight in the elections.
Of course, when we see what actually happens during a campaign, this explanation is not very convincing. Small states never see any candidate, especially if the polls show that they are very likely to go one side or the other.
Again, let's take Oklahoma as an example. This is a very red state -- the reddest this year -- with only 7 Electoral votes. Because it was very likely Oklahoma would go for McCain, Obama never came to Oklahoma during the campaign. Not only that, but because Oklahoma was a sure state for him, McCain never came either.
In a word, the voters in Oklahoma were taken for granted.

And that is the case of many states.

There is something wrong in "the best democracy in the world."

Now, why such delay between the popular vote (on November 4 this year), the Electoral vote (today on December 15) and the inauguration of the President on January the 20th?

Well, because at the time the Constitution was drafted, it took that long to count the ballots and to travel the distances.
Mind you, it can still take time to count the ballots. The results of a Senate race in Minnesota are not yet definitive (that's a whole other story that I will tell in a post I am preparing and which will be entitled "Voting in the Third World").

Today, if we know already who will be the next President, it is because of the advent of communications technology. We know (most of) the results on the day of the popular vote simply because the overwhelming media is omniscient enough to be behind every voter and to know who will be inaugurated almost three months later.

But let us ponder over this for a minute. We know only thanks to the media. Nothing will be official before January 20. But during the whole campaign, John and Sarah told us the media were biased, that Barack was their pet, that they were basically campaigning for him!

What if... what if the media, all this time, were telling us Obama won so that we can get used to the idea of having a Muslim Socialistic terrorist at the head of the "best country on the surface of the earth"?
Once the people is brainwashed into believing that that's okay, then it will be too late to react.

Oh, my gosh, what if they are reading this right now, as I write. They are everywhere, these bloody commies. What if aaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh.............

Different play, same characters

Two weeks since the election. Some results keep falling. Yesterday, we learned that Ted Stevens, Senator from Alaska, a convicted felon, was NOT reelected. A convicted felon lost by so thin a margin that the results were official only two weeks after the election.
But hey, that's Alaska.

Two weeks.
What has happened?

Well, Barack is still here, of course. He will be for the next four years, eight years hopefully. Well actually, he might be here for the next forty years. Yes, apparently, according to some of the best experts -- they are speaking in the telly, so I suppose they are some of the best -- President-elect Obama is a Muslim Socialist taking the country on the slippery slope of dictatorship. So I wouldn't be surprised if one of the first measures Barack takes is shut down Congress, execute the Supreme Court Justices and take all powers in his own hands.
I am not sure that would be such a bad thing, especially if he locks up some of the best experts speaking in the telly.

So Barack is still here, and maybe for a while, but that's not surprising; after all, he was just elected.

Now, more surprising, Sarah is still here.
Oh my gosh, they keep talking about her. She actually keeps talking about herself. We have never seen so many interviews of her. When she was running for Vice President, she was also running away from the evil elite media. Now that she has lost, she talking to everybody.
Well, she might be running for President in 2012. If God shows her an open door.
Yes, guys, don't laugh, she has the experience now. Especially the experience of defeat. There is a rumor that the Obama campaign might raise funds for Palin's campaign in 2012.
Anyway, she does not have any other choice now if she wants to clean up Washington. She hoped to be a Senator. If the convicted felon, Ted Stevens, had won, the Senate would have thrown him out -- after all, he is a convicted felon -- and Sarah could have run for his seat.
But Stevens lost just barely -- well, he is a convicted felon -- so, Sarah won't be a Senator any time soon.

John is still here too. Guess what. Barack invited him for tea. He wants John to work with him. We expect John to be offered a position in the cabinet. Interesting, isn't it. When Barack was talking about bipartisanship on the campaign trail, he was apparently not lying like candidates usually do. This is a bit overwhelming.
What worries me, though, is that John might not be confirmed. If he pals around with Barack, he is actually palling around with a Muslim Socialist terrorist, and so John would be guilty by association, as his running mate Sarah so brilliantly explained the voters during the campaign.
Huh, that's tricky.
Anyway, I hope he will be confirmed, so that I don't have to change the title of my blog.

Finally, guess who's back.
Hillary. Hillary is back. Forget the hard feelings of the campaign during the primaries. Barack wants her to be Secretary of State, that is the person who deals with foreign policy, that is the one subject Barack and Hillary disagreed upon.
Confusing.

Anyway, that's what's going on right now.

Oh, something else. Last night, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was on David Letterman's show.
I felt a bit ashamed. For months, I made fun of my American friends because their country produced Sarah Palin.
And they got right back at me with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on TV.

Why John lost

It is time for finger-pointing in the Republican party.

A lot of Republican commentators and editorialists put the blame on the economic crisis. At the beginning of September, McCain was ahead in the polls. Then, there was the economic crisis. Then Obama won.

I think that is a bit too easy.

If McCain lost, it is not because of the economic crisis, but because of the way he handled it. He claimed repeatedly that the economy was fundamentally strong. He "suspended" his campaign to go to Washington give a hand, and then took 23 hours to go from New York to Washington. As David Letterman said then, at the time of the Founding Fathers, it did not take as long to take the trip.
As was said at the time, McCain was erratic and impulsive.
One major reason for his defeat.

One other main reason is, of course, his choice -- although I still believe it was not really his -- of Sarah Palin as a running mate.
Palin will be remembered as the most incompetent and the most ignorant candidate in the history of Vice-Presidential candidates, and a lot of voters, including some Republicans, saw that.

We already knew that she does not know the role of the Vice-President, and that she was incapable of citing one Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade.

We are learning more these days. From the McCain campaign, too.

Yesterday, some anonymous sources revealed that she did not know that Africa was a continent, that she thought South Africa was the southern part of a country. She did not know either that Canada, the US and Mexico were part of NAFTA.
We were also told she was a "shopaholic" during the campaign. One aide called her and her husband "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."

The Republicans are unleashing their frustration. It is a bit unfair, but it is so much fun.
I think we are going to learn much more about Palin in the next few weeks.

And I thought I would miss her.

But the main reason for John's defeat, let us not forget, is that Barack led the best, the most disciplined, the most honest, the cleanest campaign.

This is clearly Obama's victory more than it is McCain's defeat.

Post November 4 ethnic relations

It is quite incredible what is happening here after the election of Barack Hussein Obama (I like using his middle name because I feel that helps our racist friends out there to get used to it for the next four, sorry, eight years).

On election night, we saw Oprah and Jesse Jackson -- along with thousands of other people at the Obama rally in Chicago -- cry like babies. That was amusing and quite to be expected.

But yesterday, we saw Colin Powell, a Republican -- one of the best of them, for sure -- tear up in an interview as he was expressing his happiness for the Obama victory.

Wait, there is better.
Condoleeza Rice, current Secretary of State in the Bush administration, in an interview where she evoked the "extraordinary election" that has just taken place, could not hide shiny eyes from the camera.

Even Bush, whom -- whatever we think of his catastrophic presidency -- we cannot accuse of closing the door of his administration to people from diverse ethnic groups, sounded unusually sincere when he talked of the "stirring moment" that it will be when Barack, Michelle and their two girls walk into the White House.

Maybe I have stayed too much in the US and I am growing cheesy and sentimentalist, but that is something!

The New York Times titled "Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls."

Yet, I don't think this is the end of racism in the US.

Racial prejudice has undermined the whole campaign, in more or less covert ways. After seeing Obama on TV for two years, the question asked by Republicans, Who is Obama really?, was nothing short of racism.

Casting doubts on his religious affiliation as if being a Muslim was a bad thing was nothing but racism.
A student told the campus newspaper that she did not think Obama was a Christian. She said that if he cals himself a Christian, she might have to start calling herself something else.
I want to tell her that Yes, she should call herself something else.
Racist sounds appropriate.

Accusing prominent black political figures, like Colin Powell, of endorsing Obama just because of his black skin, was racism.

Thinking Obama was dangerous for the country was racism.

White men predicting that the Latino voters would never vote for a black man was clearly white racism.
The Latino community overwhelmingly voted for Obama.

Calling the US led by Obama an Obamination, as many people still do today, is racism.

I certainly do not want to be a killjoy. But I don't think such racist prejudices will disappear that easily.
Obama's victory is the best thing that could happen, but as I wrote yesterday, I think he owes his victory mainly to his phenomenal qualities as a political leader.

And I am pretty sure that, if not for racism, Barack Hussein Obama would have won in a landslide rather than just a sweeping victory.

Let's enjoy, but let's remain vigilant.

364

To be elected President, Barack Hussein Obama had to win 270 Electors.

