OBAMA, GAY MARRIAGE, AND VOTES

Marriage is an outmoded institution. Historically, it has been little more than a way for those in power—the religious hierarchy, the aristocracy, and autocrats—to control the flow of wealth and influence. Marriage and the laws attached to it have helped perpetuate economic inequality, class discrimination, racism, sexism, and religious bigotry throughout the world. If you doubt any of this, I recommend you read a book called A History of Marriage, by Elizabeth Abbott. If you want more details about my opinion of marriage, see this earlier blog post.

Although I would not recommend marriage to anyone, I nevertheless am rather proud of President Obama for (finally) supporting gay marriage without equivocation. He has taken a principled stand that will cost him votes. How often have we been able to say that about a politician in an election year?

Obama's political advisors no doubt weighed the election impact of his coming out in favor of gay marriage. Here's my take on the political consequences of his pro-gay-marriage declaration:

Political Positives for Obama

1) It will please and energize the liberal base. The most radical Democrats (like me) have been impatiently waiting for him to make any number of politically risky policy decisions (see: closing Guantanamo, ending the Afghanistan War, cutting defense spending, revising the Patriot Act to protect personal privacy). This is the kind of thing we've been hungry for.

2) It will absolutely solidify gay support for him and bring out the gay vote. Historically, many gays have felt so under-represented that they stayed away from the voting booth altogether. Whether gays are 3% or 10% of the population (nobody knows), that's a significant number of voters who have not voted before but will vote this time. Gay Republicans, as well, may well vote for Obama this time. Even conservative writer Andrew Sullivan said he was moved to tears when Obama announced his support for gay marriage.

3) It could generate more participation among young voters. The college generation and Gen Xers generally support gay marriage.

4) It could generate more money for Obama from the liberal elite. Apparently he received millions of dollars in donations just in the hours after his announcement.

 5) It will make Romney seem more out-of-date, out-of-step, fogeyish, intolerant, and "Mormon" by comparison. Given the history of Mormonism (see: polygamy), it will be difficult for Romney to say much in defense of "traditional" marriage without seeming to deny his own heritage. If Republicans make a big deal about this, it will shift the political debate from the economy to social issues, where Obama is, in general, stronger than Romney, who is manacled to the Tea Party.

6) It makes Obama seem principled and above politics. Many American voters will find it refreshing to see a politician take any stand that is not dictated by the polls.

Political Negatives for Obama

1) It is a direct slap in the face to North Carolina. This state voted for the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment just this week. Even those who opposed the amendment will find Obama's timing offensive, as if he's intentionally thumbing his nose at their state's sentiments. His announcement could very well cost him this swing state.

2) It will cost him votes in the black and Hispanic church communities. These groups strongly oppose gay marriage. Losing any black votes could cost Obama the swing state of Virginia, which he barely won in 2008. Losing Hispanic votes will possibly cost him Colorado and Nevada, two other key swing states.

3) It will probably cost him Indiana. He had at least a slim chance of winning this religiously conservative state before. Now he has less chance.

4) It will energize the ultra-right. The Tea Partiers and the evangelicals will work even harder against him and flock to the polls to vote.

5) It could hurt him with lunch-pail voters. Less educated blue-collar workers in important swing states like Ohio and Wisconsin, many of whom like Obama for his resurrection of the auto industry, will find the pro-gay-marriage stance offensive. It may also hurt him with blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania.

6) It could hurt him with elderly voters. Older Americans poll against gay marriage, so they might use this as an excuse to vote against Obama in the most important swing state— Florida—which has a large elderly population.

On balance, Obama's coming out in favor of gay marriage hurts him, I think, more than it helps him electorally. His political advisors no doubt told him so. And yet he did it. I think the better of him for it.

———————————

(Note: Some liberals have expressed disappointment that Obama said gay marriage should be an issue decided by the states. They believe he should have supported a federal law or court decision making gay marriage a right protected by the U.S. Constitution and enforced by the federal government, like abortion and voting rights for African-Americans. Here's a link to such criticism. [Be sure to read the comments on this link as well as the original post.] I understand the position of these folks, but I believe that, given the historical context, they are asking too much and appreciating too little what the President has done.)

Romney’s Vice-Presidential Options: Who gives him the best shot at winning?

The question is: Who will be Romney's vice-presidential pick?

Now that it’s assured (as if it weren’t a long time ago) that Mitt Romney will be the Republican presidential nominee, the fun comes in considering whom he might make his running mate. Here’s my list, with the odds of each candidate’s being Romney’s choice, and, afterward, their strengths and weaknesses as vice-presidential candidates.

At the end of this post, I will name the Republicans I think would do the most damage to Obama’s chances. Here's the overall list:

Name	Current Job	Odds
Marco Rubio	Florida senator	3-1
Rob Portman	Ohio senator	5-1
Tim Pawlenty	Fmr. governor of Minnesota	8-1
Chris Christie	Governor of New Jersey	10-1
Mitch Daniels	Governor of Indiana	10-1
Bob McDonnell	Governor of Virginia	10-1
John Thune	South Dakota senator	15-1
Bobby Jindal	Governor of Louisiana	20-1
Nikki Haley	Governor of South Carolina	20-1
Brian Sandoval	Governor of Nevada	20-1
Paul Ryan	U.S. representative, Wisconsin	20-1
Susana Martinez	Governor of New Mexico	40-1
Rick Santorum	Fmr. U.S. senator, Pennsylvania	50-1
Condoleezza Rice	Fmr. U.S. secretary of state	50-1
Jeb Bush	Fmr. governor of Florida	50-1

Other possibles who have been mentioned in media speculation, but that I’d put at worse than 50-1 odds: Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Olympia Snowe, Rand Paul, and Gen. David Petraeus. Of course, there is probably a Sarah Palin or Dan Quayle out there that no one, including me or Romney, is considering at this point.

