Reactions to Protesters

Okay, I know I haven't written anything in two weeks or so. It isn't out of laziness this time; I just haven't had a lot to say. No new space tourism news has come out that I am aware of, and with the political conventions going on, I've sort of been in a politics overload and haven't really felt like writing about it. But that changed last night.

I watched (and actually, recorded) both of the dominant parties' presidential candidates' speeches. Last night, Code Pink protesters tried to interrupt McCain's speech several times. Did you notice the excessive amount of U-S-A U-S-A chants? It turns out that many of those were started by delegates trying to drown out protesters who were shouting and holding up signs with slogans such as "McCain Voted Against Vets" (true) and "You Can't Win An Occupation" (it's about time someone makes that point). One of the protesters finally succeeded enough to attract the news networks' cameras and cause a reaction by McCain himself, but she had to start stripping off her clothes to do it.

Code Pink is a group that was formed, mostly by women, to prevent Bush from starting a war with Iraq. These days, they are dedicated to ending it, and have also begun acting on several social issues (health care, for example). They specialize in getting behind the camera, both covertly (slowly standing up behind a speaking politician wearing a pink shirt with an anti-war slogan) and overtly (outright interrupting a speech such as the one last night).

The point I am bringing up here is not that there was a protester. There are protesters everywhere, dissenting against almost every conceivable opinion. What interested me was McCain's reaction: "My friends, don't be diverted by the ground noise and the static. Americans want us to stop yelling at each other, OK?" I found that more than a little patronizing. There are many ways he could have tactfully handled this, but he decided (granted, at the spur of the moment) to be disrespectful toward those with dissenting opinions.

The point I am trying to bring up here is that everything, everything about these political campaigns is scripted and rehearsed ad-nauseam. The only chance we have of potentially seeing these peoples' true personalities is at spur-of-the-moment reactions such as this. And there is a similar example of Obama's reaction when presented with a similar situation.

Early in August, Obama was giving a speech in Florida when a group of protesters used a rather Code-Pink-like tactic, raising a sign behind him and starting to shout while he was talking. The sign said, "What About the Black Community, Obama?" The crowd reacted with boos, and then chants of "Yes We Can" to try and drown them out. (Sound familiar?) At that point Obama turned around and saw the protesters, one of whom was still shouting. And what was his reaction? "Excuse me, young man, this is going to be a question-and-answer session, so you can ask a question later." and then "Sit down. You'll have a chance to ask your questions." This seems a bit patronizing as well, but at least Obama showed a willingness to listen, and later, he did allow the protester to ask a question. This, of course, wouldn't have been possible at McCain's speech last night, but at least McCain might have shown a little respect for dissenting opinions instead of dismissing them as 'static' and 'ground noise'. Dismissing dissenting opinions outright is what Bush does, and it's frankly troubling to me.

Oh, and if McCain wants to win, someone has got to tell him not to walk out to the podium like an old guy who has his pants hiked up to his nipples.

Just sayin'.

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Presidential Candidates' Space Proposals Followup

So I mentioned a few days ago that Barack Obama had announced he was going to study ways to provide more funding for NASA (and therefore ways to conserve jobs in a stretch of Florida important to the campaigns). Well, he didn't waste any time, and on Saturday released a very detailed plan outlining his goals for NASA and how he plans to accomplish them. In short, he plans to provide options for additional shuttle missions after the currently planned 2010 retirement date, he plans to speed up the Constellation program to get the new CEV (crew exploration vehicle) up sooner, and he plans to cooperate with industry and other nations to facilitate this.

It looks like a good plan, but of course, it requires money. Obama's proposal is to provide NASA with an additional $2 billion. After reading much of the plan and skimming the rest, I saw nothing on where this money would come from. But that is NASA's everlasting quandary; how much money do you spend on exploration when there are homeless children to feed and terrorists to be fought? Still I hope it happens. As we saw in the 60s, a sense of exploration can be a great thing.