Today, without counting Missouri and North Carolina, which according to the CNN website at 2.20pm Central Time, are still too close to call, Obama has won 349 Electors.
Missouri will probably go to McCain, who will then have 174 Electors.
North Carolina looks like it is going to go to Obama: he will have 364 Electors.

It is a huge victory. In 2004, Bush won with 271 Electors.

As far as the popular vote is concerned, the victory is also unquestionable. So far, Obama is winning with a margin of almost 7 million votes. Obama won 52% of the popular vote. McCain, 46%.

Enough with numbers. What is really significant is that Obama won nine states -- that is to say states who were traditionally red -- including some who had been red states for decades.

He won Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and probably North Carolina.
The most significant victories are of course Virginia and North Carolina, two states from what is called the Deep South.
All these states were won by Bush in 2000 and 2004, except New Mexico and Iowa, which were red in 2004 but blue in 2000.

This is important because it makes of Obama a President who is more than a sectional President. He is not a bi-coastal President. He represents all parts of the country.
What makes him a unifying President, also, is of course the popular vote, unfortunately not taken much into account in the broken Electoral College system ruling American presidential elections.
In many forever-red states, the margins between the Republican vote and the Democratic vote are smaller than they used to be. For example, in states like Nebraska or South Dakota, the distributions of votes in 2000 were close to 70-30. This year, they are getting closer to 60-40.
In Texas, the proportion is this year 55-45 for McCain. In 2000 and 2004, it was 60-40.

It is in Oklahoma, where I am now, that the margin is the widest: 65.6 for McCain, 34.4 for Obama.

I guess my blog has not been read by many Republicans.
Darn it!

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama

In 1865, slavery was abolished in the United States.
In 1954, the US Supreme Court declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional,
In 2008, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States.

Although the media had tried until yesterday not to focus too much on the amazing historical event that an Obama victory would represent, last night, after they called the election, CNN and MSNBC commentators were all about how racial relationships are going to change after this election. Jesse Jackson was crying. Oprah Winfrey was crying. Roland Martin, an African-American CNN journalist, was crying live on TV.

It is really an incredibly important event.

However, we should truly be amazed at the fact that it took so long, rather than at the fact that it finally happened.

Besides, what I find even more amazing -- and beautiful -- is that Barack won this election, he became the first black man to become President, without playing the historical card.
I followed this election closely and I do not recall one moment when Obama appealed specifically to black voters, not one moment he tried to convince the voters to vote for him because it would be a historical watershed moment.
On the contrary, to the end, even when the Republicans were calling one part of the country -- "real America" -- against the other part, Obama always and consistently called for unity.
I never heard him utter such phrases as "as a Black man," or "as an African-American," etc., etc.

He has never defined himself in terms of ethnic identity.

And I think the journalists and commentators should not make such a big deal now out of the fact that he is black. In a strange way, I think it is demeaning his victory. It is saying "People voted for Obama because they wanted to make history, they based their decision on the fact that he is black."

The sad truth is that the racism I saw in this campaign is so deep that it is not going to disappear so easily.

The happy truth is that Obama won this election not because he is black and making history but because he is incredibly smart, he has compassion, he knows the problems voters are facing and he addressed these problems, he sounded sincere all along his campaign. He was truly the best candidate of this campaign, and probably the best candidate in a long time.

And he will be a smart, intelligent, open-minded, tolerant President, and that is the best thing that could happen to this country who has cruelly lacked intelligence in the White House for many years.

Barack Hussein Obama did not win because he is black. This is just a plus. He won because he is brighter than most of us, and probably more honest than most politicians I have seen or heard.

On a humorous note, let me quote a comedian last night on the special show hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
"They were so focused on him being a Muslim and a Socialist, they forgot he was black."

O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!

A motley crew for Obama

On the way to Springfield, Missouri, to hear Barack's stump speech, I thought, for a minute only, We might get lucky and be able to take our seats in a half empty stadium.
The part of our five-hour car trip in Missouri was through deep red country. Not an Obama sign in sight, a lot of McCain signs. Farming countryside, trailer parks, etc.

When we got to Springfield and caught sight of the one-mile line, I knew I had day-dreamed.

In the reddest of the red counties of Missouri, a county called "Republican stonghold" by the local press, in the very same county where Palin had addressed 15,000 people a few days earlier, Obama had managed to attract about 40,000.

And I have to admit, there was something striking about this crowd. I had heard, of course, how Obama was uniting Americans, how he inspired so many people, etc., etc. And I had thought these comments a tiny bit sentimentalist-American-Dream-like. However, it was rather remarkable how diverse the crowd was.

A lot of old people and a lot of young people. Some probably too young to vote. The local newspaper this morning told the story of the two first persons to get in line at the stadium on Saturday morning. One was 17. She won't vote. The other was an Indian immigrant, not yet naturalized. She won't vote either. But they were there.

There were a lot of African-Americans of course, many of whom, I am pretty sure, had not voted in a long while because they had lost total trust in their politicians.

A man who looked like a biker, shaved head, long ZZ Top beard, whom I would have been scared of had I met him in a dark alley, was here with his African-American wife and their three children.

A family that, again with all the prejudices I am guilty of, I would have imagined part of narrow-minded ignorant white trash Republican America, believing Obama was a Muslim and believing that Muslim equalled terrorist, this family was in line behind us. As it happened, the 16-year-old daughter was taking French at school, although she was too shy to speak French with me.

I saw bumper stickers saying "Rednecks for America," which I find really funny. They actually have a website. Check it out.

B., of the couple that I mentioned in my previous blog, with whom we socialized, was telling us that he was a Christian for whom such issues as abortion and gay marriage had been moral dilemmas four years ago. He had voted for Bush. On Tuesday, he will vote for Obama.

And there was a French guy, who did not even drive fifteen minutes to go hear Royal, the candidate he voted for, giving a rally in his town. This weekend, he drove ten hours so that his kids could be part of a truly historical moment, and so that he could write about it in his blog.

There is, truly, something exceptional in this guy who is bound to become the next President of the US. He draws masses. He inspired millions to register to vote. Millions have already votes, waiting hours in line.

As the paper reported this black guy saying of the Rednecks for Obama, "it is beautiful."

Springfield, Missouri. Again!

This morning, I am waking up in Springfield, Missouri, again.
Last time I was there, I had a terrible night, and I blogged from my car at five in the morning.
It is a bit later today, and I am in the lobby of a nice motel.
I did not sleep well though.

But why am I in Springfield, Missouri, in the first place, since this seems to be a town where I am doomed to agitated sleepless nights?

Well, yesterday, Saturday November 1st, I received a message from Barack. I keep receiving emails from Barack, Michelle, Joe and the rest of the Democratic team.
He was telling me that he would be in Springfield, Missouri, that very night.

Remember how frustrated I had been, a couple of weeks ago, for missing Barack in St Louis.
Well, I ain't gonna miss him this time, says I to myself.

Sprinfield is a five-hour drive, though. Is it really reasonable?
No, it's not, let's do it.

LeAnn and the kids packed faster than they ever did and we hit the road in a small Prius with three kids in the back.
We left at 1.30pm, got in Springfield at 6.30pm. As we were looking for the stadium. we see a long line of people starting at about what our mapquest sheet says is about 1 mile away from the stadium.
We park, and we get in line. No time to look for a hotel.

It is not moving fast. But in there, we meet a very nice young couple, K. and B. They were also coming from Oklahoma City. Very nice and very interesting. Very excited about this election. We chatted all the way, they helped us with Alyenor, who was super hyper by the four lane road.
We were probably in line for two hours.

We finally got to the stadium. Packed with 40,000 people.
And it's happening. After an introduction by the local senator, Claire McCaskill, and by Michelle Obama, Barack comes up on stage.
And we are here, in the stadium, this time at the exact same time Barack is here, not three days before like in St Louis.
And we can see him. From very far, for sure, and on tiptoe, but we get glimpses. And we can hear him too. Well, we did not really listen much, because we had heard most of it on TV in the previous day.
But we are here. Shouting his name, yelling Yes We Can. Well, I was yelling Oui On Peut, so that he knows France supports him too, you know. We are here. Participating in this historical moment. The kids will have something to tell. Me too, even if I have to embellish it and exaggerate it.

He spoke for about half an hour. We had driven five hours, waited in line for two hours, we are about to drive five more hours.
It was worth every minute of it.

Campaign Trail

For Halloween, I was a Democrat campaign trail.
I was pretty scary for the folks in Noble, Oklahoma.