Anyway, here’s my take on the most frequently mentioned suspects as Romney’s running mate.

Marco Rubio

Strengths: Rubio is smart, articulate, good-looking, young, and Hispanic. The last two characteristics offer a good contrast with Romney, who’s old and white-bread. Rubio’s parents emigrated from Cuba, so he somewhat neutralizes those who feel the Republicans are too anti-immigrant. He’s a darling of the Tea Party and will energize the far right of the Republican electorate and the anti-abortion crowd. He has decent foreign-policy credentials, being on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thereby filling a gap in Romney’s resume. He could bring in Florida—the prize among swing states. He’s a strong family man, which, along with his sex appeal, may attract women voters.

Weaknesses: He’s probably too right-wing for moderate independents. He’s light on national experience, having been in the Senate for only a year (previously was in the Florida House). He used to lie about his parents fleeing Castro; they in fact left Cuba before Castro came to power. Once a Mormon (!), he’s now a Catholic, with strict old-Catholic views on contraception and abortion, and has proposed legislation to restrict women’s access to insurance for contraception, so he probably won’t win over many women (but see: his good looks and healthy marriage). The biggest danger for Romney: Rubio could outshine him on the campaign trail, making Romney seem even duller, older, and less authentic than he already seems.

Rob Portman

Strengths: He’s been a huge vote-getter in Ohio, the most important swing state after Florida. He’s been a U.S. representative and a U.S. senator, and he’s served in the White House under both Bushes. As a former U.S. Trade Representative and Director of the Office of Management and Budget, he has strong economic credentials and a little foreign experience. He has voiced support for Obama’s auto bailout; this could help Romney, who made the mistake of criticizing the bailout in two states that benefited from it: Ohio and Michigan. He helped Romney tremendously in his close win over Santorum in the Ohio primary, so Romney knows him well and owes him. He’s a business-oriented numbers guy, perfect if the economy remains the big issue. On social issues like guns, abortion, stem cells, and gay rights, he’s voted the straight Tea Party line, so he could attract the Republican base. He understands Congress and could be a good Congressional liaison from a Romney White House. He’s poised but not flamboyant when speechifying—could make Romney look good without upstaging him.

Weaknesses: Rob who? He has almost no name recognition outside the inside of the Republican Party. His pro-gun, anti-Planned Parenthood, anti-gay, Tea Party-friendly voting record could alienate women and minorities. He’s untested on the national scene. His support for the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich while in the Bush White House could hurt him in the general election. As George W. Bush’s OMB director, he could be accused of contributing to the nation’s deficit. He brings little to the table that Romney himself doesn’t already bring. He’s bland.

Tim Pawlenty

Strengths: He’s an intelligent, budget-cutting moderate cut along the lines of Romney himself. He abandoned his own presidential campaign and endorsed Romney early, working for him publicly, so the top of the ticket already likes and trusts him. He’s young (51), articulate, and has the requisite clean-cut looks and full head of hair. He can claim to have balanced Minnesota’s budget (but see below). He could appeal to moderate independents. He’s not given to saying foolish things in the heat of a campaign. He’s a Catholic-turned-Protestant but not a Santorum-style Bible-thumper. He could possibly bring Romney Minnesota, which now leans slightly toward Obama. He’s a low-key campaigner who will not burn brighter than Romney himself on the campaign trail. He’s a safe choice for Romney.

Weaknesses: He’s not exactly a Tea Party favorite, having raised some fees and seen property taxes rise during his tenure as governor. He’s also supported abortion in the case of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s health, so he won’t exactly energize the fundamentalist Republican no-tax, no-abortion base. He’s perceived as a boring speaker. He has no foreign-policy experience. He’s another governor, like Romney himself, so he has little sway nationally or internationally. He balanced the Minnesota budget using what some consider tricky accounting and money-shuffling. He may be too conservative for moderates (he wants to reinstate don’t-ask-don’t-tell, for example) but too moderate for conservatives (he’s open to alternative energy sources like ethanol). He’s too neutral to be interesting.

Chris Christie

Strengths: He’s the opposite of wishy-washy. He’s a lively, intelligent speaker who uses blunt language to make his points. On the campaign trail, as others speak in careful platitudes, he will come across as a rhetorical breath of fresh air. He’s a budget- and tax-cutter, which will please the Tea Partiers. The people of New Jersey like him better and better as time passes—a good sign; he could possibly bring Romney that state, though it is unlikely; he could at least force Obama not to take NJ for granted. Christie is not afraid to stand up to the far right wing of his party; for example, when he was criticized for nominating a Muslim to a judgeship, he called the criticism “crazy” and “crap.” He has stated that man-made global warming is real, and he’s in favor of his state’s strict gun control laws. These occasional acts of political independence from the right-wing of his party could attract independent voters. He’s anti-abortion but supports abortion in the cases of incest, rape, and protecting the life of the mother; this stance could attract moderate women.

