Obama The Grown Up ...Moving Forward and Healing America in a Contentious Enviornment

I've got to admit that during this campaign I haven't been as taken with Obama as some people have. I find myself too disappointed in the process as its been to believe in promises anymore. Maybe its age but these days I hang back with my heart until I see it all in motion. I'm not a true believer in a system being played as if any pure theory of government works without some overlap. The truth of political campaigns is that they are full of empty promises and ideas until its clear that the bodies are all in place and the votes are there to support a promised agenda. Even then, these plans, in the best case scenario, go into working mode with, hopefully, enough representation from the other side to balance, but not enough to stop progress. Somewhere along the line the spinners have convinced the American people that there isn't tremendous room for shaping the ideas that are set forth in these lofty speeches.

It seems to me that a President Obama will certainly go into office and get to work disassembling alot of what the Bushies have put in place, (a huge job,) but beyond that there is no guarantee that anything being said now will emerge from the process looking exactly like it does in the campaign promises. Those promises are merely outlines of ideas after all, and once the new President has spent 100 days putting things right and assigning committees to work on these ideas, they may turn out to be pretty different than what is being proposed in the heat of battle.

Of course, its by these beginnings of ideas that we get the idea of who the candidate is and what his direction is...right? Obama's ideals are hopeful and almost old fashioned in that we haven't heard much along those lines lately, This is the stuff that is so unusual in the climate that we've been living in as to elicit cries of socialism; surely dirty, right? It sounds that way, anyway...Or maybe it's a good overlapping part of any successful capitalistic government? Yeah, Obama is hopeful... and I feel almost hopeful...But its all promises, promises, promises to me until I see him actually get to work.

There is something so off about anyone wanting this job at this point in time. Wanting to drag their families and friends through the hazing and nonsense indicates something that used to be called public service but is now more akin to craziness. There is a fine line between being compelled to this kind of visible public service and pure narcissism, and in times like these, when things are so bad, the stakes are high, the candidates are bound to exhibit certain extremes of personality. What is it that the American people need at any given point? A cartoon cowboy full of swagger? A Lifetime movie of a POW?

John McCain certainly is extreme; the way he has plodded through his life is scary-reminiscent of a textbook narcissist, or the ones that too many of us grew up with, who also suffers from a range of battle related disorders. Being such a basic life failure in school and the military, and then only succeeding in government on the strength of his worst failure, must create a tremendous emotional split, and having to embrace his worst life experiences as his greatest triumph could only be repeated trauma...but the whole persona is built on that war hero so, what can he do?

Saturday's New York Times has a scathing article about Cindy McCain, who, even as a reportedly cold hard bitch, has seemingly done her time. My god, is this the 1950's in Stepford, or is she just really hardened by a life that was privileged and yet lacking in some crucial elements necessary to become a whole person? Maybe after enough years of decorating house after house and buying car after car you become the cunt that he says you are. I feel sorry for her, but as my Mom just said, this is no first lady of the United States! It sort of lays to rest all the worry about Michelle Obama, terrorist, in that at least she has some affect and empathy for the little people. Poor Cindy, Shes got to take that sack of pathology home after this is over and try to go on....and I don't care how rich she is, its not gonna be easy. Oh, I know they have separate lives, but he's sick and close to the end of being functional. I also believe that he may be at the end of his ongoing government aspirations on any level; even Arizona is not all so find of Johnny anymore, and he is not young enough to wait for the conservatives to swing around again.

Who are any of these candidates beyond what we project onto them? Why is it so easy for ad-men like Rove to write the outline of of what we take in? Maybe its the decline of the culture pushing our expectations into the gutter; we've grown so accustomed to being shown titillating pictures and uncovering dirty secrets, that without dancing girls and Jerry Springer fights we hardly even begin to show interest. Its a cruel realization that the National Enquirer usually does have the story first! Its a cruel realization that if there is a staffer to fuck or a bathroom to cruise, our leaders are there; truth: marriages end and everyone has cellulite and even celebrities look washed out without makeup. There are no statesmen with dignity, ethics, and morals, out there, as my Grandpa often says.... but actually Grandpa, there never really have been. Its all the morass of humanity come home to roost when the facade of civility gets wiped away by a public eager for scandal and a press that has an ever tightening bottom line. Society has changed; and it will likely change back again and again before this planet flicks the likes of us from its overburdened surface. We are always in a state of flux, but the question is that in the ongoing liberalization of our society how do we treat each other and where is the line between self realization and working together for the good of all?