If Sarah Palin had not been with me, I would have got shot.

Don't elect me, I'm like you

On the Republican side, this whole campaign has been, overtly or in an underlying way, about accusing the other side of being elitist.

Elitist, in Republican rhetoric, is a slur, as well as socialist, redistributor (coined by McCain to describe Obama, just before he coined redistributionist in chief), liberal of course, etc., etc.

So John and Sarah pretend to be like any other American. It does not really matter that John owns seven houses and Sarah owns a plane. What matters is that, at heart and in talking, they are like us. You betcha!

Unfortunately, this pose does not always go as planned.

A few weeks ago, Sarah the Hockey Mom, dropped the puck at a hockey game (dropping the puck is "donner le coup d'envoi" for a soccer game, my dear French readers).
She was booed by the Hockey Joe Six-Packs filling up the stands.
Oops!

Yesterday, in Pennsylvania, Palin started her speech by saying it was a great pleasure to be in the home state of the Philadelphia Phillies (note for my French baseball-clueless friends, the Phillies, the baseball team from Philadelphia, just won what they call here the World's Series -- although the Americans are the only ones playing baseball, but shhh, some American friends are listening).
She was booed by the audience. Her own audience. Why? Because she was talking in western Pennsylvania, home of the arch-enemy of the Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Oops, again!

Yesterday also, McCain was campaigning in Ohio. He called Joe the Plumber on stage. "Joe, come on up... Joe, where are you? ... Joe??? Joe, I thought you were here with us today." Oops again! Joe was not there. Had his staff played a mean trick on John? It doesn't matter. John knows how to get out of such a dire strait honorably. "Well, it doesn't matter, you are all Joe the Plumbers," he said to the timidly cheering crown of 6,000 which included 4,000 high school students who had been bused in.

But why was he calling for Joe the Plumber, by the way?
Well, because Joe the Plumber had been campaigning for John and Sarah. He has been answering questions from the audience. Not just questions about plumbing. Nooooo. Questions about foreign policy. He agreed with an idiot in the audience saying that if Obama was elected, it would mean the death of Israel!

What the f...!!!

Joe, come on. Go back plumbing. I know you really want to be John's Secretary of State, but John is not going to win, so forget it.

I don't really understand why people don't want someone smarter than they are leading their country. I wouldn't want someone like me for President, and yet, I dare say I think I am reasonably smart.
They have had the dumbest president ever for the last eight years, and they haven't learned the lesson yet.
When I thought you could not produce a worse candidate than Bush, John invented Sarah.

Please, if you are not really smart, don't vote for the people who say they are like you.

Violence in the campaign

Last week, a young Republican supporter claimed that while getting money at an ATM she was attacked by a tall black man, "an Obama supporter" who had carved the letter B for Barack with a knife on her cheek.

As it turned out, it was a hoax. She had mutilated herself with a B on her cheek and invented the whole story. The hoax did not last long. The B was backwards. She had done it looking in a mirror.

Yesterday, we learned that two youngsters defining themselves as neo-Nazis, had planned to assassinate Barack Obama. Before that, they were planning to kill 88 black people, 14 by beheading. 14 and 88 are symbolic numbers for neo-Nazis. 14 is the number of words in a sentence uttered by a supremacist leader about preserving the white race and the white children. 8 corresponds to the letter H in the alphabet. Two 8 means two H, the initials for "Heil Hitler."

This is the kind of violence which goes with the current election. In previous posts, I wrote about the fact that the supremacists wanted Obama to be elected, I wrote about the outbursts of racist hatred coming out of McCain and Palin's audiences.
Quite incredibly, this violence, underlying or in the open, is becoming commonplace. People are hardly shocked by such news. They do not really question the deep-running causes of such hatred and violence.

It does not really matter how often the candidates on both sides will say that the US is the greatest country on earth, the US still has a long and continuing history of violence, racism, presidential assassination. What does it mean to be the greatest country on earth when such violence is commonplace?
And for my American readers, I have to insist that although I am saying this, I am not "a primitive anti-Americanist" as I was called once on national French radio. I love the US. I teach the US, I read the US, I married the US, I have US children.

I just think that if only all those people who claim they love their country so much simply questioned their country now and then, they could make it better.

I come from a country where the electoral campaigns are so boring that when the candidates call each other liars, it is a big deal. Just imagine!

Of course, the candidates are not responsible for all this violence. Well, kinda!

As I wrote in a previous post, Palin has not reacted in the least bit to the hateful outbursts coming from her audience. A reminder: "Off with his head!" "Kill him!' could be heard when Palin said Obama was "palling around with terrorists."
McCain has been very slow, and mild and awkward, in correcting the outbursts in his audience, taking the mike from a woman calling Obama "an Arab." A reminder of McCain's awkward response: "No, Ma'am, he is a decent family man." Awkward, but still the most soothing reaction he has had so far.

Since then, Obama has been linked to terrorists again and again. Until he was called a Socialist, also with underlying violence, since the socialism they are refering to here is not the Mitterandian socialism that we the French know, but something McCain, Palin and their surrogates confuse with Stalinist Communism.
Why is Obama called a socialist? Because he wants to "spread the wealth." That is he wants the rich to pay more taxes than the poor, and use that money to help the poor.
Finally, yesterday, commentator David Gergen had tried to remind everybody that this is not Socialism in the Communist sense of the word, it is Progressive Taxation, something that Teddy Roosevelt, McCain's model advocated and a policy that Reagan, another model of McCain and Palin's, implemented.

But that does not matter. "Socialist" and "terrorist" are uttered so often in the Republican stump speeches that they almost become synonyms, negative epithets that depict Barack Hussein Obama as a dangerous man. An editorialist has even gone so far as accusing Obama a "Muslim Socialist."
When Barack is finally elected next Tuesday, this is so stupid and absurd that it will be funny. Right now, though, it is stupid and scary.

One more thing: Colin Powell, a Republican who served in the Bush administration, endorsed Obama last week. He explained very clearly why he did so. He said that Obama was a transformational figure. He said that McCain's VP pick said much of his poor judgment. He gave a lot of reasons that he had thought through.
The following day, Rush Limbaugh, a racist, far-right radio host, yelled in his mike that Powell's endorsement of Obama was "totally about race."
It does not matter that Powell is an intelligent man with a lot of political and military experience. For Limbaugh, he is above all a black man, and that's why he endorsed Obama.
I guess all the white men's endorsements of McCain are also about race then.
I guess all white people will vote for the white candidate, and all black people will vote for Obama. I guess Limbaugh wishes that were true. McCain would win. But Obama will.

I am rambling.
What I mean to say, I guess, is that, yes, the candidates are partly responsible for all this violence. They blow on the glowing ashes.
McCain still have not said anything about the hoax I referred to at the beginning of this post. He needs to talk about it, and about all the rest. He needs to talk against this violence and this ambient racism.
He could lose with dignity, at least.

Lionel Hussein Larre

Republican volunteers and us

Hellow, my fellow Americans. Oops, this whole campaign rhetoric is getting to me.

So, what's up?

I'm okay, I guess. Slowly recovering from missing the biggest Obama rally in the history of the greatest country on earth.

Anyway, there is a huge lot to talk about. Some serious stuff, too. The campaign has become very very disturbingly ugly. Quite incredibly, what has dominated the campaign this week is racism. At a shocking level. I will write about that in a post later next week because I suspect this is not over.

There would be a lot to say, also, about Palin. Again. And about her shopping spree. $150,000 dollars in high-end clothes stores in the last eight weeks. But here again, I think Palin is not done yet with her daily blunders, so I'll write a comprehensive Palin post before Election Day.

I also need to write about Socialism, the new S word. Obama is accused everyday of being a Socialist, of wanting to "spread the wealth." Oooohh! Bad Obama, bad!

I could also talk about the new candidate, Joe the Plumber. Remember, my fellow French, in our last election, we had a lot of talk about "le plombier polonais." Well, that was nothing compared to how many times we hear the candidates refer to Joe the Plumber this week.

Anyway, a lot to write about.

But today, I would like to tell you about my last own adventure. Get the kids away from the screen, because it is kind of scary. But you know, I am an adventurer, and I am not afraid to face danger. I have spent a year in the Guiana rainforest, two years in the Libyan desert, including a night in a Libyan jail. Let me tell ya, that was nothing compared to today's adventure.

I paid a visit to the Republican headquarters in Norman, Oklahoma.

I did that quite innocently. I went in because I was looking for the best button ever, the one that says "Our VP is a hot chick."