Weaknesses: His bluntness could lead to gaffes on the campaign trail. His moderate anti-abortion, gun-control, and global-warming stances will turn off the fundamentalist superconservatives in the Republican base. He is another governor, like Romney, with minimal foreign policy experience and little national clout or exposure. He’s got unconventional looks—he’s big, bordering on fat. (Let’s not pretend that doesn’t count.) In joint appearances, his candor and outspokenness will make Romney seem, by contrast, boring and weasley.

Mitch Daniels

Strengths: He’s a popular vote-getter in Indiana, a state that is probably already for Romney but could waver. He was director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush and has a reputation as a budget-cutter. Like Romney, he’s a former businessman. Fiscal conservatives like his strongly anti-union policies (he decertified state unions early on). Social conservatives like his anti-abortion legislation (but see below), but he supports abortion in cases of incest, rape, and mother’s endangerment, so he shouldn’t alienate women too badly. He supported legislation to help Indiana residents get health insurance, giving Romney a “this guy knows health insurance” running-mate to critique Obamacare. He won’t outshine Romney during the campaign.

Weaknesses: He has married, divorced, and remarried—the same woman! Who knows how this will play with women and social conservatives? As OMB director, he vastly underestimated the costs of the Iraq war, and some conservatives blame him for budget deficits under Bush. He’ll doubly galvanize the unions, which despise him, to work against Romney. He has no foreign policy experience. He gave an utterly boring and nerdy response as the official Republican counter-speech following Obama’s State of the Union message. He has suggested that social conservatives call a “truce” on issues like abortion and gay marriage—a stance that offended many of them and made it seem that he wanted to hide the Republican stance on those issues from the public. He’s not photogenic or charismatic in the least. A businessman/governor, he’s more or less a Romney clone, offering little that Romney doesn’t already offer.

Bob McDonnell

Strengths: He’s a vote-getting governor of a pivotal state (Virginia) that barely went for Obama last time, then turned Republican in 2010, so he could bring 13 much-needed electoral votes to Romney. He was a lieutenant colonel in the army, filling a gap in Romney’s no-military resume. He is a down-the-line social and fiscal conservative, opposing abortion for any reason, opposing Obamacare loudly, opposing gay marriage, supporting unlimited gun ownership and unlimited drilling for oil; the Tea Partiers therefore like him a lot and will reward Romney with their enthusiasm for choosing him. He can claim to have helped Virginia have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. He comes with no particular personal baggage. He’s intelligent and photogenic but not so charismatic as to upstage Romney.

Weaknesses: He was the governor who initially supported the “vaginal rape” law that required women to undergo an intrusive ultrasound before having an abortion, so he will not exactly attract the moderate female vote. (He later tried to back off his support, but he still signed legislation that treats a woman seeking an abortion as if she were a child.) He’s so close to a Tea Partier that he might alienate moderates of all genders. When proclaiming “Confederate History Month” in Virginia, he failed to mention slavery (as even previous Republicans had done), thereby offending all blacks and many moderates. Untried on a larger stage, he could wilt under the national spotlight. He’s just another governor with no foreign policy experience, like Romney himself.

John Thune

Strengths: He has longtime Congressional experience, which fills in one of Romney’s weaknesses. He’s beaten powerful Democrats in the past (Tom Daschle in 2004 Senate race). He’s an evangelical Christian who votes pretty much the Tea Party line, so he is attractive to the Republican base. He’s an intelligent, attractive guy and an effective campaigner.

Weaknesses: John who? Like Portman, he has no national name recognition outside the Republican Party. Unlike Portman, he represents a state that is already safe for Romney, so he can’t bring any new electoral votes. He voted for the TARP bank bailout in 2008, and some fiscal conservatives haven’t forgiven him for that. On the other hand, his strong socially conservative views (anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-gun) might turn off women and moderates.

Bobby Jindal

Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Susana Martinez

Okay, so it’s lazy to lump these four together, but, as young minority red-state governors, they basically have the same strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths: They’re all young, attractive, intelligent, and articulate. They’re all true-blue Tea Party conservatives who could energize the conservative base. They could appeal to minority voters—especially, in the cases of Sandoval and Martinez, Hispanic voters. (Jindal and Haley’s ancestors hailed from India.) Choosing one of them could make Romney look more open-minded and imaginative than he has seemed thus far. Jindal is the best bet of the lot, having served in Congress, having received high grades for handling hurricanes in Lousiana since Katrina, and having some expertise in health care policy. By contrast, any one of them will make Joe Biden look old and dithering in debates (assuming Biden is renominated for v-p).

Weaknesses: They all govern states that Romney is already a pretty sure-thing to win, so they bring no extra electoral votes with them. They’re each too conservative to attract moderate voters by their policy positions. They have no foreign-policy experience to speak of. They’re untested nationally. They’ll be more charismatic as candidates than Romney himself.

Paul Ryan

Strengths: As chair of the House Budget Committee and author of the GOP's public budget plans, he is the Republican Party’s fiscal face: a pure cut-entitlements, cut-taxes, cut-the-deficit conservative. He is smart, knowledgeable, and articulate about the economy and about conservative economic positions. He has powerful connections in Congress (he’s also on the Ways and Means Committee), which could help a Romney White House. He is beloved of most fiscal conservatives (but see TARP, below). He could bring Romney Wisconsin, which is currently up in the air. He votes the social-conservative line (anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, pro-gun) consistently. The Republican base will like him for that. He looks the part.

