Doubting Thomas Blog

Archive for the ‘bill of rights’ Category

Someone at work saw photos of President Obama pop up on my computer’s screen saver and commented “I take it you’re a fan.” Yes, I’m a fan. For the first time in 8 years, our nation has a President who speaks English properly. And, you know I appreciate an adult with good language skills. (Plus, Obama’s undoing some of the dumb stuff Bush did, such as, for example, closing the detention center at Guantanamo, Cuba.)

And today, another friend of mine sent me a link to the St. Petersburg Times web site’s “Obameter” – which says it will keep track of over 500 promises that Obama made during his presidential campaign.

Here’s their analysis of one of the promises he has already kept:

One, maybe two

Updated: Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

By our reading, Obama only needed to appoint one Republican to his cabinet to satisfy this promise – and he did.

In a Dec. 1, 2008, press conference to announce his national security team, Obama said he asked Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense. Gates has served under several Republican administrations,  including as national security advisor and then director of central intelligence under the elder Bush, George H. W. Bush.

At the press conference, Obama said of Gates, “He knows that we need a sustainable national security strategy — and that includes a bipartisan consensus at home.”

Case closed? Not so fast.

Although numerous media outlets have identified Gates as a Republican, he actually is not registered with either party.

In a Pentagon press conference on Dec. 2, 2008, Gates was asked to “clear up” his party affiliation.

“I felt, when I was at CIA, that as a professional intelligence officer, like a military officer, I should be apolitical, and so I didn’t register with a party,” Gates explained. “I consider myself a Republican. Until yesterday, all of my senior appointments have been under Republican presidents.”

While that still left Obama technically one shy of a Republican on his cabinet, he put the issue to  rest on Dec. 19, when he nominated Ray LaHood, a former congressman from Illinois, to serve as his Secretary of Transportation.

LaHood is a no-doubt-about-it Republican. In fact, he presided over the impeachment vote against President Bill Clinton. Heck, his son, Sam LaHood, worked on the McCain campaign.

“When I began this appointment process I said I was committed to finding the best person for the job regardless of party,” Obama said at the Dec. 19 press conference. “Ray’s appointment reflects that bipartisan spirit, the spirit we need to reclaim in the country to make progress for the American people, and a spirit that Ray has embodied in all of his years in public service.”

Whether Obama has embraced a “bipartisan spirit” in his cabinet picks is certainly debatable. It is overwhelmingly Democratic. But he only promised at least one Republican. And by our count it’s at least one, plus one with an asterisk. Promise kept.

Sources:

U.S. Department of Defense,

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4325,

Media Roundtable with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates from the
Pentagon Briefing Room, Arlington, Va., Dec. 2, 2008

Change.gov, the Office of the President-Elect,
http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/the_national_security_team/, Obama's
National Security Team press conference, Dec. 1, 2008

CNN, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0812/19/cnr.06.html,
"Transcript: Obama Nominates Transportation & Labor Secretaries,"
Dec. 19, 2008

Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123181265719876193.html, "Obama Will be Hands-On Chief," Jan. 13, 2009

It takes a lot more than just speaking well and fulfilling a handful of campaign promises to make a good president, though, doesn’t it?  I know many people have high hopes for our new president, but some others are disappointed that he won the election, and I’ve also talked to a couple people who are glad he won, but who are still going to apply a critical ear to what he says and a critical eye to what he does. And that’s how it should be. Just because he won the vote doesn’t make him perfect. Just because he is in our favorite political party doesn’t make him right all the time.

What I’m looking forward to in President Obama’s administration is a return to public discourse here at home and a better reputation abroad. When he promised “transparency” in government, I didn’t think that he meant we’ll have a web cam on the administration 24/7, or that the government would blog every detail of its work…. What I hope will happen is that, unlike the Bush administration, people will begin to understand why some actions are taken, and understand why some policies are written, and will begin to develop a better vocabulary for discussing social issues where they overlap with political ones.

Instead, under the Bush administration, we often ran into a complete dearth of understanding of what the government was doing, but just had to trust Bush, lest we be cast to one side or the other in the false dichotomy of “either you’re for us, or you’re against us” line in the sand he drew. How many times, in the past 8 years, did you get into a so-called political discussion with a friend or family member, when one or the other grew frustrated and just said “we’ll have to agree to disagree”, and that ended the discussion?

What I hope for, under Obama, is a growth in the number of citizens who actively engage in government by getting involved in discussions that don’t center on proving the other party wrong. What I think can happen is that we will begin to not only understand what our government is doing, but understand each other better, so that we can better shape our government. It is meant to represent us, not rule us. But, as one of my favorite undergraduate professors used to say, “If you can’t say it, you haven’t thought it.” Let’s get back to talking, civilly, and thinking, broadly.

Comments?

I don’t want to take the guns away from law-abiding, sane people who hunt for food, but I’m pro-gun-control. I think a lot of the gun lobby members confuse “anti gun” with “gun control” and refuse to budge when it comes to this sensible level of control.

Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Read the rest of the article from which the above quote is taken online at New York Times.

He was a nut, he should not have had a gun. And there was a law in place to prevent him from buying a gun.

here’s a good one…

A homeowners’ association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs.

He said some residents believed the wreath was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

“Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Lisa Jensen said she wasn’t thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, “Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing.”

Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she’s not going to take it down until after Christmas.

“Now that it has come to this I feel I can’t get bullied,” she said. “What if they don’t like my Santa Claus?”

The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board “will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive.”

The subdivision’s rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.

Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn’t say anything.

Kearns fired all five committee members.

…kinda makes me want to get some wreath-making materials….

I read the “offbeat” news on various web sites, and today I found this story on cnn.com that doesn’t strike me as a typical offbeat story. The story is about a candidate whose vote for himself wasn’t counted. How is that offbeat? It’s all too common.

Candidate gets no votes — but he voted for himself

WALDENBURG, Arkansas (AP) — Randy Wooten figured he would get at least one vote in his bid for mayor of this town of 80 people — even if it was just his own.

He did not. Now he has to decide whether to file a formal protest.

Wooten got the news from his wife, Roxanne, who went to City Hall on Wednesday to see the election results.

“She saw my name with zero votes by it. She came home and asked me if I had voted for myself or not. I told her I did,” said Wooten, owner of a local bar.

However, Poinsett County results reported Wednesday showed incumbent William H. Wood with 18 votes, challenger Ronnie Chatman with 18 votes and Wooten with zero.

“I had at least eight or nine people who said they voted for me, so something is wrong with this picture,” Wooten said.

Poinsett County Election Commissioner Junaway Payne said the issue had been discussed but no action taken yet.

“It’s our understanding from talking with the secretary of state’s office that a court order would have to be obtained in order to open the machine and check the totals,” Payne said. “The votes were cast on an electronic voting machine, but paper ballots were available.”

A November 28 runoff is scheduled to decide the mayor’s race.

“It’s just very hard to understand,” Wooten said.

It seems as if cnn.com is saying that this story is funny. As if miscounted elections were such a silly old story we shouldn’t pay attention to the nut-cases and conspiracy-theorists who go on and on about voter fraud. But we definitely should. If votes don’t count, this isn’t a democracy.

I found this image on the inter-tube while doing some research for a paper I’m writing on electronic voting.