After that was released, McCain criticized Obama of "saying different things at different times to different people," and in doing so, changing his position on NASA (which, as I previously mentioned, he did). However, such a detailed position paper as the one Obama released when there had only been brief mention of NASA in the past seems like a pretty solid thing. We'll see if he actually has the interest to find the funding for his proposals. And on McCain's part, he claimed to be a longtime supporter of NASA with a proven track-record.

As for their track records, McCain just last year voted against $1 billion in additional funding for NASA, and was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation when the US gap in manned space travel was created. Obama, to my knowledge, hasn't had the opportunity to vote on issues directly affecting NASA, so we have little way of knowing how serious his support really is. Take everything with a grain of salt.

But hey, here's Obama on the issue of Star Trek. There's always that.

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All About McCain

So I've been pretty hard on Obama lately. And for good reason. I like the guy, but he's made some pretty crappy decisions as of late. I usually talk about those here, and then I usually end those articles with a caveat like "However, I'm still likely to vote for him, because my differences with McCain are far greater, and I'll write about those soon". Well, I'm finally getting around to it. Today, I'll lay out what exactly it is I don't like about McCain.

Now, for the record, I actually have liked the guy in the past. A lot. I was really rooting for him to win the 2000 Republican primaries. I've been following his career a lot longer than I've been following Obama's. So what's changed? Well, just about everything. But let me go over my differences with him point by point.


Policies:
Policies are, after all, the most important criteria for choosing a new leader of any sort.

1. Iraq
Seriously? You won't commit to taking us out of Iraq? Oh sure, you say you want the war to end, but you refuse to make any sort of firm commitment (saying, more or less, that we need to take it as it comes). You say you want "victory", but you won't define what "victory" means in Iraq. Guess what? This is exactly what Bush has been saying all along, and look where it has gotten us! If you really are committed to ending the war, at least set yourself apart from Bush a smidgen. Since you fail to do so, I can't trust you on this one bit.

2. Energy
Granted, for a Republican, McCain has had an excellent record in supporting sound energy policies. This is one of the reasons I have liked him in the past. He has heavily supported the development of alternative forms of energy. However, this all changed around 2006, when he started running for president. His energy policy now centers on three things: oil exploration in the US, clean coal technology, and nuclear power. He does mention alternative energy sources, but his website (for example) only has a small paragraph about them buried in a huge page devoted to his energy policies. Go see for yourself. So let me talk about his three main energy proposals.
Nuclear:
I actually do think Nuclear technology has a place in meeting our demand for energy, as long as it is done very carefully. However, what McCain (or anyone else, to be fair) fails to mention is the fact that this produces hazardous waste that remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years. Launching the waste into space is too risky. So to deal with it, someplace has to be contaminated almost permanently. The place I see for nuclear energy is a temporary measure to meet our needs while we develop alternative energy sources. This should not be a permanent measure, because we need to limit the amount of waste produced.
Clean Coal and Oil Exploration:
Yes, I put these into the same category because my issues with coal and oil are the same: we will run out of them! And very very soon! I don't actually mind the idea of drilling for more oil (as long as it is done carefully and safely, which it rarely is) or developing safe, clean ways to extract and process coal, so long that these are not the main focus of our energy policy! Putting too much money and energy into these solutions is akin to throwing it away, because it will all be gone before this century is over (and most in the scientific community believe it will happen much sooner than that)! We need to start now to focus our efforts on developing other sources of energy before the coal and oil run dry! Solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal energy are all excellent solutions to our problems; they just need to be developed! Oh hey, and in developing them, we might just be able to create a freaking ton more jobs and help fix the economy at the same time! How's that for a smart idea?

