Having Public Savvy

I’ve been interested in the Obama-Clinton duel of late. Much of this started when Obama said that he’d meet with heads of state of hostile nations, and Clinton called him naive to say that. (no, this has nothing to do with Senator Clinton’s breasts…sorry)

The Clinton campaign has said that this was a very presidential moment for her, as did some pundits. And, she has tried to use this to put distance between her campaign and Obama’s. But that may well have backfired:

When Hillary sharply disagreed with Obama’s pledge, in the South Carolina Democratic debate, that he would meet with the leaders of rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, she was undoubtedly shooting from the hip. But when she and her campaign spent an entire week attacking and ridiculing Obama — and now are well into their second week of criticism — they appear to have lost their marbles.

Put very simply, Hillary is on the wrong side of this particular issue for the Democratic primary electorate. Scott Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll shows that Democrats agree with Obama that the president should meet with these foreign leaders without preconditions by 55 percent to 22. His polling shows that Democrats are outsiders who take literally JFK’s thesis that we “should never negotiate out of fear, but should never fear to negotiate.” As an insider, Hillary was blinded to this reality by her years of exposure to the conventional wisdom in both her husband’s administration and in her tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee. To insiders, it is obvious that a summit must be earned by a rogue state by signaling a willingness to come in from the cold in order to get a presidential audience and the ensuing photo-op.

But most Americans, and especially most Democrats, think that this kind of insider-think is precisely the problem with our foreign policy. They see nothing lost by negotiating and much potential gain from coming to points of mutual understanding. [...]

Even as Hillary was calling Obama “naive” and “irresponsible” for his position, her adviser, Mark Penn, was going even further. He told the New York Daily News that Hillary’s answer on meeting with rogue-state leaders was “a presidential moment” and that it “was an essential moment that showed she knows what it means to be president.” Waxing eloquent to Newsday, he went further and said, “Obama’s commitment to meeting hostile foreign leaders would haunt his campaign by pointing up his inexperience.” Newsday reports that he said that Obama’s position is “so far out of the American political mainstream that it would render him unelectable against a Republican nominee.” Since Rasmussen’s poll shows that Democrats overwhelmingly agree with Obama on the issue, one wonders if Penn is reading his own data. And since Rasmussen says that voters in general agree with the Illinois senator by 42 percent to 34, it is hard to see how such a stance makes him unelectable. [...]

But perhaps the error goes deeper. The hardest thing to do in politics is to think like an outsider when you’ve become an insider. Maybe the fat lobbying and consulting contracts have blinded the Clintons’ advisers to the thinking of the Democratic Party base. Perhaps they and their candidate have gone Washington and can’t appreciate, as easily as Obama can, what their constituents are thinking.

OUCH!!!!

Obama has made a speech on terrorism today; it was widely covered.

Geekesque at the Daily Kos has the coverage

[...]Obama’s approach consists of five pillars:

1. Improving diplomacy and improve our image abroad for the purpose of aiding counterterrorism and counterproliferation efforts. Obama has been a key player in Senate counterproliferation efforts, and he has effectively positioned himself as the candidate for change from Bush’s approach when it comes to international diplomacy.
[...]
2. Creating a $5 billion Shared Security Partnership Program that he will say will “forge an international intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure to take down terrorist networks around the globe.”The most effective tool we have against terrorism is cooperating with other nations in terms of intelligence gathering and utilizing law enforcement resources. This goes hand-in-hand with the emphasis on outreach and dialogue with the world community.
[...]
3. Restoring our values. This is an important point: not only are torture and ‘extraordinary’ renditions bad for our nation’s character and soul, they also make us less safe by delegitimizing us and our agenda across the world, thus decreasing other nations’ willingness to cooperate with us (see also points 1 & 2 above).
[...]
4. Securing a more resilient homeland. It’s sad that six years ex post 9/11 we still have to include this as an agenda item.
[...]
5. Withdrawing from Iraq and refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is where most of the media will focus its attention (because the military stuff is just cooler, I guess). Obama stresses that Islamic radicalism is the major national security threat to us (besides global warming). This is something upon which most Democrats agree, but doesn’t get discussed very frequently.[...]

The article that I linked to fills in the outline with Obama’s speech.