Weaknesses: All he seems to know or care about is budget issues, and he takes an approach to those which can be made to appear heartless toward the poor and the sick and the old. (He would make massive changes in welfare, Medicare and Social Security.) He’s pure Washington insider, with no real experience outside of politics. He voted for Bush II’s TARP bank bailout, which still rankles some Tea Party types. He has no foreign policy experience.

Rick Santorum

Strengths: No surprises here. He’s the darling of the Tea Partiers and the evangelicals, who will forgive Romney everything if he chooses Santorum for veep. Choosing him will unify the Republicans and prevent any possible conservative third-party movement.

Weaknesses: His self-righteous evangelical social conservatism will not sit well with moderates or women. He slammed Romney so hard during the primaries that it will seem almost cynical for him to join Romney’s team now or for Romney to even consider him. He has very high personal disapproval ratings.

Condoleeza Rice

Strengths: She’s the only person mentioned so far in this blog with meaningful real-world foreign-policy experience, so she can fill in that big gap in Romney’s resume. She can claim that she helped keep the homeland safe during George W. Bush’s two terms in office, thereby somewhat neutralizing Obama’s success in killing bin Laden and other Al Qaida terrorists. In an April 2012 poll of Republicans and independents, she was the top choice to be Romney’s running mate. (This surprised a lot of people.) She does well in national “people we respect” polls. She comes with no particular policy baggage regarding third-rail issues like social security, abortion, gay marriage, or gun control; she can say whatever Romney needs her to say on these issues. She instantly makes Romney a credible choice for women and minorities who would otherwise dismiss any social conservative vice-presidential candidate. She’s super-smart, attractive, articulate, and, for many, charismatic.

Weaknesses: Unlike most of the others on this list, when she says she doesn’t want the job, she probably means it. The Tea Party and social conservatives in general will not trust her on tax, abortion, gun, gays, and deficit issues, so they might stay home if she’s on the ballot. She is a grown woman of primarily academic background who never married or had children—all extra reasons the evangelicals and other social conservatives will distrust her. She supported and to some extent designed the unpopular war in Iraq. She is associated with the unpopular George W. Bush. Never having run for office, she could turn out to have no stomach for the crap she will have to eat and dish out on the campaign trail.

Jeb Bush

Strengths: He’s still hugely popular in Florida; an April 2012 poll suggested that as veep nominee, he, more than Rubio, could turn this essential state from Obama to Romney. He has actually said he’d consider the v-p nomination. He’s smart and articulate. (He got the smooth-talking gene that skipped his brother.) He’s said all the right things to appeal to conservatives, but he has a reputation, deserved or not, of being a moderate, so he could appeal to the center and to the right. The Hispanic and Jewish communities in Florida like him. His wife is Mexican-American, which could attract Hispanic votes throughout the country. He has stood above the fray that was the Republican primary season and outside the partisan warfare in Washington, so he seems less mud-splattered than most other politicians.

Weaknesses: The obvious: His name is Bush. His brother was an unpopular president at the end, and his raise-taxes father was too moderate for the conservative wing that now holds the Republican Party hostage. Most voters will (wrongly) expect him to be like the rest of his family.

Whom Should the Democrats Fear?

If I’m in the Obama White House, I’m most afraid that Romney will choose Rubio, Christie, Rice, or Bush. Rubio, who is charismatic, would be a fresh voice and a fresh face who could deliver Florida. Christie would stun and impress voters with his frank way of speaking and his clear common sense on the issues (in this way, he's unlike almost anyone else who has run on a national ticket since Harry Truman). Rice would be difficult to attack without Obama’s people seeming ungallant, anti-female, and, oddly, racist. And Bush would come across as that rare politician who has managed to avoid the mud fight that has been politics in recent years. Most of all, any of the four would appeal to moderate independents.

Most of the rest of the people on this list (except for Santorum) are safe, boring choices for Romney. If he follows his usual cautious pattern, he’ll probably choose one of them.

This is my choice for president.

Full disclosure

If you’ve read this far, I now need to make an admission: I don’t like Romney, and I want Obama to win. While I don’t think Romney will be a terrible president in most ways, the prospect of a Republican president filling the next three Supreme Court vacancies unsettles me. Given the age and shaky health of liberal-moderate justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, and Stephen Breyer, the next president could get three Supreme Court appointments. Three more Alitos, Scalias or Thomases would do serious damage to our country for the next 25 years and more. (See this earlier blog post for my take on why Romney would be only a slightly terrible president.)

That said, I believe it may be an advantage that I’m a Democrat vetting these Republican vice-presidential possibles. After all, who better than a Democrat to tell the Republicans which candidates I’m most afraid of?

Election-Year Scenarios on Super Tuesday

I suspect Mitt Romney will emerge from today's Super Tuesday primaries with the Republican nomination well in hand.

As an Obama liberal, I offered my take on Romney in this January blog post.

If you don't have time to read the post (i.e., if you have a life), here's a quick summary: I find Romney not as scary as any of the other Republican candidates, now that Huntsman's gone. Romney has some virtues, despite his flim-flammery and distortions of Obama's record.

As for the election, here are some possible scenarios:

Best-case scenario: Santorum or Gingrich wins the nomination and is creamed in the general election, with the Dems winning both the House and the Senate by large margins. The Tea Party commits suicide, and the Republicans undergo a mass reevaluation of who they are. Chances of this happening: 3%.

