Steven P. BarrettBIDEN AS OBAMA'S VEEP CHOICE IS A STRETCH -- FOR OBAMA (LINK)
August 24th 2008 15:14
By Steven Barrett
Here it is Sunday, Aug. 24th with a little more than a day to go before the Democrats bang their first gavel to open their convention high up in the "Mile High City." '
Tis only fitting that the party which used to be led by real elites who accomplished things before they were appointed to high office, and who didn't flaunt their elitism as means of putting others down to rise to -- or stay -- on top of the nation's political scene, would choose Denver to host their convention this year.
Sen. Barack Obama, who hails from a humble origins -- one which he's very comfortable with using to cleverly position and package himself off as a more "regular guy" than he actually is nowadays -- has long forgotten his roots. He's become another Illinois egghead: Adlai Stevenson, whom I believe is the beginning paradigm for Democratic eggheads since his twice defeated runs against Dwight D. Eisenhower. The latter, who was intelligent enough to run the European campaign against the Germans, keep the Allies together and a tight leash on General Patton when necessary, never boasted about his intellectual capacities.
Obama, like his predecessor, Stevenson, does; not in so many words, but he does. It may be that there's no other way for a person to get the nomination in that party, except to pay excessive homage to the over-educated intellectual snobs who dominate the caucuses.
These are very complicated set-up deals and they're designed this way for a reason. They're the new version of the old cigar smoke-filled caucuses of olden days. But they're no less arcane to the regular voters who already have enough on their minds with keeping their jobs, paying inflationary costs, and most importantly, making sure their economic pressures don't keep them from losing time with their families. After all, your kids remain kids for so long.
They enjoy having their Saturdays off, and are willing to stand in line for an hour or two for general primaries and elections. The idea of spending all night playing musical chairs for a multitude of candidates, some of whom espouse views they find repugnant -- well, of course, that's a major turn-off. That was Obama's steak and eggs, leaving Hillary Clinton with the peanut butter n' jelly sandwich lunch bucket voters -- who deserved to have the larger say. Which they do -- for no other reason than that they out-voted Obama's more professorial machine mechanics.
It's one thing to say "Okay, let's have so real pros have a larger say, not the amateurs." That depends on who thinks whom aptly fits into these into these two categories, respectively.
Obama, however, seemed to (politically) mature a bit last week. Stretching himself to the point of demonstrating more statesmanship than eggheadry by chosing Delaware's Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. Some insiders might chalk it up to waking up to the morning coffee Vladimir Putin served the world when Russia invaded a sovereign state: Georgia, ostensibly to "save" South Ossestia from those maurading Georgians. I think Georgia demonstrated horrible pre-invasion judgment and allowed herself to get sucked into a war she could not win and only expect mora and some logistical support from the West. And that's all she got.
But with Biden on the ticket, with his much longer service on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Obama adds real heft to his ticket and the reassurance that should anything (God forbid!) happen to him, he's picked a worthy successor.
For the life of me, as one Catholic writing about another, cannot understand Biden's position on abortion. But having said that, I will grant him a lot of plusses in other areas, save for his roles on Supreme Court nomination hearings. This is a regular blue-collared Senator who never forgot where he came from; or as they used to say about Tip O'Neill back in his district, "He never let his hat size get too big." And he is just as comfortable sitting at a lunch counter, a VFW lounge or next to a perfect stranger on an Amtrak train he takes to work every day from Wilmington, DE to Washington and back: Every day.
That started when he lost his first wife and daughter was not even sworn in yet after getting elected in 1972. Desiring to spend as much time with the remainder of his family, his two sons who were badly injured, (but fully recovered) he started taking to the rails and hasn't stopped since. (I heard this during a CSPAN interview he gave two years ago that was aired yesterday afternoon EST.)
Although I'm less enamored with the UN as Biden, he doesn't strike me as the type of would-be world leader, should he ever become president, to slavishly go asking the UN principal for permission to take action. No, he's more likely to go through the diplomatic efforts first. (He's more of a unilateralist on using the soft-voice of diplomacy first, but hardly adverse to knocking the hell out of the playground bully if need be first, then admitting why he did what he did in the principal's office in Manhattan.)