Crooks and Liars has an interesting Mitt Romney video. Here is what Romney says:

Romney: …

”Did you notice in Lebanon, what Hezbollah did? Lebanon became a democracy some time ago and while their government was getting underway, Hezbollah went into southern Lebanon and provided health clinics to some of the people there, and schools. And they built their support there by having done so. That kind of diplomacy is something that would help America become stronger around the world and help people understand that our interest is an interest towards modernity and goodness and freedom for all people in the world. And so, I want to see America carry out that kind of health diplomacy…”

Somebody needs to get his talking points in order before they let him speak in public. What Hezbollah did was essentially provide UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE for the people of southern Lebanon, something Romney has vigorously opposed for you and I here in America. I hate to tell you this Mitt, but I don’t think the rest of your party agrees with your glowing review of Hezbollah.[...]

Interestingly enough, I agree with him, to a point. I don’t like Hezbollah either, but they are winning friends with their approach (providing the healthcare) and it is a good thing to do.

Of course, it would be a good thing to do in the USA as well, but what do I know?

Welcome to August

Workout notes 5 miles racewalking; 2 warm up inside, 43 minutes (3 laps of the gooseloop and back), 2000 yards of swimming (cute female in tri-kini! ), 3+ miles easy back home.

I notice that my right leg hurt (back of the knee) AFTER the swim. Two things: I did a quad stretch in the hot tub, and I did some questionable flip-turns and push-offs. I’ll have to review my recent history of this ding.

Of no consequence We ate at a Chinese buffett last night; they have a good sized artifical fish pond in front of their building. Today, there were two good sized green frogs in the pond; the owner says that he didn’t put them there.

Religion Richard Dawkins launches an OUT campaign.

In the dark days of 1940, the pre-Vichy French government was warned by its generals “In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.” After the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill growled his response: “Some chicken; some neck!” Today, the bestselling books of ‘The New Atheism’ are disparaged, by those who desperately wish to downplay their impact, as “Only preaching to the choir.”

Some choir! Only?!

As far as subjective impressions allow and in the admitted absence of rigorous data, I am persuaded that the religiosity of America is greatly exaggerated. Our choir is a lot larger than many people realise. Religious people still outnumber atheists, but not by the margin they hoped and we feared. I base this not only on conversations during my book tour and the book tours of my colleagues Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, but on widespread informal surveys of the World Wide Web. Not our own site, whose contributors are obviously biased, but, for example, Amazon, and YouTube whose denizens are reassuringly young. Moreover, even if the religious have the numbers, we have the arguments, we have history on our side, and we are walking with a new spring in our step – you can hear the gentle patter of our feet on every side.

Our choir is large, but much of it remains in the closet. Our repertoire may include the best tunes, but too many of us are mouthing the words sotto voce with head bowed and eyes lowered. It follows that a major part of our consciousness-raising effort should be aimed, not at converting the religious but at encouraging the non-religious to admit it – to themselves, to their families, and to the world. This is the purpose of the OUT campaign.

Before I go any further, I must forestall one major risk of misunderstanding. The obvious comparison with the gay community is vulnerable to going too far: to ‘outing’ as a transitive verb whose object might be an unfortunate individual not yet – or not ever – ready to confide in the world. Our OUT campaign will have nothing, repeat nothing to do with outing in that active sense. If a closet atheist wants to come out, that is her decision to make, and nobody else’s. What we can do is provide support and encouragement to those who willingly decide to out themselves. This may seem trivial to people in parts of Europe, or in regions of the United States dominated by urban intellectuals where support and encouragement is unnecessary. It is anything but trivial to people in other areas of the United States, and even more so in parts of the Islamic world where apostasy is, by Koranic authority, punishable by death.

The OUT campaign has potentially as many sides to it as you can think of words to precede “out”. “Come OUT” has pride of place and is the one I have so far dealt with. Related to it is “Reach OUT” in friendship and solidarity towards those who have come out, or who are contemplating that step which, depending on their family or home town prejudices, may require courage. Join, or found local support groups and on-line forums. Speak OUT, to show waverers they are not alone. Organize conferences or campus events. Attend rallies and marches. Write letters to the local newspaper. Lobby politicians, at local and national level. The more people come out and are known to have done so, the easier will it be for others to follow.[...]

The article itself has some suggestions.

Videos

Senator Kennedy on health care. Note that he gives credit to Senator Hatch.

Hat tip to Bog Geiger.

“This is a measure that speaks for action, it speaks for justice, it speaks for fairness, it speaks for our values,” said Kennedy.

And for those of you who say there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans, please watch the video again.

Fun:

No comment needed

This is the Nazi (from Virginia) who targeted me.