But I went in with my wife, LeAnn and my two-year old daughter, Alyenor. And LeAnn loooooves to argue. Oh yeah, she does! (Love ya, honey).

There were a man and a lady in their fifties there, sitting at a table covered with pamphlets, leaflets, stickers and other campaign attire. I told them the object of my visit.
I wanted to pretend I was an independent voter and engage into a discussion with them. LeAnn could not refrain from saying we were from the other camp.

Havoc ensued. What follows are bits and pieces that I grasped when I could not turn a deaf enough ear to the whole conversation.

The lady said to LeAnn that she was a one-issue voter, that she was against abortion in all cases and that she could not vote for anyone, Republican or Democrat, that is "pro-abortion." I knew then, of course, that that lady would not be convinced by anything. LeAnn tried anyway.
I looked at the stickers and the buttons. The man looked at me looking at the buttons. And the ladies went on.

In the meantime, the lady would point at Alyenor and asking LeAnn questions like "Would you have aborted her if your life had depended on it?"
The question is so obviously stupid that I am not going to waste my time to comment on it. It is sad, though, that people make up their political minds on such generalizations and skewed interrogations.

LeAnn was trying to tell that lady that on such an issue, people cannot convince each other because they start from fundamentally different premises, etc, etc. She was right of course, so right that she did not convince that lady.

At some point, though, I could not refrain myself. The lady said that those Obama people don't care about babies. I had to say that this was nonsense and that people should not be characterized in such a way.
She said they were "pro-abortion." I said if they were "pro-abortion," they would encourage people to abort, and of course, they don't, so it is also nonsensical to use that label against your opponents.
So then, she asked me what experience Obama had to be President.
I said none. Obama does not have more or less experience than McCain and Palin, but Palin does not know what a Vice-President does.
She said that Palin is not running for President.
I said, No, she's running for Vice-President, and she does not know what a Vice-President does.
"Yes, she does."
"Well, she was asked that question several times, and she could not answer the question."
"Yes, she did."
"Well, I'm sorry, but she didn't"
"She does know what the Vice President does."
"Well, no, she doesn't. My French students know what the role of the Vice-President is," I lied, "and Palin does not. It is simply unbelievable."
"Well, it was nice talking with you. You have a nice family," said she very nicely, without an ounce of irony or sarcasm.
I said "Thank you" and that was the end of our conversation about whether or not Sarah Palin knows what the job she is applying for is about.

At the end of the day, I am thinking, that lady was a nice lady. She is the average citizen, with an average everyday unnoticeable life, like you and me. Really, what I am trying to say is that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that person. She was not mean to us, she was not aggressive. I might actually have been more aggressive in my trying to prove a point, which does not make me a superior to her.
But she is ignorant. I don't mean that disrespectfully. I am not saying she is stupid. She is just a misinformed voter who believes the lies she is being told because they tap into her core values.
Either you think beyond your core values, or you don't. Nobody, I am sure, enjoys the idea of abortion. At the core of everybody, there is the idea that abortion is not a cool thing. And then, some of us go beyond our core value and try to think and to get informed about the reality that abortion implies, the reality faced by women who consider an abortion. And although that reality does not resonate much with our core value, we think, we ponder, and we make up our mind.

Now, if you don't think and ponder beyond your core value, you are going to vote for the person that tells you that abortion is murder.

As LeAnn concisely put it to me on our way home, "I should have told her it is easy to be agaisnt abortion in all cases. Because it prevents you from facing the reality of the women who consider abortion."

The other day, Michael Moore said that Obama is not running against McCain, he is running against ignorance. He's right. Many working-class, struggling, Joe Six-Packs and Joe the Plumbers are going to vote against their best interest because they are lied to and they are not informed enough to see beyond the lies.

As a final note for today, I would like to write for my Presidency-and-Congress-class students who might happen to read this blog: When I ask what you know about the American Constitution and more specifically about the role of the Vice President, please don't be ashamed not to know anything about it. There is not shame for you not to know since one of the two Vice-Presidential candidates this year thinks that "the Vice-President is in charge of Congress" and can work with Congress at "policy-making."
Don't be ashamed not to know, but if you ever write that answer in your papers, don't be surprised if I call you Sarah, and that won't be a compliment.

Barack and I were in St Louis last weekend

Last week, we visited LeAnn's brother and family in St Louis, Missouri, unexpected toss-up state in the coming election.

Because Missouri is an unexpected toss-up state, Barack came to St Louis on Saturday.

And I did not even know of his coming before we took the trip. How lucky is that for someone as interested in the election as I am! The candidates do not publicize their campaign trail too much in advance because, especially in the last weeks, they go where they have a chance to overturn the Electoral votes. I suspect, it is also for security reasons. They do not want to give loonies too much time to plan an assassination.
Anyway, pure luck!

Barack spoke under the famous Gateway Arch by the Mississippi River, symbolizing the opening to the westward expansion. Incidentally, for Barack, it could symbolize many other things if you enjoy symbols. The Arch is standing across the highway from a white house. In that case, it is the white courthouse of St Louis. But it is not just any courthouse, it is the courthouse of the infamous Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was a slave who remained a slave after the US Supreme Court declared slavery constitutional in 1856. Barack, about to become the first black US President in the history of the country, was addressing 100,000 people on Saturday facing a white house which is a symbol of the peculiar institution that slavery was.
I am not sure Barack thought of all that when he decided to come speak there, but I enjoy the symbolism.

Anyway, I was in St Louis on that historical day.

We even had a picnic under the Arch. As we were having the picnic, with the kids running around, we saw four or five men in dark suits talking and looking like they were assessing the area. When I saw them, I immediately thought they were secret services personnel planning a political rally. It is funny how secret services personnel do not look secretive at all. They are conspicuous, a la James Bond. You know how different spies can be, right? There is the James Bond type, especially Sean Connery or Roger Moore-style, the most famous spy ever, telling everyone, including the villains, "My name is Bond, James Bond." He might as well add, "I work as a spy in the service of Her Majesty, and I have a license to kill that I intend to use against you after I have jumped from a few buildings and chased you with my fancy conspicuous car. Oh, and by the way, I am great in bed, as your girlfriend is about to find out." And there is the Jason Bourne/Matt Damon type -- or Ferris/Leo DiCaprio in the last Ridley Scott movie Body of Lies. Bourne has a hundred different passports, spends his life hiding, never gives his real name.
Well, the "spies" I saw under the Arch in St Louis were clearly the James Bond conspicuous type, although I suspect they do not have the same qualities as James Bond himself (I am not talking about the good-in-bed part, here, I don't know about that, and did not have time to ask).
Okay, I probably recognized them as secret services personnel also because on the way to Missouri, we had heard on the radio that Jill Biden, the democratic VP candidate's wife, was planning to spend a few days campaigning in Missouri, in yet unknown places.

Anyway, Barack, not Jill, came to St Louis to speak on Saturday.

In the morning, I took the family to the Cahokia mounds in nearby Illinois, Obama state. The mounds -- pyramid-like structures -- were built by Cahokia Indians between 900 and 1200 AD. Besides being very interested in American politics, I am also very interested in Native American history, so that was a great place to go to. Great museum, amazing mound sights. The kids had fun and learned a lot. Great.

Then, we went home and had a nap. Well, Alyenor, my three-year old needed a nap, and I took one too because I was knackered after the crazy day we had spent on Friday at the crazy City Museum.

After the nap, we went to town and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, the loudest restaurant I have ever been to, and after I paid a bill that made me feel like I was a communist government bailing out the freaking place, we went home and went to bed.

What about the Obama rally? you might wonder, dear reader.

Well, that's the beauty of it. I went to the Arch on Wednesday. I saw the spies on Wednesday. Barack came to St Louis on Saturday. Under the Arch where I had a picnic on Wednesday, he gave the most important political rally in the history of the universe on Saturday. At the time he was giving a speech under the Arch, I was having a nap and a lousy expensive dinner in the most annoying restaurant in the history of the universe. I learned about the Obama rally on Sunday morning in the paper. Obama gave a speech in front of 100,000 people, and I was three blocks away! I am writing a blog on this election, and I was three blocks away from Barack Obama and I missed him!

I missed Barack Obama, although I was three freaking blocks away from him! I went to the Arch three days before him!

Barack, Michelle, Joe, David Plouffe, the campaign manager, send me emails every single day, several emails every day, and I did not know Barack would be three blocks away from me!

How dumb is that!!

I am so dumb I might vote Republican, and I am not even an American voter.

Dear reader, if you can't believe what you have just read, it is simply because it is too darn stupid to be true. Read it again.

Now, I need to go blow my brains out.