This is where Obama's promise that he'd pick a guy who'd tell him off when necessary had better be fulfilled. Damn well fulfilled during the campaign and afterwards should this ticket prove victorious.
(PS: See, I'm still ridin' the rails, too. But I'm not taking the "daily" like Joe.)
Here it is Sunday, Aug. 24th with a little more than a day to go before the Democrats bang their first gavel to open their convention high up in the "Mile High City." '
Tis only fitting that the party which used to be led by real elites who accomplished things before they were appointed to high office, and who didn't flaunt their elitism as means of putting others down to rise to -- or stay -- on top of the nation's political scene, would choose Denver to host their convention this year.
Sen. Barack Obama, who hails from a humble origins -- one which he's very comfortable with using to cleverly position and package himself off as a more "regular guy" than he actually is nowadays -- has long forgotten his roots. He's become another Illinois egghead: Adlai Stevenson, whom I believe is the beginning paradigm for Democratic eggheads since his twice defeated runs against Dwight D. Eisenhower. The latter, who was intelligent enough to run the European campaign against the Germans, keep the Allies together and a tight leash on General Patton when necessary, never boasted about his intellectual capacities.
Obama, like his predecessor, Stevenson, does; not in so many words, but he does. It may be that there's no other way for a person to get the nomination in that party, except to pay excessive homage to the over-educated intellectual snobs who dominate the caucuses.
These are very complicated set-up deals and they're designed this way for a reason. They're the new version of the old cigar smoke-filled caucuses of olden days. But they're no less arcane to the regular voters who already have enough on their minds with keeping their jobs, paying inflationary costs, and most importantly, making sure their economic pressures don't keep them from losing time with their families. After all, your kids remain kids for so long.
They enjoy having their Saturdays off, and are willing to stand in line for an hour or two for general primaries and elections. The idea of spending all night playing musical chairs for a multitude of candidates, some of whom espouse views they find repugnant -- well, of course, that's a major turn-off. That was Obama's steak and eggs, leaving Hillary Clinton with the peanut butter n' jelly sandwich lunch bucket voters -- who deserved to have the larger say. Which they do -- for no other reason than that they out-voted Obama's more professorial machine mechanics.
It's one thing to say "Okay, let's have so real pros have a larger say, not the amateurs." That depends on who thinks whom aptly fits into these into these two categories, respectively.
Sen. Biden
Obama, however, seemed to (politically) mature a bit last week. Stretching himself to the point of demonstrating more statesmanship than eggheadry by chosing Delaware's Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. Some insiders might chalk it up to waking up to the morning coffee Vladimir Putin served the world when Russia invaded a sovereign state: Georgia, ostensibly to "save" South Ossestia from those maurading Georgians. I think Georgia demonstrated horrible pre-invasion judgment and allowed herself to get sucked into a war she could not win and only expect mora and some logistical support from the West. And that's all she got.
But with Biden on the ticket, with his much longer service on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Obama adds real heft to his ticket and the reassurance that should anything (God forbid!) happen to him, he's picked a worthy successor.
For the life of me, as one Catholic writing about another, cannot understand Biden's position on abortion. But having said that, I will grant him a lot of plusses in other areas, save for his roles on Supreme Court nomination hearings. This is a regular blue-collared Senator who never forgot where he came from; or as they used to say about Tip O'Neill back in his district, "He never let his hat size get too big." And he is just as comfortable sitting at a lunch counter, a VFW lounge or next to a perfect stranger on an Amtrak train he takes to work every day from Wilmington, DE to Washington and back: Every day.
That started when he lost his first wife and daughter was not even sworn in yet after getting elected in 1972. Desiring to spend as much time with the remainder of his family, his two sons who were badly injured, (but fully recovered) he started taking to the rails and hasn't stopped since. (I heard this during a CSPAN interview he gave two years ago that was aired yesterday afternoon EST.)