Second-best-case scenario: Romney wins the nomination, chooses a Tea Party-favorite veep nominee (Santorum, Gingrich, Demint, Rubio), is supported by the Tea Partiers, and loses big. Dems win House and Senate. The Tea Party is marginalized in the Republican Party, which realizes that its monstrous shift to the right has damaged it seriously. Chances of this happening: 5%

Third-best-case scenario: Romney wins the nomination, chooses a non-Tea Party veep nominee (Pawlenty, Huntsman, Christie), and loses a close election. Dems retain Senate, GOP retains House. The Tea Party neither gains nor loses power in the GOP, which remains hostage to it. Chances of this happening: 35%

Third-from-worst-case scenario: Romney wins the nomination, chooses a non-Tea Party veep, and wins the election. Tea Party loses some power in the GOP because Romney owes them nothing and ignores them while in office. Chances of this happening: 30%.

Second-from-worst-case scenario: Romney wins the nomination, chooses a Tea Party veep, and wins the election. The Tea Party claims partial credit for the win and remains powerful in the GOP. Chances of this happening: 15%.

Worst-case-scenario: Santorum or Gingrich wins the nomination and the election. Tea Party rules the whole country. Gack! Chances of this happening: 3%.

Chances of other scenarios happening that I haven't thought of : 9%.

Of course, any Republican win is terrifying because Supreme Court justices Breyer and Ginsburg will probably leave the court in the next four years. Kennedy might also leave.

Two or three more conservatives on the Supreme Court would be disastrous for the country for the next 25 years.

The Cloakroom on Valentine's Day (a poem)

Main Street Elementary School, which I attended in the 1950s. It no longer exists.

I wrote this poem back in the 1970s. It's set in the 1950s. It is, I suspect, based on an invented memory—a memory that, now that I've written about it, seems more real and vivid to me than things that no doubt actually happened in the fourth grade at Main Street Elementary School in Farmingdale, NY, where I grew up. I can't remember now if I've ever published this poem anywhere. It seems appropriate for this week's holiday. I don't know why we used the word "cloakroom," which seems so formal, for the place in the back of the class where we hung our coats and left our galoshes.

The Cloakroom on Valentine’s Day

Remember how,

not long before the time for going home,

we sneaked into the room of coats and shadows

which had beckoned from the back like a cave

since morning

when we turned, whenever we turned,

from our lessons?

Remember how the bell had rung a fire drill

all day, how Teacher told us

to ignore it? And we did,

though it sang and sang like a burn?

(I will not talk.

I will not talk.

A hundred times, a thousand times,

written in our heads.)

How in the noise when Teacher turned

we dipped and darted for the door

like swallows?

Remember being scared to laugh,

afraid that Teacher’s vast shadow

would grow in the doorway,

lit from behind by giggles?

How we shut the door?

And how we played at hiding in the dark

in the cloth of jackets, caps, and scarves?

How with a sudden Hey! we knew

that all the pockets grew with red,

unopened, heart-shaped envelopes and boxes,

and we stood breathless for a second,

hardly daring think the sweets inside?

How (just about to open one)

the door flew wide

and all the light and children,

come for their coats and candy,

filled the secret place and our wide eyes?

But they were blushed too much to notice us?

How we emerged, unchanged,

except for having sensed each other

in the red dark?

HUMILIATION AS ENTERTAINMENT: Why I won't watch the films of Michael Moore

Public humiliation was once a form of punishment. Today it's a form of entertainment.

I received an email today with a link to some of Jay Leno's favorite "Jay-Walking" moments. In these sequences, Leno goes out into the street and asks random folks to answer simple questions, usually about American history or culture. He then airs the silliest answers to those questions. He points to an American flag and asks a young woman how many stars are on it. "I don't know," she says. "It's moving too fast." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. He asks a different young woman what the "D.C." in "Washington, D.C." stands for. Her answer: "Da capital?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Like most of America, I laugh at these folks and their ignorance. Then I feel, well, ashamed of myself.

Private humiliation has become public entertainment. We strip people of their dignity and then air the result to the masses. Below is a column I published in the local paper in 2004, when Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 came out. I agree with Moore's politics; I hate his movies. They represent a sad trend in American culture. It's a trend that's only gotten worse since 2004. (Judge Judy and Dr. Phil, anyone?)


 

Filmmaker Michael Moore has become famous for subjecting people to public shame.

WHY I WON’T WATCH FAHRENHEIT 9/11

by Ed Weathers

(Originally published in The Roanoke Times in 2004.)

 

I rented Michael Moore’s movie Bowling for Columbine recently. After 15 minutes, I shut it off. Michael Moore’s movies make me squirm—but not for the reasons he intends. I squirm because I belong to that shrinking minority of Americans who don’t like to see people embarrassed in public.