Adieu.

O like Obama?

A few days ago, Barack Obama gave a speech in front of flags that looked that the American flag but instead of the fifty stars representing the states, there was a big O in the blue part of the flag.

Some kind of conservative radio commentator said that really, standing in front of an American flag which had been transformed to fit a big O for Obama was wrong, unpatriotic, and that it was the sign of someone who would become "a potentate, a dictator."

Well, in fact, Obama was standing in front of the Ohio flag. O like Ohio, not Obama.

Is it me, or anytime there's the most idiotic comment out there, it is from a Republican?

Miscellany in a rental car

As I am waiting the kids to snore and sniff the night away, and since the nice lady at the reception does not want to let me sit in the lobby waiting for breakfast time, I am blogging my waking night away with random thoughts and breaking news from the campaign trail.

It is 5.00 am, I am on the parking lot of an Econolodge (more econo than lodge) in Springfied, Missouri, and I don't see any candidate around. Yet, surprisingly, Missouri is a battleground this year.

Missouri is one of the few traditionally red states which are about to turn blue this year, if something horrific does not happen before. Among the other states in the same situation are North Carolina, Nevada and Virginia. It does not sound crazy, but trust me, it is.

Obama could be elected in a landslide.

Yet, some people are talking about the Bradley effect. Bradley was a black candidate running for mayor of Los Angeles in the eighties. The polls saw him win easily. On Election Day, he lost. Many people had said they would vote for him, but at the last minute, in the privacy of the booth, they did not vote for the black guy. This is the Bradley effect.

Some journalists who like to scare themselves argue there might be a Bradley effect with Obama. Others argue, however, that if there was to be a Bradley effect, it would have taken place during the primaries. They are probably right.

Two days ago, the chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia declared that both Obama and Bin Laden have friends who bombed the Pentagon, and that's scary.

I don't think I need to comment on that.

A few days ago, at McCain/Palin rallies, there was a sign saying Obama Bin Lyin'.

Also, there was a man holding a stuffed monkey with an Obama head band.

I don't think I need to comment on those either.

McCain and Palin have not yet repudiated the "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!" shouts heard at their rallies.

Last Friday, an independent investigation declared that Palin had abused her power in Alaska.

All weekend, Palin was declaring that she was very happy that the investigation cleared her of any legal infraction.

Go figure.

Tonight is the last debate, and I hope my hosts will let me watch it.

I'm gonna try to grab some breakfast now.

Hatemongers

This has been the craziest week I have ever seen in a political campaign.

Crazy and scary, really, sad, pathetic, dangerous.

A month or two ago, a friend of mine, Jack, and I were talking about the campaign. At the time, there was a rhetoric the Republicans had just barely started to use, and they used it very occasionally, consisting in saying that we don't really know who Barack Obama is. Jack thought that this rhetoric was really code language to say "He is black. We can't have a black president."

It made much sense to me when we had this conversation. Since then, though, the economic crisis has been forefront and the question "Who is Barack Obama really?" was dropped.

This week, this rhetoric has come back full swing, and in a very ugly way.

And Jack was right.

Last weekend, as I wrote previously, Sarah Palin started to link Obama to terrorists. The exact quote was: "Obama thinks America is so imperfect that he pals around with domestic terrorists." Since then, she has repeated this kind of attack everytime she had an opportunity, depicting him as someone who is "not one of us," "not a man who sees America like you and I see America."
At one of her rallies, a sheriff talked of Barack Hussein Obama, emphasizing Obama's middle name.

The code is hardly veiled now. Clearly, this whole rhetoric appeals to old subconscious fears and hatred in American people's minds.

Now here is the scary part: it works, it does arouse what the worst in the audience's subconscience (and I am saying it is subconscious only to be polite). When Palin or McCain talked about Obama at their rallies this week, you could hear people screaming "Terrorist!" "Kill him!" or even "Bomb Obama!"

Palin and McCain did not try to shut them up. They can't even tell they did not hear them to justify their inaction, because on one occasion, after we hear "Terrorist!" from the crowd, we can see McCain frown. He frowns in disapproval, he just can't believe he heard that, but he continues as if nothing had happened.
This is wrong, very wrong. Even if the US did not have the history of presidential assassination and of black lynching it has, it would be wrong to let people get away with this kind of outbursts.

And McCain knows it is wrong (I am not so sure about Palin) and he redeemed himself slightly.
Yesterday, at a town hall meeting, after a man in the audience told him he had to "fight" and a woman said: "I don't trust Obama, he's an Arab," McCain actually, albeit awkwardly, defend Obama.
He literally took the microphone from the woman and said: "No, Ma'am, no, Ma'am, he's not, he is a decent family man." Of course, it is a bit awkward since this response to "Obama is an Arab" kind of implies you can be an Arab and a decent family man at the same time. But, McCain reacted in the spur of the moment, improvised, and I am not going to be too picky. To the man asking him to fight, he answered that he will, but respectfully. He said he respects Obama, that Obama is a decent man, with a decent record; he disagrees with him, and he thinks he would be a better president than Obama, but Obama is a decent man.
As he was saying all that, McCain was booed by his own audience. But he went on.

I have to say, I was flabbergasted. These images were riveting, fascinating to watch. Not really because this was beyond who McCain is, but because it was completely inconsistent with the rest of the week.

Here is my theory, for whatever it's worth. I do think McCain is a decent and honest politician. I think his policies are not good, but he is a good guy. And I think he did not control his campaign. I think he was not free to choose the VP he wanted and he is not free to choose the campaign he wants.
The Republicans do not like McCain, he is not their favorite candidate. I think he was forced by the Republican strategists to pick Palin, a woman that he had met once before and who had never been mentioned as a possible pick, who had not even run for the nomination. I think the strategists use Palin now as a pitbull but I think McCain disapproves. McCain lost to Bush in 2000 after the Bush campaign launched a rumor saying that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock! So, I don't think McCain really wants to play that ugly.
Yesterday, when he defended Obama, he became himself again, rebelling against the strategists of his party.
Sure, he might have realized also that people had enough of hearing this kind of crap when they are losing money everyday in the stock market.

What a crazy week this was!
To crown it all, we heard yesterday of the results of an investigation taking place in Alaska to find out whether Palin abused her power when she fired the head of the State Troopers because he refused to fire her former brother-in-law who had given a hard time to her sister. It turns out, she did abuse her power.
Of course, she says now that the investigation was biased. The problem is, the judiciary committee which led the investigation was composed of a majority of Republicans.

Don't throw the first stone, Sarah. The glass ceiling you were talking about when we first met you might collapse on your cute little face.

What is Sarah running for?

Sarah Palin declared today that this campaign is at a "halfway point"?

Oh my gosh, that's why she is so bad. She thinks she has time to prepare and learn about stuff, because she thinks she is running for the Republican primaries of an election that would take place next year.

Be nice, Republican friends. I know you are kind of ashamed of your VP pick now, but you need to tell her that the election takes place in 27 days.

President Obama

Last night, Tuesday October 7th, was the second of the three presidential debates.

John was supposed to carry it because it was a format he is used to, the town-hall format. Questions were from the audience, follow-up questions was from moderator Tom Brokaw from NBC.

Before the debate, there was a lot of anticipation of nasty attacks on character, as they call it. For the three previous days, the Republicans had tried to tie Obama to a former "domestic terrorist."

The problem is, yesterday the Dow Jones went down more than 500. So McCain could not possibly sling mud and retain some appearance of decency.

He attacked though, repeating over and over than that Obama wanted to raise taxes when the latter repeats over and over again that he will not, or repeating over and over that Obama does not understand foreign policy.
Barack then responded: It is true, I don't understand. I don't understand why we invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Oops.

As far as contents and policies go, the debate was quite enlightening, both candidates explaining more or less clearly what they would do. Hear both and choose. My writing here that I think Obama's policies would be better is rather useless.

What is interesting though is how each candidate manages to contradict their opponent and explain why their opponent's policies are wrong. At that game, Obama clearly won, explaining very clearly, not being too professorial -- that is his Achilles' heel -- "Achilles' what? Let me come right back to ya" -- okay, Sarah, do that, take your time -- explaining very clearly, I was saying, why, for example, McCain's health care plan would make things much much worse.
On the other hand, the typical response McCain gave to basically any topic was "Look at my record, my friends."

Since all this is a show anyway, let's talk about style. After all, a huge proportion of voters base their decision on style.
John simply looked like an arrogant, condescending, patronizing jerk. At one point, he even called Barack "that one" (that is a big deal in the news studios today). He had a smirk on his face, he hardly ever looked at his opponent. He said to one guy in the audience who had asked a question: "You probably did not know what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were before recently but..." How awkward! It might have been true, but a candidate should not assume his voters don't know what he is talking about.