3. Diplomacy
I firmly agree with Obama when it comes to Diplomacy. Of course we should be talking with our enemies! That's how we get them to be, well, not our enemies anymore. Seems to have worked pretty well in North Korea. However, McCain seems dead-set against even taking a second glance at people who we should be negotiating with, whether it is with Cuba, Iran, the Palestinian government, or North Korea.
Wait, North Korea? Didn't I just say we negotiated with them and it worked?
Well, yes. But McCain had this to say prior to the breakthrough, in a joint statement with Senator Lieberman: "We must never squander the trust of our allies and the respect for our highest office by promising that the president will embark on an open-ended, unconditional personal negotiation with a dictator responsible for running an international criminal enterprise, a cover nuclear weapons program and a massive system of gulags." But wait, whoops, the talking worked.

4. Taxes
Do you know how much national debt we have? Nine trillion dollars. Specifically, in the early afternoon of of Tuesday, August 5, 2008 when I wrote this paragraph, we had nine-trillion, five-hundred-sixty-six-billion, seven-hundred-fifty-one million, three-hundred-twenty-three-thousand, eight-hundred-twenty-two dollars and fifty-three cents of national debt. For the record, that's $9,566,751,323,822.53. That almost sounds like a made-up number! A hundred-zillion-gajillion-bazillion! I'll rant more about that later, but my point here is that President Bush added more onto it than any other president in history. Do you know how he did that? He cut taxes during a time of war. And not only once, but three times! While we needed the money to fight an endless war in Iraq and a marginally effective one in Afghanistan simultaneously, we decided we needed to dig ourselves farther into a hole by cutting taxes. And why? It would "help the economy." Well, look where that has gotten us. I'm no economist, and I'm certainly no political expert, but even I could see how this was bad. And I was really ecstatic when McCain stood up and argued against Bush's tax cuts! He argued against them for all the right reasons; because we weren't curbing spending, because we were borrowing heavily from future generations, because they weren't necessarily good for the economy, and because we were at war. I was inspired that someone from the right would have the guts to stand up and say these things. But now? Now he's all for keeping the Bush tax cuts in tact and making them permanent. Hooray.

5. The "Patriot" Act
McCain voted for the "Patriot" Act. Need I say more? (Though, to be fair, Obama voted to reauthorize the darned thing. Oh why oh why did you do that?)

6. Habeus Corpus
Remember my rant a couple of months ago about granting Guantanamo prisoners the right of Habeus Corpus? Back in 2005, when I still liked McCain, he went on and on about how those prisoners should be granted that right. It was great! Here, I'll even give you a direct quote:
"Now, I know that some of these guys are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity. But, one, they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there's a fear that if you release them that they'll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America. I think, on balance, the argument has got to be--the weight of evidence has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and that means that if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them."
And what does he have to say now that the Supreme Court has given them those rights? He called it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." No, Mr. McCain, it was one of the best. You're now totally wrong on this one.

7. Lobbying Transparency
If various groups are going to be allowed to make direct appeals to government officials (a.k.a. lobbying), then it's only fair that the people of the United States be allowed to know who is paying for the lobbying, right? Well, McCain used to be vocally for this sort of thing (yet another reason why I used to like him), but as the presidential campaign approached, he voted against legislation that would have done just that.

8. Gay Marriage.
He's against legal gay marriage. Specifically, he has said that he doesn't mind if people have "ceremonies", but that it shouldn't be legal. As I have expressed in the past, I believe this to be a critical human rights issue, and McCain is on the wrong side. Come on, let these people have a little happiness. It's not as if your own marriage is going to crumble and you and your wife will stop loving each other just because some gay people get married somewhere, right?


Ethics:
After all, isn't it rather important for a leader to be ethical while he or she is.. er.. leading?

1. Iraq
When the war in Iraq was approaching, McCain said several times that it would likely be an easy victory and that we wouldn't be there for long. That's fine, and he was certainly entitled to his opinion on that. However, he more recently made this remark: "The American People were led to believe that this would be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the very beginning would be a very difficult undertaking." Hmm, really? And who led them to believe that, Mr. McCain? And hey, I found a YouTube video that contained clips of all of this here.

