America, look: Obama is charting a new path. He does not demonize Republicans or his opponents on the left, either --- even when they try to demonize him. He ran a campaign that he would have been proud of even if he had lost --- but he won. His opponent ran a campaign that he should be ashamed of --- and he lost.

This is a huge difference from the Bush campaigns which were despicable and immoral, and yet successful. The shameful, and yet successful Bush campaigns told Americans and the world that American voters are either stupid or evil (or some mixture of the two). The Obama campaign told Americans and the world that Americans can be trusted to make the right choice.

Obama has succeeded in bringing out the best in us, rather than the worst. Please open your minds America. Stop listening to racist, immoral hate-radio, the political equivalent of the Jerry Springer show, all circus and no ideas. Stop watching Fox News, Sean Hannity, and '24'. Stop visiting Drudge and the Politico. Stop buying cynicism and hate. Start thinking and feeling again and start making America what it should have been all along.

Obama's selection of Vilsack for Agriculture is a terrible pick. Vilsack represents continued subsidies for big agri-business which is what has put the small farmer out of business. Very disappointing.

to: rossdouthat@gmail.com
date Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 10:31 AM
subject re: Thinking About Torture

You haven't dealt with the fact that support of torture (not torture-lite) is now an article of faith among Republican Presidential candidates and among the rank-and-file of the Republican party. Watch the Republican primary debates again. Someone with your stance would not only have been driven out of contention, but would have been laughed off the stage as someone who puts affection for terrorists over the safety of American citizens. This is your party. The silence of conservative pundits, along with the deliberate deceptions of people like Dick Cheney and Sean Hannity, has helped to solidify a entire demographic of people who think that the ticking time-bomb scenario is real enough to dictate our insitutions and policies. Now you come back and say: well, gee wiz --- the Bush Administration should have been smarter than little 23 year-old me. I'm afraid that doesn't wash. You voted for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld over Al Gore and John Kerry. You voted for torture and encouraged your fellow conservatives to do the same. And they did, with enthusiasm. Now you get to live with them. And I do, too. The approval of conservative pundits for torture over the past eight years has helped to permanently change the character of your party and of the country, and not for the better.

Scott Horton: Bush can be charged with over one hundred counts of capital crime.

Obama should have chosen Patrick Fitzgerald as Attorney General.

Email to Camille Paglia

Professor Paglia:

In your column "What do The Clintons Have on Obama?" you said:

The slaughter of the Holtzbergs and other Jews at Chabad House should be a wake-up call to Western liberals who believe that jihadism can be defeated through reason and happy talk.

That's a straw man. Name one liberal who believes this.

Email to Senator Dick Durbin sent via his website

Senator Durbin, I am a strong supporter of you and President Obama.

Former Governor George Ryan approved of the sale of commercial driver's licenses to unqualified drivers. His crimes resulted in the death of a California family. Ryan is guilty of serious crimes.

Your recommendation to pardon Ryan is irresponsible, all the more so in light of the criminal activity of Governor Blagojevich, another politician-turned-criminal who I regrettably voted for.

So Rod Blagojevich, who I voted for, is a fool, a thief, an ethical moron, a criminal. I hope that he is impeached, and that he goes to jail for decades. My responsibility as a voter was to measure his character as best I could, to compare it to that of his opponent, and to vote for the better candidate. It appears that I chose wrongly.

You will note that this reaction is different from the reaction of those who voted for Bush. When confronted with incontrovertible evidence that Bush was a fool, a liar, and a criminal, what did they do? They voted him into office again --- the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the world's only superpower. That many of them did so due to the assassination by Karl Rove of Senator John Kerry's character is no legitimate excuse.

I bear some responsibility for Blagojevich's crimes, because I helped to enable him to commit those crimes by voting for him. Similarly, those who voted for Bush bear responsibility for his far more serious, damaging, and insidious crimes. That they do not consider themselves culpable, or do not consider his crimes to be crimes, only shows the extent to which they have neglected or abdicated their ethical and civic responsibilities.

L'Obama, ossia L'Avvento del Messia: Opera in Tre Atti