On the contrary, Barack was cool, man, amazingly so. The guy remains so calm under attack it is almost creepy. While McCain lashed at him, he was looking straight at his opponent, relaxed, happy to be there, no worries, never trying to interrupt, not shaking his head, nothing.
Then, he gets up and says, after an attack on his foreign policy experience: "John McCain seems to think I am green behind the ears, that he is the sober one..."
John interrupts saying "thank you" with a big smug smile on his face.
Barack continue: "... but John is the one who sang Bomb bomb bomb, Bomb bomb Iran, he is the one who after Afghanistan said 'Next stop, Baghdad.'"
A fortunate cut showed McCain in the background. His smile was yellow, as we say in French.

The first post-debate polls showed a huge advantage for Barack.

There is no way the campaign is going to get uglier and uglier. And there is no way McCain is going to win however ugly he gets.

If Barack is a terrorist...

That's it. It's getting dirty. A month before the election, the McCain campaign knows they cannot win on issues, especially on the issue number one among Americans polled, the economy. So, they are getting dirty. That's how the Republicans win their elections.

They let go of the pitbull. They sure put some lipstick on it, but you can put lipstick on a pitbull, it's still a pitbull.

For the past three days, Sarah Palin has emphasized some link Barack had with Bill Ayers, a radical anti-Vietnam war activist of the 60s whom she calls "a domestic terrorist."

We are back to the tactics used before the summer to try to depict Barack Obama as a mysterious guy whom people don't really know. There are some fishy things about him.
First, he is black of course. Experts say that this fact probably costs him about 5 percentage points. You can actually hear people saying it is a problem for them to elect a black president.

Then, his middle name is Hussein. Barack Hussein Obama. That's not very American, is it? Hussein, Hussein, hmm, it rings a bell. Didn't we just hang a dictator called Hussein? Even a guy with Milhous as a middle name would be better off (that was Richard Milhous Nixon).

Oh, and he attended a muslim school in Indonesia when he was a kid. So, he is a Muslim.

Now, in today's context, what does the whole picture represent? A stroke of former ties with a radical activist, a stroke of "Hussein is his middle name," a stroke of "he attended a Muslim school," take a few steps back and you have portrayed Barack Obama as a terrorist.

If someone would have told me that the Republicans were cynical enough to do this, I would not have believed it. This has to be the dirtiest campaign I have ever heard of.

It is too early to know if people buy that. But I wouldn't be surprised. Ignorance and fear are the two pillars of a Republican victory.

What that move truly does, though, is debunking the seriousness of terrorism. American voters who are afraid of terrorism, who were terrified and horrified at the planes crashing in the World Trade Center should realize that people who use images of 9/11 during their convention, who play so lightly with the words terrorist and terrorism are not trustworthy.

In my world, Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist. If Barack is in fact a terrorist, I guess Osama Bin Laden is Jesus!

Vote Osama Bin Laden, then.

Folksy Sarah!

Well, last night's VP debate was quite disappointment.

I did not really expect Sarah to go down in flames -- since I was sure she would come prepared and that the campaign staff forbade her to say again that she is a foreign policy expert because she can see Russia from her bedroom window -- but I certainly hoped she would commit more blunders. I even performed a little bit of witchcraft in my backyard to make her say that Canada should be attacked and invaded because they have nuclear -- by the way, I think she says that word the Bush way, "nukelar" or something like that -- weapons directed at Alaska.

No, she did not blunder too much, but she did not answer the questions either when the answers she learned by heart did not fit. The way she changed the topic of the questions asked was quite incredible. They all come up with rote answers to some extent, but I had never seen anyone ignore the questions like she did.

Towards the end, there was this beautiful moment when the moderator asked the debaters what were their "Achilles' heels." Her answer to that humbling question was to explain how prepared she was for the job, how much her experience as mayor would make her the perfect VP, etc., etc.
Joe Biden kind of did the same thing, but only after acknowledging the question with humility.
I think Sarah's answer there was not only the same technique of changing the topic. I think she did not understand the question, she does not know what Achilles' heel means!

Anyway, contentwise, the debate was relatively interesting. Joe Biden knows what he is talking about. Sarah Palin wants diplomacy but without sitting at the table with foreign leaders. To the question, Do you support same-sex marriage? they both answered The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, but Joe Biden said he supports equal civil rights for gay couples. When Sarah was asked Do you support equal civil rights for gay couples? she answered the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.
????

Are you gonna raise taxes? The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.

Do you want to attack Pakistan? The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.

Do you see Russia from your house? The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.

In the end, what will be remembered of the debate is that Sarah is just like us, she is just like me "Joe Six-Pack" and you "Hockey Mom." And she talks like us. She is folksy, because that's just who she is, us. So, repeatedly, she said:

"I betcha"
"you're darn right"
"Joe Six-Pack"
"Hockey Mom"
"in Alaska up there" (a hundred times)
"also" (a million times)
"Obama, he" or "John and I, we"
"blessed their hearts"
"to tap into 'em"
"ready to back ye up"
"I tell ya"
"I can't wait to work with ya"

For the intonations and the face language that is just like ya, see video on the net.

Now, I want to tell my numerous American readers: Beware! Talking like the man in the street, sorry, like Joe Six-Pack or your regular "Hockey Mom," works. How do I know? Our dear French President Nicolas Sarkozy did it.

Never underestimate the power of language.

Anyway, I really look forward for this country to be governed by Joe Six-Pack and Hockey Mom, because really, what is so hard in governing a country that Joe Six-Pack and Hockey Mom can't do it. Those Liberals with all their Ph.Ds and expertise are not going to tell us how the world works. What do they know? They have spent their time learning stuff in libraries, how do they know how to look into foreign leaders' eyes and see their soul?

John, Barack and populism

The bailout plan has failed.

Congress is about to try again to pass it. I am not quite sure what sense it makes to reject a bill one week and accept it the next, but that is what seems to be about to happen. To be more successful, some people suggest that they should stop calling it "bailout plan" but "rescue plan."
Power to the language!

Anyway, I don't really know if they should approve this bill or not because I don't understand much of the economy generally speaking.

There is one thing I know though. It is that both Barack and John, who both support the bailout /rescue plan are very populist about it.

They, and many others -- supporting or opposing the bill -- keep saying that Main Street -- that is the average Americans, the small businesses and their employees, the taxpayers -- should not pay for Wall Street's mistakes and greed.

This is highly hypocritical, or blind.

There is no denying that Wall Street shares a huge responsibility in the current disastrous economic crisis.
But Main Street is also responsible.

Generally speaking, Americans live way above their means. I read this morning that American cardholders have in average nine credit cards in their wallet. Americans live on credit. They buy houses they can't afford, they buy cars they can't afford, they buy huge TVs they can't afford, they have to have the last new thing, even if they can't afford it. How do they do that? They pay with plastic. That is, they pay until they can't.

I go to campus everyday. A huge number of students drive huge cars that I could not afford. All of them are not from rich families. Yet, they drive big brand new SUVs or sports cars. How do they do that? They go in debt forever.

Every other day, when I go see my daughter's soft ball game or my son's football game, I see 12 year-olds playing with their iPhone. Do they really need an iPhone at their age?

This way of life is unhealthy. It can't go on forever. People buy and buy and buy, but they don't own anything. The banks and credit companies own people's houses, cars, TVs, iPhones.

At the end of the day, the US as a whole owes so much to China that the US does not own anything.
China owns the US.

If the candidates cannot face this reality, I am not sure people are going to change their mindset.
The sad part is that even if the economy collapses, I don't think people are going to wake up and understand they need to change their way of life.
They will keep blaming Wall Street, with the blessing of their leaders.

It's starting to dawn on them

Two weeks ago, everybody was crazy about Sarah.

Today, we know her.

Today, Kathleen Parker, a very Conservative editorialist -- I already mentioned her --, someone who called sexist people who criticized Sarah Palin, someone who talked about media persecution, someone who loved Sarah, is starting to, well, see a bit more clearly.

She authored a paper entitled "Palin should bow out," in which she simply asks Sarah to give up, to leave the ticket, five weeks before Election Day.

Parker is waking up because this week "a more complicated picture has emerged." She is referring to the financial crisis and suggesting that it might not be enough for Palin to be "introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick."
So apparently, the financial crisis is just recent, and before it emerged, being a hockey mom was enough to be Vice-President of the United States.