Although I'm less enamored with the UN as Biden, he doesn't strike me as the type of would-be world leader, should he ever become president, to slavishly go asking the UN principal for permission to take action. No, he's more likely to go through the diplomatic efforts first. (He's more of a unilateralist on using the soft-voice of diplomacy first, but hardly adverse to knocking the hell out of the playground bully if need be first, then admitting why he did what he did in the principal's office in Manhattan.)
This is where Obama's promise that he'd pick a guy who'd tell him off when necessary had better be fulfilled. Damn well fulfilled during the campaign and afterwards should this ticket prove victorious.
(PS: See, I'm still ridin' the rails, too. But I'm not taking the "daily" like Joe.)
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Maybe McCain will pick a real conservative running mate and then we'll have more of a race.
Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
Biden IS more than a (debonnaire and erudite) Senator from Blue Collar America ... HEAR THAT ACADEMICS?! ... OR ESPECIALLY THOSE ACADEMICS WHO FORGOT WHERE THE HELL THEY CAME FROM ... I KNOW A LOT OF YOU HAVE ... and among your ranks includes a certain Barack H. Obama, a junior US Senator from Abraham Lincoln's adoptive state, Illinois.
(Personally, aside from Lincoln, I'm much more enamored of the late-and greater-elder-Dick Daley for my favorite pols from Illinois.)
Back to Biden: He's living proof that a guy can rise above his economic raising without forgetting where he was raised. Thus he's a double danger to the Republicans because of his reputation as being PA's "Third Senator." Much of what he's done to benefit Delaware, also benefitted PA, especially his support of Amtrak, which until now, he rode regularly to work every day -- and believe me -- what he supported contributed a lot in return in terms of real jobs contributing real value, unlike so many other boondoggle ear-marked boneheaded giveaways.
If John McCain is completely "off his feed" when he picks his VEEP, you can almost bet Romney will be one of his top 2 or 3 choices. A relatively unknown like Pawlenty wouldn't help either. He needs to swing the big bat for the fence, and take a big risk. Even if it means picking Tom Ridge, former PA, who wasn't by any means unpopular.
That'll upset prolifers like ourselves at first. BUT, I take and trust Ridge at his word when he says a McCain administration will be Prolife and his being Catholic, and unlike Biden & especially Pelosi's "take" on abortion, Ridge remains RESPECTFUL in his political differences with the Church.
Back in either '02 or '03, Ridge was awarded the JFK award by the Holyoke, MA St. Patrick's Day Parade for his work in organizing Homeland Security and making it work, (much unlike his hapless successor.) Ridge had a problem, and so did the local Springfield Diocese which celebrates a big Mass in Holyoke the night before the parade (which after NYC's, Chicago's, Savannah's and Dublin, (Eire) is one of the biggest St. Patrick's Day parades in the entire world. Population wise, you could say it's THE biggest. Ridge had to keep this in mind being a national and local pol (because the parade has always featured at least two "Mummers" bands from Philadelphia.)
I can't recall all the details of how Ridge accepted the award, but he bent over backwards out of respect to both Bishop O'Connell and the Parade Organizing Cmte. to AVOID creating an issue. Ridge's position has always been that the Church has every right to take any measures it deems necessary to express its displeasure with his position because he respects the fact it has held this position for centuries. (This fact is lost on Pelosi and Biden.)
Even citing St. Thomas Aquinas, the latter two confuse the Church's embrace of recent scientific evidence proving that a person's distinct human-ness begins at conception with a wishing-against-any-realistic -hope that older teachings about the rights of an unborn child "demonstrate" the Church's "changing positions" about abortion.
In doing so, they've also forgotten that while truths remain eternal (how else can truths be -- anybody could just point to gravity for starters to realize this) -- the development of any explanations of these truths can and must remain sufficiently flexible enough for the magisterium, responsible theologians, scholars, philosophers, and local clerics -- on down to Sunday School teachers -- can explain them in ways that reach the minds so that these truths will eventually be written upon the hearts.