2. Campaign Finance
This is the main reason I have liked John McCain in the past. He has been a great champion to the cause of limiting corporate influence in the government, which is my personal number one issue period. And while McCain appears to have backed off some of his previous stances during his current presidential campaign, that it not what I'm complaining about here. I'm going to describe a serious ethical lapse.
The campaign finance law works like this where it concerns presidential primaries: if someone opts in to public financing, they get over $5 million in government funding for their campaign, but they aren't allowed to spend more than $54 million before their party's nominating convention. Well, in mid 2007, McCain's campaign was looking pretty well done for. He was almost out of money and down to just a few staffers. So, he took out a couple of loans, stating that he would opt-in to the public financing system and use the government funds as collateral. This is perfectly fine for a candidate to do. However, when McCain had a huge comeback and looked like he had a chance to win the nomination early this year, he decided to arbitrarily opt our of the finance reform to be able to spend all the money he wanted, despite the fact that he had used the government funds as collateral for his loans. This was not only extremely unethical, but also illegal.
But isn't there someone to police this sort of improper behavior, you might ask? Well, there is, I might answer. It's called the Federal Election Commission, or FEC. Unfortunately, the FEC can't act on this. They can't act on anything right now since they don't have a quorum due to Republican stalling tactics. How convenient.
I should mention, in all fairness, that I have completely unrelated issues with Obama concerning campaign finance that you can read about here.

And, well, that's all I can think of right now. Maybe I'll post with more at another time. But did you notice how I never once went after McCain's age, or his personal life, or his temper, or his occasional gaffes? You shouldn't need to stoop to such levels to form an argument against someone. Let's have a clean contest here, guys.

But yeah. I don't think McCain would do us any good at all. If he had been elected in 2000, maybe. But not anymore.

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All the Little Things in Politics

I have just found myself with a renewed interest in the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. I have described my interest in him before, most notably in my second post. (Was that really three months ago?) Now, I don't take these things lightly. If I form an opinion, and more importantly, if I talk about it, I like to know that I've done my research. I like to make an informed choice.

There are a lot of people out there who seem to delight lately in going up to someone at an Obama rally with a video camera and ask why they like him, then proudly replaying the footage over and over when the hapless Obama fan don't have an answer. If they come up to me, they'll be both sorely disappointed and mildly annoyed as I talk their ears off.

It's not to say that I haven't considered Clinton or McCain; I have. However, I differ significantly with McCain on policy issues (this wasn't always the case; I was kind of rooting for him in 2000). I'll probably talk about that later when we get into the general election season. Today, I'd like to talk about Obama and Clinton.

I've always thought it would be great to have a woman president; in fact, I've believed that this is long, long, overdue. Also, I don't have many (a few, but not many) differences with her stated opinions when it comes to policy. The reasons I oppose her are a little more complex.

See, I've found a bit of a pattern having observed political campaigns over the past eight years or so. The manner in which someone runs their campaign seems to me to be highly reflective of the manner in which they hold office when they win. If someone runs a highly deceptive, immoral and divisive campaign, their activities in office are also likely to be highly deceptive, immoral, and divisive *cough*W*cough*.

So with very few policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I decided the best idea would be to sit back and observe how they run their campaigns and how they treat their opponents. Here are some of the things I've seen.

March 2, 2008: In an interview with 60 minutes, Clinton is asked directly whether she believes Obama is (as Stephen Colbert puts it) a secret Muslim. She replies with the following:

"Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that."

When pressed, she clarifies:

"No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know."

I take him on the basis of what he said? As far as I know? Not that it would matter to me, but seriously! Can't you give your opponent a fair shake? I know that in the realm of politics, this sort of thing is ho-hum everyday stuff, but have a little integrity. Sowing seeds of doubt on a sensitive topic like this is just repulsive.