More than the financial crisis, I think that this week's interview of Palin by Katie Couric is striking the last blow. Watching these interviews is just embarrassing. I mean, it is embarrassing for me who is not even voting in this election, so just imagine how it must feel when you are a smart Republican (yes, there are a few). It must be simply unbearable to see their VP candidate once again argue that she is qualified to deal with Russia because it is Alaska's neighbor. The first time she said that, you could forgive her. When she repeats it every time she has an opportunity, she just does not look quite bright. Parker still argues that Palin has "common sense" but I don't think that arguing this ridiculous point over and over again is a proof of common sense. It is just dumb.

So now, Parker is calling Sarah "a problem." She was boosting the Republican party three weeks ago, and today she is a problem, a hindrance, for the Republican party.

Parker confesses that she was "delighted" when Sarah appeared. "Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire." There lies the rub. This election should not be about fun. It is kind of a serious job. And call me elitist if you want but, yes, I think you need to have more than a BA in journalism to fill in the position honorably. Any body with her qualifications would not dare apply to any high-rank position in a corporation and she dares apply to the second to highest-rank position in a country which has a lot of huge crises to solve! What the heck!

So, although she hates saying it, Parker says it. She watches the interviews "with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted."

Parkers adds: "Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there." And then she gives examples of circumvoluted nonsensical answers given by Palin, answers you can hear on youtube or CBS and a slight caricature of which is brilliantly performed by Tina Fey (see my blog, or youtube, or Saturday Night Live website).

Parker's most brilliant line must be the already proverbial: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

Parker adds: "If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing."

She concludes thus: "McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate." If she was his choice. I won't be surprised to learn soon that he was pressured by the party into picking her.
Parker's final words: "Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first. Do it for your country."

Well, it's gonna take some Democrats to defend Palin before long.

Next Thursday is the VP debate, unless the McCain campaign pulls out another stunt to get out of it.

Who won the first debate?

Yesterday morning, on the web, there was an ad claiming "McCain won the debate."

Only one problem: the debate took place last night. That ad appeared even before John confirmed that he would attend to debate, thereby suspending the suspension of his campaign. The unbearable suspense was over.

If John won the debate before the debate, who won the debate after the debate actually took place?

Well, that's not an easy one.

My first gut feeling was that John won the debate. Not because the policies he advocated are better, but because I think he said what people wanted to hear.
Barack exposed policies that I think more efficient, more intelligent and less simplistic. But that is exactly why he might have lost the debate. We know how most voters work.

A few random facts, first about the style of the candidates, then about the contents of what they said.

John never looked at Barack. He was speaking about "Senator Obama" in the third person, addressing and looking only at the moderator. He never looked at the camera -- that is the American people and myself.

Barack talked about "John" and he looked at him, using "you" instead of "he." A couple of times, he looked at me -- that is into the camera.

John did not blunder -- except on the name of Ahmadinejahd, but I don't think that counts -- as he had done for the previous two weeks every time he attempted to talk about the economy.

Barack said several times that he agreed with John, or that John was right, etc.

First conclusions: John did much better than I had seen him do before. However, he looked contemptuous, never looking at his opponent, never addressing him. Many commentators thought he looked angry. I did not perceive it that way, but I might be wrong. To me, his avoiding to look at Barack made him look strong, straight in his boots, an unflinching tough guy. A commander-in-chief kind of guy. This is exactly why John might have won the debate. Many people want to see a tough guy in the White House these days.

Barack did not look as lecturing as he might have. He actually appeared rather gentlemanly. Maybe too much. There is no doubt the Republicans are going to rehash today that Barack said he agreed with John about ten times. They will of course ignore the fact that everytime he agreed with John, it was to better bring up a distinction, a point about which they were in fundamental disagreement.
I don't think Barack was punchy enough, especially during the first part of the debate dealing with the economy. He let John talk about government spending without telling him what I think he should have told him: It is not about how much the government spends, it is about how and where the government spends.

By the way, it was quite ironic to hear them talk about how bad government spending is just when the government is about to spend $700 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street.

Content-wise, given the fact that John really sucks at economics, I think he won the part of the debate dealing with the economy. Again, not because I think his policies are better -- on health care, for example, he repeated that a governmental health care system would be bad because "the government should not be between the doctor and the patient" (oh my god! I can't hear that crap anymore; Keith, make me come to your show so that I can explain a few things about a governmental health care system) and that families should be able to choose their health care plan (meaning they can choose between daylight robbery and shameless rip-off) -- not because his policies are better -- I was saying before ranting -- but because he was simplistic enough for people to understand what he was saying.

On foreign policy, though, Barack was brilliant. Maybe too brilliant, too savvy, with too much in-depth analysis. He demonstrated that he knows the world as it is, but I am not sure people want to hear that Ahmadinejahd is not the most powerful man in Iran. I think people want to hear that Ahmadinejahd is a bastard and he should be hanged.

However, Barack probably scored points -- with undecided voters, not with Republican voters -- when he drove home that John was wrong about the war in Iraq: When you said the war would be quick and easy, you were wrong; when you said we would find weapons of mass destruction, you were wrong; when you said Al Qaeda was in Iraq, you were wrong.
That was probably the strongest Obama moment.

Barack was also politically smarter when he advocated for more diplomacy, saying that the US need to sit with rogue states and talk.
John tried to ridicule the idea that the US President should sit with people like Ahmadinejahd without pre-conditions.
Barack made clear he is not talking about the President himself inviting Ahmadinejahd "for tea," but a US representative sitting with an Iranian representative. One of his strong lines was when he said that "without preconditions" means that the US can't tell Iran or Pakistan, We will meet with you only after you have done exactly what we want you to do.

Untill the Americans understand that point, they will be unsafe, and the world will be full of "people who don't like us," as John said again. At some point, the Americans are going to have to wonder why there are so many people who don't like them. Barack emphasized that when he said several times that the US is not respected anymore as it used to be.

There were many other points worthy of commentary during this debate, but I am ranting and it's not coming back to me right now.

Just one last point. Although Barack advocated more diplomacy in US foreign policy, he still appeared like he would not hesitate to go to war against Iran or Pakistan if needs be. The US seems to be doomed to be a bellicose nation. Barack even agreed with John that Iran is building nuclear weapons. To my knowledge -- but I am no expert and please comment and talk me down if you know better -- Iran's building nuclear weapons has not been proved more strongly than Iraq's WMD yet. As far as I know, all we know about Iran's nuclear activities is that they are civilian programs, which should be fine.
More fundamentally, I think there is a problem when the country with the most powerful nuclear arsenal orders another country not to have any nuclear activities.

Anyway, if you have seen the debate, please leave comments, hightlight things that I have not mentioned, give me your input.

Next Thursday, it's VP debate day. Joe Biden, the most savvy of them all about the world at large, vs. Sarah Palin, who can see Russia from her bedroom.

By the way, just a quick note about Sarah (it's hard to resist talking about her): more and more Republicans are embarrassed at the interview she gave to Katie Couric this week (you can see bits of it on my facebook or on CBS website). One Conservative female editorialist even said: "If BS [bullshit] was currency, Sarah Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

Adishats!

How did John sleep?

Wow!

It is difficult to keep track with this campaign when blogging about it is not the only thing you have to do. I’m no Meghan McCain.

Tonight is the big night. The first debate between Barack and... well... an empty chair. At least, that’s the state of our knowledge this morning of September 26, 2008.

Two days ago, as I already wrote, John decided to “suspend” his campaign to go to Washington to save the world economy. Well, he said suspend, but he did not really suspend his campaign, no, we kept seeing his surrogates on TV who explained that he had “suspended” his campaign. Actually, we saw John in person saying quite a lot why he was “suspending” his campaign.
Of course, everybody knows now that the very “suspension” of his campaign was one more brilliant campaign stratagem.
When I say brilliant, that is of course to the measure of the Palin-pick standard of political brilliance.

I am writing this during the commercial breaks of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who just described John as the only man who overreacts at an event which is ten days old.
That is exactly what this “campaign suspension” looks like.

So anyway, he suspended his campaign and asked for a delay of the debate due to take place on Friday night.

Suspense!!!! (over the suspension...)

The truth is probably, of course, than John does not want to debate. Because he does not really know what he is talking about, as is made obvious by the big perspiration drops rolling down his temples during the interviews he dares give.
You know, I will have to write a blog about the Republican ticket interviews, because I have never quite seen something like that anymore. Sarah Palin, in particular, is quite something. Yesterday, again, she said to Katie Couric of CBS that she has foreign policy experience because Russia is Alaska’s neighbor, and when the Russians violate American airspace, they will be over Alaska first. I mean, you don’t get better than that. Or maybe you could by saying that from Alaska, you can see Russia. Oh, wait a minute. She did that already.