Ridge understands this a lot clearer than both Biden and Pelosi -- and to a more cerebral degree, Mario Cuomo, (who along with all the rest of that generation of Camelot Catholics who never forgave fate and history for the double-loss of their favorite Pope John XIII and political "St. John" Kennedy in less than one year, neither of whom, were, on the balance, as great as that revisionist generation make them out to be. (In part, these pre-baby boomers-can't entirely be blamed since they had a pope they really liked along with the first elected Catholic president. I can still remember at least one of my Irish grandmothers in -- Holyoke -- having a framed photo of JFK hanging in a prominent location, most likely the kitchen.)
Precisely because Ridge understands more clearly how theological truths can be developed (never changed, only intrepreted in clearer light as necessary, I think he might surprise more people, especially us Pro-Lifers who understandably don't want to be left standing at the altar again after the conventions. He respects the single-most powerful friend the Pro-Life movement has, the Magisterium in Rome and throughout the world, and he honors its right to say what it wants and, if necessary, take whatever disciplinary steps, to protect what it believes are eternal truths, from scandal of false teachings and cleverly misleading statements put out by fully formed Catholic politicians who know better. And I can say this with absolute certainty, that generation was indeed fully "formed."
What happened to Pro-Life GOPers in San Diego will never escape my memory bank. It was disgraceful and they were treated like black sheep cousins from the trailer camp side of town. And if Ridge plays a prominent role in the convention, and or receives the VP nod, I doubt for a moment he'll be so overly concerned with keeping loose cannons like my former guvs, Bill Weld, Paul Celucci and Ann (not-so) Swift placated. Nor should he or any serious Republican and especially Pro-Life Republican trust the likes of that chameleon Mitt-the-Mindless-Romney.
He only became "pro-life" when he realized his popularity ratings were starting to rise in the afterglo of his performance in Salt Lake City. And that reverse-carpetbagger had the audacity and gall to run against the state he (half-governed) during the primaries. (At least Duval Patrick's coming back today for a double-funeral on Cape Cod for two combat heroes) before he returns to Denver. Romney? He milked the returning fallen when they came off the conveyor belts at Logan International, but he also refused pardons needed by vets for relatively minor crimes they committed before signing up. They only needed them for putting their lives back in order by attending UMass or the other state institutions. But that's piddling stuff according to that self-packaged "conservative" Mitt-the-Mindless Romney.
S.L. -- if you have any "inside track" within the GOP, pass these caveats and my observations about Ridge along so they can get them to McCain's inner magisterium: if for no other reason than to save their necks from a self-imposed hanging by picking Romney.
If he picks Romney, the nation will pick Obama. But even if it picks McCain, we'd better damn well pray he pulls a Reagan with eight years and finds a way to dump Romney along the way like FDR got rid of Henry Wallace like a bad case of fleas.
Sorry to go on so long, but when it comes to something this important and the sickening likelihood of picking Romney to "check" Obama's pick of Biden -- I had to put in a plug for Ridge, just in case McCain does pick a pro-choice running mate. Romney is too flexible for expedient reasons. Whereas we can disagree with Ridge, or even Lieberman, on abortion, at least those men have long staked their positions, however mistaken, out of conviction and are most likely to return their respect for our ours. We'll never get that from that condescending rich kid from Michigan who then turned on the very state he served as governor to win votes outside his state when he had nothing to lose at home.
Here's a good back up on Pelosi.
Really Long Link
It came from the Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, (OFM, Capucin), who was like yours truly, a former Carter volunteer in the '80 campaign. He really blistered Granny Nanny. (She'd better watch it because the new Vatican "Chief Justice," is no less than that take-no-heretics/prisoners former Archbishop of St. Louis, William (?) Burke. He hasn't hesitated in publicly calling for the denial of Communionfor pols like Granny, Biden, Kennedy, Kerry, Giuliani and maybe even Mario Cuomo, e/a.
Happy huntin' this National Persyns of the Wild Jackass Week!