HoneST: One in a Million

Honesty is dead. Well, maybe not dead, just on life support. Truth is debatable, but you'd think we'd get honesty right. Some people are as honest as their financial situation will allow. And if their income is in jeopardy, honesty suffers accordingly. That's one of the reasons, I proffer, why there's so much fanfare, and ballyhoo when honesty finally shows up (because of its rarity), but honesty is not all always welcomed or sought--especially where life and limb is at stake in a no-snitch environment.

In a world where compromise is expected, and a shaving of the facts becomes not only acceptable, but anticipated, and one's moral compass is adjusted to fit the situation, we hold up those few stalwarts who take a stand for the facts, and are willing to put honesty above the screeches of special interest. But not all of us are that frontline courageous, or that devoted to honesty, and the facts, to put these things ahead of money, fame, influence, power, or what have you.

I'm thinking of Olympia Snowe. I'm thinking of Jane Hall, now with CNN after more than a decade with Fox News, and who is one those featured in the video clip below. I'm thinking of the GOP. I'm thinking of Joe Lieberman. And I'm thinking of many, many, others.

Olympia Snowe has to date resisted supporting any Public Option proposal, even one that might feature a trigger.

Snowe gives the impression that she's for insurance reform, when in fact she's more likely to vote to give health insurers more money, and more members, than expand health care for Americans, or force the current health insurance system to be more responsive to the needs of its member. This is dishonest. It serves her interest more than it does the American people. Where there's no competition, free market forces can't drive costs down, and improve the health coverage people are currently receiving from their health insurers. Insurers have for years enjoyed anti-trust exemptions, an exclusion that's now under fire as congress seeks other ways to expand competition in the industry.

This, too, is the purpose of a public option, to provide competition where very little now exists.

In the video, Jane Hall admits that she left Fox News because of some of its excesses, but still supports the controversial news media. Now I wonder why?

Other news networks are rushing to Fox News' defense. Now, I wonder why? Rachel Maddow on MSNBC gives a cogent explanation as to how Fox News blurs the line between being an actual news outlet who supports a point of view and one that promotes a point of view:

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She admits that it's probably not illegal to use the public airwaves to promote a political ideology under the guise of a news organization, but news media that do so mustn't be shocked when they're treated as propagandist and provocateurs. The next video, if you haven't seen it, is a must see. It goes a long way toward understanding why I'm angry with Fox News, and why the president's security detail (the secret service) is working twice as hard to keep him safe.

It's this kind of claptrap that probably led to the death of Dr. Tiller at the hands of a crazed killer. No matter how you feel about abortion, killing abortion doctors is not the way to end the practice, provided you think it should be stopped. Yet, Bill O'Reilly occasionally attacked this doctor, and he didn't do it in a fair and balanced way to say the least. Do they ever live up to their motto over there at Fox News? The motto is dishonest, and misleading. I'm not surprised that Dr. Tiller is now dead, when you take into account our current climate of dishonesty, and the media's part in all of this.

For some at Fox News, I'm pretty sure that they're creating this climate of dishonesty, and potential danger for the president, Senator Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, strictly for the money, and not because of conviction. Were it not for greed, who, in their right mind, outside neo-Nazi's and the KKK, and similar groups would create and sponsor a climate that might rip the social fabric of this country. It's dishonesty that colors media discourse, and drives the various attacks against public officials. And as long as this climate is maintained and permitted, it's imperative that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and those of his ilk are called out for it. People's lives hang in the balance.

The lives of our president and his family hang in the balance. Responsible people on the Left and the Right need to speak out against this assault upon the will of the American people. The last I checked, we're a nation of laws, not an oligarchy, nor ruled by one party, and one party only. We're a democracy. And that should say a lot. Where democracy is truly practiced, it's almost synonymous with freedom.

Joe Lieberman, after taking a million dollars from insurance companies over the years, threatens to give Republicans the filibuster margin they need to kill the public option provision in the health care reform bill. Using a series of ploys over the years, Lieberman continues to serve in congress as a senator, and his electorate continues to support his dishonesty. I'm hoping, this time, he's outfoxed himself by half.