      Michael Moore embarrasses people in public, and I don’t like it. I’m not talking about public figures like Charleton Heston or George Bush or Roger Smith (the General Motors executive Moore eviscerates in Roger and Me). I have no problem with Moore pointing out the stupid, venal, or dangerous policies of actor-shills, presidents and corporate executives. No, I have a problem when Moore embarrasses ordinary citizens—a GM security guard, a bank clerk—in order to wring a little laugh from the audience or make a point that can be just as well made in another way. In the first fifteen minutes of Bowling for Columbine, for example, Moore goes into a bank that offers a free gun to anyone who opens a new account. He opens an account, asks for a gun, and gets it. Granted, this is a telling statement about how easy it is to get a gun in this country—from a bank, no less. But along the way, Moore also seems to be politely mocking the sweet teller who opens the account for him and the perfectly nice bank manager who hands him the gun. After he’s handed the gun, Moore then ambush-interviews the bank manager, peppering him with well-rehearsed questions about the socio-political correlativism of guns and banks. The manager, clearly not prepared to answer such complex questions on the spur of the moment, hems, haws and stumbles. We laugh at him. But which of us could answer such questions cogently without some time to think about them? Moore is trying to make a statement about guns in this country, but I came away from this segment angry, not about stupid American gun laws, but about rude American film directors. I felt sorry for the bank manager. That’s when I turned the movie off.

      Public humiliation has become the most popular sport in America. Virtually every hit “reality” show on television is really a “humiliation” show. People get fired by Donald Trump, thrown off the island on “Survivor,” rejected by The Bachelor, and reduced to screaming fools on “Fear Factor.” We watch and laugh, or gloat, as if we were better than them. And then there’s the hugely successful “American Idol.” Don’t tell me that the viewing public watches “American Idol” to discover talented singers. No, you and I both know that we watch in order to laugh derisively at the poor fools who think they can sing, or dream they can dance, but who in fact have no talent whatsoever—unless you count their willingness to make fools of themselves in public. Okay, I’m pretty sure most of the talentless know they are talentless and just want their two minutes on national tv, but that doesn’t change the fact that Americans watch in order to laugh at them. 

"Queen for a Day": An early example of humiliation-as-entertainment.

      Public humiliation on television goes back almost to the medium’s origins. I still remember a show from the 1950s called “Queen for a Day,” on which women stood before the audience and told the pathetic tales of their lives—drunk husbands, children with polio, accidents in the kitchen—in order to earn the audience’s sympathy. The wife with the most pitiful tale won a refrigerator. I hated that show. It embarrassed me. In more recent years, we’ve had the “I Slept With My Boyfriend’s Dog” school of Jerry Springer television, which simply took the public airing of besmirched underwear to new depths.

      The question now is this: Are Americans still capable of embarrassment? More importantly, are we capable of being embarrassed for someone else? Do we feel sympathy any longer for someone who has been or is being publicly humiliated?

       I of course haven’t seen Michael Moore’s newest film, Fahrenheit 9/11, which just won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. I understand from the reviews that the movie blasts the Bush administration for its ties to the Saudis and its failures before and after 9/11. That’s fine with me. A politician’s policies are fair game. Besides, no one can embarrass George Bush more than George Bush embarrasses himself every time he tries to speak off the cuff. (If I need to establish my anti-Bush bona fides here, let me say that I just sent the Kerry campaign a check for 2% of my annual income. If you haven’t done the same, you’ll have no right to complain if Bush wins and gets to appoint Scalia clones as the next three Supreme Court justices, thereby embarrassing the whole country for the next 30 years.)

Paul Wolfowitz doing what seems to count for entertainment in the U.S. today.

      Anyway, I’m sure I’ll agree with the politics of Moore’s new film. But not necessarily with the tactics. There’s one scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 that all the reviewers have mentioned as one of the “best” and “funniest” in the movie—“vintage” Michael Moore. It’s a scene in which Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and chief architect of the Iraq War, is preparing for an interview. Wolfowitz, unaware that his actions will later be seen by millions, sticks a comb into his mouth, wets it with spit, and then runs it through his hair. Apparently we are expected to laugh with gleeful superiority at this picture of the Bush administration’s biggest brain behaving grossly. But I wouldn’t laugh. I would simply be embarrassed for the poor man. After all, who among us doesn’t pick his nose when he thinks no one is watching? Who doesn’t bite his finger nails and spit them secretly into the corner of the motel room when he’s alone? Who doesn’t have some disgusting habit which, if revealed to our friends, would make us want to crawl away and die? I hate Wolfowitz’s unilateralism, his imperialist arrogance, and his conduct of Middle East foreign policy. Only Michael Moore could make me call Paul Wolfowitz “poor man.”

       I don’t plan to see Fahrenheit 9/11. All the “news” in it is old news to anyone who reads and is interested in politics. Mostly, though, I don’t care to see people publicly humiliated. I would think by now that we Americans would have learned what a callous indifference to the humiliation of others can lead to. If you’ve forgotten, just take another look at the photos from Abu Ghraib.

One of a series of Abu Ghraib paintings by Fernando Botera.

MY BROTHER AND MY POLITICS

My brother George, left, was my life's first companion. That's me on the right. George cheered me on in sports and everything else to the end of his days. He was as generous a soul as I've ever known.

 

This may be in bad taste: I’m about to politicize the memory of my brother George. George died in September, 2008, in the middle of the last presidential election campaign. As we enter another presidential election year, I find myself thinking of him again. This post contains two essays. The first I wrote in 2008; it was published in The Roanoke Times. The second I wrote after George’s funeral; I shared it only with family and with a few friends. As you’ll read, people like George would not fare well in a world run by conservative Republicans. George is a big reason I vote for Democrats.

MY BROTHER AND MY POLITICS

(Written in September, 2008)

My brother George died last week, at the age of 66. Let me tell you about George and why he’s part of the reason I plan to vote for the Democrats in November.

    George never did well in school, though he tried. Oh, how he tried. His virtues were not in his head. They were in his good heart. 