The shocking Palinesque fringe underground and their forebears have been kept and fed not only by the likes of the Bush regime, but really since the beginning of social history as a part of the human condition. Nothing surprises me anymore, but this circus is a little further out there than I could imagine things flying, even after what we've witnessed in this country in the past 8 years. I suppose that remote areas spawn the more extreme belief in magic that alot of the reported religious practice is based on, and while not talking up the rapture and/or handling snakes, its a wonder that spaceships don't land and spirit the whole bunch of them away.

Yeah, I'm knee jerk opposed to any sort of evangelical movement because it takes spirituality and belief in God and removes the personal relationship and social responsibility of the individual in favor of the direction of the preacher and the movement of the group as a whole. In that atmosphere, even the most absurd becomes acceptable, and the reasoning and questioning part of any healthy spiritual quest is removed in favor of memorization of talking points....its a wonder that the recent powerbrokers in DC have made good use of these groups; they come as a fully formed army and they are very suggestible.

I know that they get the Internets out there in Alaska and in places like the wilds of Montana, and it seems odd to me that there isn't more dissent; I really don't believe that Alaska is full of Palin-like people, but it does also seem that remote rural areas of this country need services and education immediately; that certain areas in the deep south could really benefit from children's programs aimed at literacy and some vision of the big world that is out there. How can any young American citizen participate fully in our democracy if they don't understand how they fit into the their community, state, and the country, much less the world. It seems like its a huge disservice to all taxpayers to not educate everyone about civics, philosophy, and decision making. Maybe some people in some communities wont grasp the larger picture, but at least offering the knowledge might open some minds that might otherwise have remained closed...and really, its not like everyone in rural America is gonna rise up and participate, but they might participate locally or in their own families to the extent that they can. What is the fear out there of educating people? Oh yeah, they might not just lay down and take it.

On the heels of the presidential debates and alot of ugliness that has been shaken loose by the level of the McCain campaign, I have become more and more appreciative of Obama the grownup, who somehow manages to stand back and just watch, sorta shaking his head and smiling, as gramps McCain sprouts horns and snakes crawl from his mouth. I suppose that there is nothing more gratifying at this point than standing back and watching the old coot twitch, and unravel himself. Rather than taking him apart, which would have been just a little too easy, Obama just looks at it happen, as if he is in as much disbelief as every other right minded American has been all along.

These wingnuts need to be allowed to speak their minds, because apparently, after the past 8 years, there are enough levelheaded Americans, from all walks of life, who have finally and at long last, had enough. This is the time to examine whats in the snowball that Rovian political spin has been rolling downhill. Hearing it spoken is all we really need. Why any citizen might vote republican this time are clear cut and range from laziness to stupidity to selfish greed. I have searched and searched for some positive reason besides tax cuts which are, for the rich anyway, merely an immediate band aid representing more of a rollback than a proper cut. The recycled plans the McCain cites were largely already out there and rejected, and experts have explained why, regardless of how little people want to know of facts. There is no victory and no winning the Iraq war, and letting McCain follow his heart in replaying some shattered memory of his own past is crazy-suicidal for this country... And the way in which he might rip the throat from anyone who disagrees with him brings us full circle back to the sick old man who needs to go home to one of his houses and retire with whatever honor is left. Need I go on? The health plan, our right to privacy, the constitution, the power of the executive....my god, can we afford another moment of this social and political backsliding? THIS episode may be merely a blip in history but it sure hurts here on the ground.

I am in awe of the raw, sensational, crudeness of this underside beast unleashed seemingly by the dying gasp of the facade of a campaign that was built on a foundation of the ugliness of the depths of human depravity, living in some underground cave coveting it's Precious-rightfully-theirs. From the depths of Gollum's cave comes the fairy tale that even greedy-badness has a Smeagol side, fondly remembering friendship and love, softening at the edges before the ring snaps him back to the reality of losing this coveted thing.