The truth is also that John faces an incredible dilemma. He says the Paulson bailout plan (the government spends $700 billion dollars to save the economy) is a bad plan because the taxpayers should not have to pay this kind of money. That is basically the general opinion. A poll yesterday showed that a bit less than a third of the Americans favor the plan, a bit more than a third do not, and about a third are undecided. If such a huge measure does not get immediate widespread enthusiastic support, it is not a good sign. On Thursday morning in the very Conservative Oklahoman – my new Bible – where the readers’ letters are usually about how you should love America or leave it, or about how the President should be very very Christian, or how abortion is murder etc, etc, well, on Thursday, all the letters were about how the taxpayers should not have to save Wall Street.
Just a sign.

The interesting thing is that from both sides, they are against this plan for different reasons: on the left, they obviously do not want rich businessmen who benefited from years of Republican deregulations to be saved from their blunders and on the right, they see this plan as Socialism, which to them is synonymous with Soviet policies (cf. Previous posts).

So here is John’s conundrum. Either he does not sign the plan as a Senator and a majority does not sign it and the economy collapses; he does not sign the plan but the plan passes and is successful and he was not one of the saviors; he does sign the plan and he alienates the base who does not want the plan and his fellow Republicans who consider that regulating the market is Stalinist socialism.

Yesterday, at the beginning of the afternoon, Congressmen were saying that they were about to hit a deal. Two hours later, one of them came out of the room and announced that they were far from a deal yet, that there were some fundamental disagreements.
What happened in the meantime?
John arrived to Washington.
I’m not kidding.

In any case, all this is very exciting. Kind of in a pathetic way, but exciting all the same. I have never seen such a campaign, and apparently, a lot of people feel the same.
Really, my non-intellectualized gut feeling when I see McCain interviewed is that he knows he is fighting a lost battle. He knows there is no way he can win, so he is attempting the craziest moves: he picks a VP running mate who literally stutters when asked a serious question, whose body language clearly, unmistakebly shows she has no clue about anything except moose-hunting (I mean really, I can’t describe it but please view some of interviews on the net if you don’t have access to US TV channels), and whose lies and manipulations of investigations and pork-barrel politics are unveiled every single day; he approves ads saying that Obama wants to teach kindergartners sex education; then for ten days of a major economic crisis, he keeps saying the US economy is fundamentally strong before he finally declares he suspends his campaign to go solve this major crisis.

The cynical interpretation of all that is that while he is doing all those crazy things, the press is talking about him, and on November 4th, a big proportion will vote for the guy whose name is the most familiar.
This is working. When you look at this campaign, and when you add it to a very unpopular President who blundered during eight years, and you put on top of that an economic crisis, which historically is never good for the incumbent, then you would think that the margin between the two candidates would be 20 percentage points. Instead, they are in a dead heat. And not because Obama is running a bad campaign, like only our very own French Socialists know how to run.
It is quite unbelievable.

Well, I am looking forward to tonight.

Sleep well, John.

Katie and Sarah

Just a quick note.

I've just seen Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin.

Katie asked Sarah several times to give her examples of John McCain pushing for more economic regulations in his 26-year career in Washington.

Sarah weaseled out of the answer.

Katie insisted.

Sarah answered: "Well, I'm gonna find some and I will get them right back to ya."

That was a homage to her running mate's answer to the question "How many houses do you own?"

John our hero

On Friday, the first presidential debate between John and Barack was supposed to take place.

However, John has just announced that he would suspend his campaign on Thursday in order to go to Washington to help solve the economic crisis. He is asking to postpone the debate.

After the brilliant Palin move, here is John's brilliant let-us-solve-the-crisis-before-campaigning move.

Either Barack will refuse, and he will look like the bad guy since Oh my God, the presidential campaign is more important for him than the millions of Americans suffering from the crisis.

Or Barack will accept, and the debate is not going to take place on time, which might be slightly relieving to John.

All this does not matter anyway, because John is here to save us. He's going to Washington and everything is gonna be okay. Be relieved, World, John is going to solve the crisis that his cronies and his party's political philosophy have entailed. A bipartisan Congressional commission is working on it right now, examining the presidential bill of an appropriation of $700 billion to bailout the economy, but they probably do not know what they are doing.

John, on the contrary, these last two weeks, has shown his economic expertise, by saying the economy is fundamentally strong, by calling for a 9/11 Commission of the economy, etc, etc.

Go get'em, Johnny! As you keep saying, you have taken on tougher guys!

Ronald lives on

"In this present crisis, the government is not the solution to our problem. The government is the problem."

This statement, by Ronald Reagan, lives on today and is one of those sloganish statements used over and over again to avoid addressing the issues that would make the government, and the country, better.

Again, from a French point of view, I cannot help screaming how ignorant people are, and how paradoxical their stances are, when they say on TV or write in the press about the evils of big government.
Every day, I insist, every single day, you hear or read someone equating big government to Communism. Again, this morning, a reader of The Oklahoman writes: "They're slowly but surely taking over in the pretext of liberalism (communism). We have a presidential candidate who's preaching the old communist axiom "We are going to take from the haves and give to the have nots." He goes on by quoting Norman Matoon Thomas, a six-time candidate for president from the Socialist Party of America who said: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." This reader also recommends reading The Communist Manifesto before casting one's ballot.

Beware, Communism is still creeping!

Because these people are afraid of big government, they reject any kind of regulation of the free market.
When this deregulation results is the major crisis happening today, they do not regret. To the following question: "In your time in Congress, you have supported deregulation of the economy. Do you regret that now?" John McCain has answered: "No, I think deregulation has probably helped the economic growth of this country."
This interview took place two days ago, between the bailouts of major Wall Street corporations and the Secretary of the Treasury asking Congress for a $700 billion check for more bailouts.

Now, when I am really pissed off at hearing or reading this kind of stuff, I scream how stupid people are. But that is probably unfair. The common people do not know what they are talking about, just like I do not know what I am talking about when I start talking about the economy.
People just know what they are being told. If you keep telling them the US is the greatest country on earth, with the greatest economy, a country where everything is possible, where anybody can live the American Dream, why wouldn't they believe that? When the lies are flattering, you don't question them.

What is truly fascinating is that any Conservative who would read this blog -- if there are some, please leave a comment -- would call me a dangerous Communist.
There is no middle of the road in what I hear or read about small and big government. What they are truly talking about is no government and dictatorship.

When you tell them that a bigger government could provide for free health care for everybody, they don't say "Oh great! Let's have that." No, their reaction is "Yeah, but in Canada and in France, where you have universal health care, you wait for six months to see your doctor, and you don't find your medicine when you need it."

This is the common belief. And apart from when I write a letter to a newspaper, I never read or hear anywhere that this is simply not true.
Just in case a Conservative reads this, let me repeat it: I live in France, and when I need to see my doctor, I call him and I see him before the day is over. After the consultation, I give him 21 euros (about $15 today) which is reimbursed to me within two weeks. I then go to the pharmacy. They give me my medicine, and I give them a few cents. The first time my American wife went to the pharmacy for her and her daughter's asthma and allergy medicine, she expected to pay $150. Instead, she was asked for 12 cents.
By the way, for all that, I pay less than $100 a month and that covers my wife and my three children.
If that is big government, if that is Stalinism, I say Yeah!!!

I want to see people on Fox News tell that story. I want to go on Fox News and tell that story! Fox News, call me if you dare!

The most fascinating, of course, is that people say and write this nonsense, and then they act in very paradoxical ways.

When Hurricane Ike was about to strike the coast of Texas, people were asked to leave their homes because they were in danger.
40% of the residents of under-sea-level Galveston Island, which was about to be completely devastated, decided to ignore the authorities and stayed. After Ike has struck, billions of dollars of federal money are being spent to rescue and rebuild.

Nobody would criticize the government for doing that. Nobody with a sane mind would say "Let the evil government out of this. People and business are going to take care of themselves!"

Well, the health care in this country is under the destructive action of Hurricane Private Insurance Corporation. Many more people are in danger because of lack of health care than because of hurricanes. So the government needs to act on it as it acts -- or should act -- after hurricanes.

I think the government is the problem when it does not do anything for the governed.
You the people have asked enough what you could do for your country. It might be time again to ask what the country can do for you.

A TV commentator brilliantly summed it up last night: if you believe the government is the problem, don't run for government.