So what is Fox News' crime? In its obsession to hike television ratings (think money and greed), and keep them high, they are endangering elected officials, providing fodder for fringe groups who would like nothing better than to return this country to the good ole days of Jim Crow, and worse, manufacturing news, not satisfied with just reporting it, and establishing and maintaining a climate which pits Americans against Americans, and thriving on the chaos that ensues.

I can assure you of one thing: Many black Americans will never forget how the first black president was treated by the Republican party and some in the media. It's reminiscent of the collective pain felt during the Civil Rights moment, and prior. If the GOP's new web site is an attempt to attract blacks to its party, it failed. More than a snazzy Web site is needed to bring blacks back under the tent. It's going to take honesty, the kind that Matthew Hoh recently exhibited. We'll settle for nothing less.

"Sick Puppies"

It's often been noted how much whites love their pets, dogs in particular. I love dogs, but, like kids, I love them from a distance. I don't care for the daily walks so that they may relieve themselves while I walk behind with pooper-scooper in the ready, nor the daily grind of rearing kids that would challenge a Supernanny.

Just because whites love their dogs, doesn't mean that all uses of the word "dog" is flattering. There are some phrases that make you wonder just how much people love their dogs:

"Shoot him dead in the street like the dirty, low-down, dog he is," from a possible Western movie, to "She's a dog," when you wish to speak derogatorily of a woman's lack of feminine pulchritude.

So when you hear that Bush 41 refers to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann as "sick puppies," as he responds to a question about media civility, or lack thereof, you've got to wonder if he got his cable channels straight, and really had Fox News in mind. Compared to Fox News' Glenn Beck, and Hannity, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the Rachel Maddow Show are pussy cats, not puppies, next to the big dogs, the dobermans of Fox News.

At no time have their shows come close to spewing the vituperative venom against his son that spews from Fox's best when it comes to the denigration of liberals, and the besmirching of the president. Nothing the two MSNBC commentators have said over the years remotely justifies his attack, but we know President Obama has been called a "racist" by Beck, and is daily the object of Fox's derision and scorn.

Both Olbermann and Maddow responded to the ex-president. They did it with humor, a measure of stupefaction, and sincerity. Watch....

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It all started out well, with an invitation to President Obama from Bush senior to the Bush Library and Texas A&M. In an open letter to the Aggie Family, Bush senior wrote the following:

To My Fellow Members of the Texas A&M Family:

Howdy! As you have probably heard, I have invited the 44th President of the United States of America to come visit the Bush Library and Texas A&M, and President Obama has graciously accepted.

Along with the administration, faculty, and so many of you, I am honored that The President, our President, is taking the time and making the effort to come to College Station on October 16th to talk about an issue that unites all Americans — namely, community service and its vast importance to our continued well-being as a Nation. Our country still faces many tough challenges, and the message that will come out of our Presidential Forum on Service, I hope, is that every American regardless of age has an important part to play in helping us overcome the obstacles to our common progress.

This is not about politics. This is about the importance of service to our communities and our country." Read more here.

What prompted the letter was how Barack Obama was received on a previous visit by some in the student body. The letter asked for civility. So it was strange that Bush 41 chose to use the occasion to be uncivil to Olbermann and Maddow.

Now I have to give George H.W. Bush his props. He did attack the GOP for attacking President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor:

"Former President George H.W. Bush stood up for his former judicial nominee Sonia Sotomayor Friday, telling CNN Anchor Robin Meade that GOP critics who called President Obama's Supreme Court pick a racist were off-base, and unfair.

'I don't know her that well but I think she's had a distinguished record on the bench and she should be entitled to fair hearings. Not - [it's] like the senator John Cornyn said it,' he told CNN. 'He may vote for it, he may not. But he's been backing away from these...backing off from those radical statements to describe her, to attribute things to her that may or may not be true.'"
Read more here.