The story can be read on the grimacing face of John McCain during events longer than a few minutes, and as he starts to lose it, blinking and wincing, trying to keep the man behind the curtain hidden, its so clear that he is spinning out of control, if not for a cadre of handlers who must have a hell of a job getting from point A to point B in one piece. In his face its apparent that this country has somehow lost an intangible element of reality versus the lies that we need to hear to make the way we've been living over the past 8 years OK. I'm afraid that whats gone on will make it impossible for even a middle of the road liberal politician to do much of anything in the next term...but then...but then, even in my fugue state of driving around looking at the houses and cars behind the McCain lawn signs and wondering what went wrong there; what goes on in those houses that allows those people to be so blind and hateful?... I'm feeling the hope of the landslide and trying to not be hurt by every McCain sticker and sign out there. Because there is really no excuse anymore...as if it could be simply "taxes" or "I'm so selfish that I don't give a crap about anyone else," because that's the way its been shown to us on TV...he's a hero and has experience...we're afraid?I'm tired of excuses based on weakness and fear.

When did it become OK to not care about our neighbors? When did it become OK to question the patriotism of others because they have different ideas than we do?...when did it become OK to shut down the exchange of ideas that allows the democratic ideal to flourish? And when did it become OK to loudly proclaim that fantasy and lies are reality and truth, forget questioning because they won't answer questions (insert wink and head tilt here.)

I look at the McCain signed houses around here and examine the houses and cars trying to figure it all out. Downtown I see families with kids getting out of Hummers or Porsche SUV's and I wonder what went wrong there. What message is anyone sending by having a vehicle that costs so much, is a "war" vehicle, burns unnecessarily large amounts of fuel, and yells aggressively to the community a message that I cant quite fathom. I want to take the hands of those people and ask them what the problem is...were they abused somehow? have they felt attacked during this obviously profitable time for them? What is it...whats happened? Because, they couldn't have been so short sighted to have thought that any of this could possibly go on, could they?

The past 8 years have been full of so much backsliding on hard won social progress, and if our society is to continue at all we have to get back on that track. It involves maybe a little bit more insight and courage than we are encouraging our kids to have via education, and that may be what was the plan. But if logic at least prevails, a society that cares for its weakest members and provides preventative care also saves money in the long run, (that's after the rapture, for any fundies out there... the left behind will need something to rebuild with, afterall.) The windfall may very well be over for this select few and it may be a time when America reconnects with the middle class; America is a country of the middle class and for the middle class, and the promise of being able to own a little piece of it and get your kids some bit of education is not yet cold in the ground...Maybe this Obama guy with his calm demeanor and no nonsense attitude can get some of that back.

The political seasons pass and it could well be that those who profited on what amounts to alot of destructive ugliness over the past 8 years, had better have socked away the nuts for a long winter. We could be hitting some lean times, and the coming times may require that you put your hummer in the garage and take your aggressive public stance underground where those like you will sleep and regain strength for the next go round. Its time for the middle class to rebuild our country and to try to find their hearts under the hard shell built up after too many days of hard work to try to make ends meet in the trickle up economy of yesterday. Its time to bring the jobs back home and invest in our education system so that we have American workers that can do those jobs.

Ultimately I find myself liking the fatherly Obama, all full of hope and ideals, all sacrificial and willing to give his time and energy to the thankless next 8 years, which heaven knows can go either way. Just that smile and shake of the head shows us all what we know; that this is all bullshit, and it has been bullshit for too long, and now there will be people in charge who are grownups, and who know whats gone wrong...I hope so anyway. I assume nothing anymore...I count on no one.... But, since I first saw Obama speaking to a full stage of democrat candidates over a year ago, he has matured and grown into the stature and body of President of the United States. I can see it now, but I'm not over the moon because realistically, any movement is gonna take time, and the American attention span doesn't lend itself to anything less than a speedy and full recovery complete with flat screen TVs and trips to Disney Land. I really long to breathe a sigh of relief and just retire from all of this thinking about the country and the state of things, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

c/p RIPCoco

I'm not nuts about Cindy McCain either, but really....