At school and sports, no one ever tried harder than George.

    George did a thousand kindnesses for hundreds of friends. For the last thirty years, he was the full life-support system for a man who was unable, because of mental troubles, to keep himself in home or transportation. This friend used George’s car more than George used it himself. For all practical purposes, he lived in George’s car. George paid for the gas, most of his friend’s food, the cell phone they shared, and all the expenses when they went on trips. You can call what George did for his friend “enabling.” You can call it “bleeding-heart liberalism.” I call it generosity.

    George also gave money to other friends when they needed it, though he didn’t have much himself. Some of these friends took advantage of him, yes, but George never questioned them. He bailed the sons of friends out of jail, but he never judged them.

    Banks, credit card companies, and other businesses, on the other hand, did take advantage of George, who was never good at finance. They offered him unneeded loans. They offered him unnecessary credit cards. They offered him trips to Bermuda for “free.” Sometimes George fell for these offers. At one point our brother Terry had to negotiate with the banks and credit card companies to rescue him from pounding debt. After that, George tore up all his credit cards but one.

George (waving) and me meeting our dad's commuter train. George was forever a devoted son.

     George worked hard all his life and always supported himself. He worked as a machinist at Grumman Aircraft and later Republic Aircraft on Long Island for many years until the aircraft industry weakened and he was laid off. After a brief period on unemployment, which he hated, George became a night-time security officer for his hometown school district on Long Island. Every work night for more than 25 years, right up to last week, he began his rounds at 11 p.m., and he tried to sleep during the day.

     Though strong, George wasn’t blessed with great health. He had a mild form of epilepsy that caused him to have seconds-long seizures, especially when he was nervous or excited. He had serious diabetes and nearly lost his left foot twice. He endured long hospital stays several times in the last three years of his life. The strain of his abnormal sleep schedule didn’t help. He died of a massive infection compounded by his diabetes.

     George never found a woman who appreciated him enough to marry him, and there was some loneliness in that for him. He never measured up to the achievements of his more accomplished siblings, nieces, and nephews. But he was incapable of bitterness or anger, and he never took refuge in drugs or drink or any other vice I ever knew of. His pride in the rest of us was transparently sincere.

     No, George never complained. Instead, he sang in the church choir every Sunday for more than 45 years, joined the local volunteer fire department, and became a stalwart on a number of bowling teams. Along the way, he was the most loyal brother, son, friend, neighbor, and teammate many of us ever had.

George, left, and me in more grown-up years. He was the most loyal brother anyone could ask for.

George is why I vote for Democrats. He’s why I believe in consumer-protection laws, the minimum wage, unemployment compensation, worker-protection legislation, universal health insurance, and guaranteed social security—the kinds of things neoconservative Republicans have always voted against. (Once, there were moderate Republicans who supported such things, but not, apparently, anymore.) The neocons believe in some kind of laissez-faire survival-of-the-fittest ethos that says, “Let the buyer beware” and “Every man for himself” and “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

     Well, George wasn’t exactly the “fittest.” He was simply the most humble, the most generous, the nicest.

      The Republicans say they are for “national defense.” But shouldn’t “defense” include defending the health, safety, and financial security of people like George, who can’t always defend themselves? Much as I respect some Republicans, it’s Democrats like Barak Obama who have always offered that kind of national defense, as well as the protect-our-shores kind. That’s why I will vote for the Democrats in November.  I will do it for myself and for my brother.

___________

GEORGE’S SENDOFF

(Written immediately after his funeral in September 2008)

George, shown here saluting, was himself saluted by the entire Farmingdale Volunteer Fire Department at his funeral.

Two by two, forty white-gloved firemen in full uniform marched to the front of the viewing room, stood in front of George’s open coffin, and slowly, slowly saluted him. Then, two by two, they lowered their hands,  about-faced right, and marched out of the room. It took 10 minutes for all of them to do this, in absolute silence. Watching them from the soft, high-backed “family chairs” facing the coffin, my brother Terry, sister Joyce, niece Becky and I barely blinked the whole time. It took an honorable forever for the firemen to finish.

The next day, after the funeral service in the church (more talk of Jesus and the resurrection than I remember in 13 years of sermons back in my 1960s Sunday-school days; a beautiful tribute from my niece; a letter read from a pastor far away whom George had coached on the Methodist Youth Fellowship basketball team 40 years ago)—after the church service, the firemen put my brother’s coffin on a fire truck and drove in a procession of five fire trucks to the cemetery eight miles away,  first stopping briefly in front of the fire house for the giant volunteer-summonsing horn to blast twice in valediction, later detouring to pass the house where we grew up, and, at every intersection en route, shutting down main highways. A cortege of ten cars followed the fire engines; my brother Terry and niece were in the first car with me. Entering the cemetery, we all passed beneath a giant American flag strung between the cherry-pickers of two fire engines from neighboring towns, their drivers at attention and saluting. All for George.

At the graveside, the forty firemen once again saluted, then took off their “covers” (hats, for the uninitiated) as the tiny, brisk Korean-American minister gave her final “ashes to ashes” farewell. The minister, new to the church, had said during the funeral service that George had been the choir member who sat nearest her during church services each Sunday, and occasionally he’d whisper to her, as she sat down after a sermon, “Now, that’s the work of a good pastor.” She said how much the encouragement meant to a new pastor. At the graveside, the young funeral director, who knew George and is just beginning to follow in his father’s career steps, wiped away tears. Then the mourners placed yellow roses on the coffin, and we all went home.