March 10, 2008: After Clinton's win in the Ohio primary and narrow loss in Texas (yes, it was a narrow loss, the networks called it wrong), she made suggestions on TV several times that Obama would make a good vice-president. He was ahead in pledged delegates. He was ahead in states won. He was ahead in the popular vote. But she says oh, well, maybe he'll be a good vice president. That struck me as a more than a little condescending. This isn't the kind of politics I want to see going on in the White House.

March 18, 2008: So in March, the videos of Obama's former minister, the infamous Reverend Wright, came out and were looped on TV continuously for about two months (and those of you who insist the media is solidly pro-Obama must have had your TVs turned off for about... er... two months). Now Obama could likely have prevented those months of looping clips. Soon after they were released, he got up in front of the podium, and could have easily said, "I denounce this man and what he stands for, and I don't agree with any of these horrible comments. I stayed in his church for the sense of community I felt with the congregation and nothing more." Issue solved, right? Well, Wright was the man who officiated at Obama's wedding, who baptized his children, and with whom he had a long-standing relationship. Rejecting him like that would have been pretty heartless. So he got up in front of the TV cameras, and gave a speech in which he explained his relationship with his former minister, and in which he encouraged a discussion on race and the differences between his generation and Reverend Wright's generation. It wasn't the politically expedient thing to do, but it's difficult to deny that it was the honorable thing to do. Only a few months later when Mr. Wright got up in front of the cameras again and made (frankly) a complete ass of himself did he and Obama part ways.

March 21, 2008: Bill Richardson endorsed Obama, and in his endorsement speech, he told a story that really says a lot about Obama's character. Here's a piece of the transcript:

"And I also realized that here was a really good guy.
"And I'll tell you -- and I'll tell you why. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. You all watched those long, tedious Democratic debates, right? I could barely get recognized at any of them.
"The one time when I was recognized -- and I was sitting next to Senator Obama -- I said, "Finally I've been recognized." So I turned to him, and we started chatting a little bit. And then, all of a sudden, the moderator, instead of going after other candidates that hadn't been recognized, came back to me and asked me to answer the question. Well, needless to say, I wasn't listening.
"And I turned to Senator Obama in horror about to say, "Could you repeat the question?" And Senator Obama whispered, he said "Katrina, Katrina." And so I then gave my answer on Katrina."

Now that's the kind of politics, the kind of cooperative spirit that I want to see in the White House.

Various Dates: So the major political parties have some weird rules about the primaries and caucuses. They arbitrarily let some states go before a certain set date and punish others for trying to do the same thing. I don't agree with the system, but there you have it. I'll probably have a whole big rant about the primary system another time, but my point here is about political expediency. All of the candidates agreed to these rules, and when it became clear in December that Michigan and Florida were going to have their delegates revoked for holding their primaries too early, Clinton spoke on this:

"You know, it's clear the election they're having isn't going to count for anything. Obama's name did not even appear on the ballot in Michigan."

But we've all heard Clinton's calls in the past month, over and over and over, decrying the injustice that their delegates won't be seated, despite the fact that most of her opponents weren't on the ballot in Michigan (she won 55% of the votes against "Uncommitted"), and she herself stated that the elections shouldn't count. Personally, I've had enough of this sort of hypocrisy at the highest levels of our government.

And finally, May 14, 2008, the event that prompted me to write this post: Barack Obama, when asked a question by reporter Peggy Agar, responded, "Hold on one second, sweetie, we're going to do — we'll do a press avail." Then he never even answered her question. This "sweetie" caused a bit of outrage among various womens' groups, but then the reporter was surprised to find a voice mail on her phone the next morning, and it was then played on TV. The voice mail said this:

"Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.
"Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next."

Dude! A politician apologized about something! And it wasn't even a half-assed apology made weeks after the event! How long I have waited to see this day! How long... how very very long...

Go Obama

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