I can never decide whether I find Cindy McCain appalling or pathetic. On the rare occasions when she's opened her mouth during this campaign, it's been to say something nasty about her opponents. On the other hand, when I see her up there with her husband and Sarahcuda, with that little rictus of a stiff smile, I wonder what she thinks of her husband traveling around the country with this year's conservative pinup girl, especially given his past as a womanizer with a wandering eye.

I also wonder what's happened to her sense of style. I remember back in 2000, when her face was mobile, she used to dress in those smart tailored suits so favored by Republican women. Her hair was short, frosted, and pixieish, and her face was animated. Now she wears her hair unflatteringly long, it looks dried out, and the little puffy sleeved dresses she seems to favor these days all too often don't flatter a woman in her fifties, even an attractive one with good facial bone structure.

Cindy McCain always seems unhappy to me; a woman playing a role she really doesn't like. On the whole, though, she seems far less sanctimonious than most Republican political wives and aside from the quarter of a million dollars in bling she wore to the Republican National Convention, doesn't seem to flaunt her wealth.

Yes, she had her little problem with painkillers and her charity, but I don't see her running all over the country demanding stiffer sentences for drug users either. And when all's said and done, she may be married to one of the most venal political hacks in the country, but she is a woman who at least tries through philanthropy to do some good in the world.

I'd much rather see Michelle Obama greeting the dignitaries at state dinners, but Cindy McCain usually makes me feel more pity than outrage.

It is in that context that I say that I really don't understand, other than the fact that this is typical Jodi Kantor territory, why this article in today's New York Times was even necessary. It doesn't shed any light on Cindy McCain that we haven't already seen, and it feels like as much of a hatchet job as Kantor pieces on Chelsea Clinton, Barack Obama's religious journey, and Michelle Obama have been. Kantor's articles tend to tread on territory many times already trod, and add nothing new to the political dialogue.

Glenn Greenwald raises the point that there no longer seem to be any journalistic standards about what in a public figure's private life is off-limits anymore. Perhaps in a world of TMZ and OK! and Perez Hilton, there aren't any limits anymore. But Greenwald is right that this article about Cindy McCain, with its innuendo about the state of the McCains' marriage that echoes Patrick Healy's earlier Times piece on the Clintons' marriage, uses the same loose standards that have resulted in a kind of journalistic One Percent Doctrine, in which if there is a one percent chance that a story, or a rumor, or gossip, might be true, journalists proceed as if it were 100 percent true, and what's more, as if it were relevant. This is how the e-mails about Barack Obama being a secret Muslim, or not born in the U.S., or a terrorist sympathizer, came to be accepted as fact -- because if Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson reports them, even as rumors, they are given credibility.

Sarah Palin's personal life is fair game because she has set herself, and her family, up as paragons of the Real American Christian Family Ideal. Sara Robinson, who probably wishes her name was anything else these days, wrote about the pattern of family problems in the Palin family, from the son who went into the military to avoid a coke dealing rap, to the pregnant teenaged daughter, to a younger daughter who isn't always the cutie-pie we've been shown on television, to a special needs baby whose mother and father never even look at him in public, instead shunting him off to the pregnant teen as a kind of scarlet letter. Sarah Palin jetting around the country running for office when her children are so clearly screaming for help and attention IS valid for questioning. Cindy McCain's problems of a decade ago aren't, particularly when for all that I dislike the McCains, their kids seem to have turned out relatively OK, son Andrew's failed bank notwithstanding.

There are enough real reasons to oppose the election of John McCain. The points brought up by this article aren't among them.

At the very least, this is about the double standard for rich, well-connected white women

I wonder...if Michelle Obama had been addicted to painkillers and had stolen drugs from a charity, and committed fraud to get them....would the DEA have largely looked the other way? Would she have been able to cop a plea as a "first-time offender", enter treatment, and perform community service instead of going to jail for twenty years?

I think not.

Not only that, but the McCain campaign would be yowling 100 years to Sunday about her addiction and degeneracy.