But all that wasn’t the most important part of my brother’s going away.

George, left, next to our Aunt Nelle and mother and father. For more than 60 years, George was a faithful member of the Farmingdale Methodist Church and a stalwart in the choir.

At the viewing and the funeral, we had met my brother’s choir friends and his firemen friends and his co-workers, who just about all used the words “sweet guy” to describe him.

But it was the Bowlers and his Chosen Other Friends who reminded me that there is a world of people out there that I almost never think about. It was my brother’s world.

George, it seems, was Shepherd of the Misfits. At the viewing, which went from 2 pm to 9:30 at night on Friday, with a two-hour break for supper, his bowling buddies and the Chosen Others were there all day. They never left. They were the stunted and the stuttering. They were the soft-minded and the myopic.  They were the valiant tryers. There were about 15 of them. Three of them were wall-eyed. Two were barely on the functional end of the autism spectrum, one of whom, Jason, couldn’t keep his hands from flying about when he talked about George, which he did at length. Two of them, Jack and Anthony, are barely five feet tall. They all have bad teeth and talk too loud in viewing rooms and look straight at you as if they had never seen another human being before. They can be unsettling. One young man in his twenties, Joey, is seriously mentally challenged (are there politically correct words for all this? I don’t have time to look for them). Joey is big and soft and is missing all the teeth on the top right side of his mouth. These were the friends my brother had found and chosen for his life. And they had chosen him.

One of my relatives was upset because the Bowlers and the Chosen Others kept taking photos of my brother in his casket. They’d stand in front of him as people do when they have their picture taken with celebrities. They took hundreds and hundreds of photos of my dead brother. He might have been their Lenin.

Every 15 minutes, Joey of the tender mind looked at my brother in the coffin and began to keen. The Chosen Others all wept, all afternoon and into the evening.  My brother, it seems, lived among men with no emotional defenses. They all just kept weeping. After I tried to comfort them and they saw that I liked to talk to them, they came to me with a look in their eyes as if they hoped I might transform myself into George. Joey kept within touching distance of me when he wasn’t kneeling in front of the coffin and talking to George and weeping.

These were men from a Carson McCullers novel. If you haven’t read Carson McCullers, read her.

There were also the daughters of two of the men (who had married those men?), and the daughters wept, too, though they were more in control of themselves than their fathers, except when the one girl wailed at the graveside. She had told me earlier that George had helped her get through some bad times when she was a teenager.  Days later, I found out from my mother that one of the girls had once expressed the hopeful possibility that George was her father.

There was one grown woman among the Others at the viewing: Christine, a charming woman with dyed black hair, a crooked smile, and sweet eyes that weren’t quite parallel. Picasso would have painted her. She was a waitress at Friendly’s restaurant, where George ate many of his meals. (We discovered that he never cooked at home. Never.) Christine and I talked a long time, and she smiled at every memory of George.

The next day, at the cemetery, a different, elegant woman came up to me after the coffin was lowered. “Ed,” she said, “I’m Jackie.” Jackie. A high-school classmate of mine, Jackie had been George’s first love. Her father had been permanently shell-shocked by World War II. For years when she didn’t have her own car, George had driven Jackie to see her father every weekend in the veterans’ mental hospital. In his loyal way, George never stopped loving Jackie, even when she went off to her career as a flight attendant and married and had her own children. It was wonderful to see her. She still has a dimple in her right cheek.

I will never forgive the world for not finding George a wife.

But back to the Bowlers and the Chosen Others. What had George given these people—these short, stammering, misshapen, weeping men, with their potbellies? He was six-foot-two, and strong, and he could speak perfectly well (though he often mumbled, as they do—because they do?), and his teeth and eyes were not crooked, and he never passed judgment on anybody. He knew how to tease them—they loved to tell stories of how he teased them. He knew how to reserve motel rooms when they went to watch professional bowling tournaments in Pennsylvania or for trips to Vermont, where they hung out in their rooms or in the swimming pool and never did anything touristy. He could afford to pay for their motel rooms.

There is a world of people out there that some of us—me, anyway— rarely notice and almost never think about. They don’t vote. They don’t read books or magazines or newspapers. They don’t go to movies much. They bowl and watch professional wrestling. They live in basement apartments or group houses, three beds to a room. (In his will, George left little wall-eyed Jack his easy chair. But Jack told me that he had no place to put it; he lived in one room with three other men.) These men work when they can, at the kind of jobs they can do. They sweep restaurants and work deep behind the baggage-claim at Kennedy Airport. They don’t drive the truck that pulls the wide load on the highway; they drive the flag truck that follows it (and they drive 900 miles to be at George’s funeral). Among people like you and me, they mumble or stay silent. They can’t afford to fix their teeth or their eyes or their tongues. At funerals, they talk loud and weep unashamedly. They were George’s flock.

When I was young, sitting at the dinner table hearing George recount the losses of his day—a failed geometry test, a squabble with another student, getting cut at the j-v basketball tryouts—when I was young (my parents getting more and more upset at George)—when  I was young, I thought I was better than George, and I sometimes let him know it. After this weekend, I don’t think I was good enough to sit at the same table with him.

_____________

So here I politicize my brother George. When you vote this November, remember him and his friends. Vote for the party that keeps people like them in mind.