But Michelle Obama has NOT been addicted to painkillers. Michelle Obama is a woman who is the product of a strong marriage and family, rather than of a philanderer and his trophy wife. Michelle Obama is a woman who attended and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. She's a woman of supreme confidence, grace, intelligence and wit, whose husband treats her like an equal and revels in her achievements.

But Cindy McCain is blonde, and extremely wealthy, and knows that her place is to stand silently by with a frozen smile gazing adoringly at her husband, who is a United States Senator who is running for president and feeds barbecued ribs to the press. So when a whistleblower comes out about just how Cindy McCain got out of serving twenty years for fraudulently obtaining drugs, and John McCain (or one of his surrogates) orders the Washington Post to scrub the story from its web site, the paper obliges. After all, it isn't as though they can get barbecued ribs anywhere else, so they'd better fall in line.

But a newspaper in Everett, Washington isn't under the purview of WaPo, but obviously has some kind of distribution agreement with the Paper of Barbecued Ribs, so the article appears at HeraldNet instead.

The Phoenix NewTimes wrote about the case in 1994:

You're U.S. Senator John McCain, and you've got a big problem.
Your wife, Cindy, was addicted to prescription painkillers. She stole pills from a medical-aid charity she heads and she used the names of unsuspecting employees to get prescriptions.

The public is about to find out about it.
Until now, you've managed to keep it all quiet. When Tom Gosinski, a man your wife fired, sued for wrongful termination and threatened to expose the whole sordid story, you didn't hesitate to call in the big guns.

John Dowd, the attorney who got you out of your Keating Five mess, worked on getting your wife a sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors. He also made Gosinski's lawsuit go away.

He didn't stop there.
To help maintain your reputation and discredit your wife's accuser, Dowd called Maricopa County Attorney Richard Romley and complained that Gosinski was trying to extort money. Romley, your Republican ally, promptly launched an extortion investigation.

But now New Times makes a public records request for documents in the extortion case. It's only a matter of days before the story gets out.

Here's what the senator does.
He calls in another big gun, political strategist Jay Smith, who conceives a rather remarkable plan.

On August 19--just three days before the records are to be made public--Smith parades your wife before a select group of journalist friends. She tells a tale of pain and triumph, and, incredibly, all the reporters agree to sit on the story until August 22. When Cindy McCain says her confession is intended to quell rumors and to inspire other druggies to turn their lives around, the journalists lap it up. They write about her "bravery." The first round of stories is one-sided. There is no mention of Tom Gosinski or Romley's extortion investigation.

Ariel Levy touched only briefly on the matter in an article in the September 15 New Yorker, in which he writes about the discrepancies between the official stories about how John and Cindy McCain met and about Cindy's drug addiction and the Gosinski matter, but instead of calling the McCains' lies what they are, Levy refers to their version of these stories and the truth as "leaving out a detail or two."

John McCain sponsored a bill on drug testing for major league sports, and has fully supported the so-called War on Drugs, but when it's his own wife, it looks like he goes so far as to call off the DEA. Because like all other laws in the eyes of Republicans, drug laws are also only for those without the resources to strongarm federal investigators into backing off.

UPDATE: Looks like WaPo didn't take into account its comment section when it scrubbed this story. It's back up -- AND linked from the home page.

Rarely do you see an Electra complex that's this obvious

Holy moly.

This is Cindy and John McCain in 1982, two years after their marriage. McCain is in the center:

(Arizona Republic photo by Ken Akers / November 2, 1982)

This is James Hensley, Cindy McCain's father:

This is also James Hensley:

He was a young husband and father before he went off to war. Wounded in combat, he returned home a hero, but stunned his wife by divorcing her to marry another woman. The warrior in this case was not Cindy McCain’s husband, but her father, James W. Hensley.

I've heard of marrying a man like one's father, but this is ridiculous bordering on creepy.

For more entertainment, enjoy this article from 2000 about how James Hensley made the money that bankrolled John McCain's political career, and how he continues to benefit from said career today. Read the entire article, especially the closing note: that Anheuser-Bush is paying for the four scheduled presidential debates this fall. Yes, THAT Anheuser-Busch, 20 million cases of whose marquee brand, Budweiser, are sold by James Hensley's company every year.