And he had some pretty nice things to say about President Obama:

"Former President George H.W. Bush told CBS News that President Obama 'is entitled to civil treatment and intellectual honesty when it comes to critics.'"

Now some of this may be to soften President Obama's willingness to bring his son up on war crimes, and hold him judicially responsible for other possible unconstitutional acts, and to give others in his son's administration, such as Vice-President Cheney, a pass, and not prosecute for crimes he may have committed as he pursued a shadow government, and a proxy presidency.

It is written: "An attack is a cry for help." This unwarranted attack against two of MSNBC premier commentators can be described as such. I understand that Bush the elder wishes to protect his son, and his legacy, from adverse criticism, but I've never observed these two MSNBC pundits trading in lies and deceit. They pretty much document their positions, and often correct the so-called factual positions of their rivals, and are quick to own up, if they get it wrong.

Clearly Bush the elder wishes more for his son than his son's record warrants, and would that all people in the media accept his son's presidential policy decisions as unimpeachable. That's what fathers hope for, but that's unrealistic: his son did some God awful things while president, attacking a country that didn't attack us first, and waging a war against al-Qaeda in Iraq, when they were miles away in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

No, George H.W. Bush, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann aren't the "sick puppies," your son, George Bush, and the people he surrounded himself with, are the "sick puppies."

The Nobellicose Prize

"No prophet is accepted in his own country." This statement is applicable to prophets and black presidents. In the case of a certain black president, Barack Obama, not all countrymen, but enough to raise eyebrows, and curl lips.

We saw the truth of the statement within days of the president taking office. A certain radio personality put him, black folks, and the rest of world on notice with these words: "I hope he fails."

We're now so hardened that we're no longer shocked when ugly people say ugly things about the president. So when the Nobel Prize Committee gave its most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize to a sitting U.S. president after ninety years, Woodrow Wilson being the last for his support of the League of Nations and his work on the Treaty of Versailles, we waited for the other shoe to fall, knowing that criticism from the Right wasn't far behind.

What caught us off guard was the harsh words on the Left.

We knew Republicans would line up to denounce the Nobel Prize committee for their choice. But we didn't expect liberals to slam the committee in language as harsh as their conservative counterparts: "Don't they see what's going on in the U.S.--high unemployment, an economy stumbling like some drunk searching for his next bottle." You'd think that, as long as our nation is seen as struggling, the president can't be singled out for any award except the "Golden Raspberry Award."

This blog has a few awards of its own to hand out--the Nobellicose Prize--for those Republicans who spoke out the loudest, with malice aforethought, because President Obama was favored this year by the Nobel Prize Committee.

The Nobellicose Prize, then, goes to three honorees: Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, for their continued non-support of President Barack Obama. There are runner-ups, to be sure, but they're too numerous to mention here, but you know who they are. This time, I only wish to honor (strike that, dishonor) three of Obama's biggest admirers (strike that, haters).

Michael Steele earned his award with these cutting words, stating first that President Obama should for the sake of his own integrity refuse the award:

“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain – President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”

And these gems, courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, making himself one of the three finalists for the coveted Nobellicose Prize:

"And the two girls came in, "Hey, Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's really cool. It's a three-day weekend, Daddy. Let's get up and let's go."

"And Obama said, "Yeah, it's great to have kids to help you keep things in perspective." I'm on the verge of retching right there. Then Obama gets to the meat of the matter says he doesn't deserve the award. So Obama... (laughing) I mean, he's agreeing with the Taliban and us, because we don't think he deserves the award, neither does the Taliban! The Iranians are upset. (laughing) Al-Qaeda hadn't weighed in yet, Osama bin Laden, but there should be a tape before the weekend is out."

But that's not all, our last honoree, Glenn Beck, spoke these words to earn the Nobellicose Prize:

"The Nobel peace prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and should be given to the tea party goers and the 9/12 project....Because of the tea party goers and the 912 project people that stood in his way and stopped him from accomplishing from the things that he thought, 'Please I'm the messiah, I'll be able to accomplish that.'"

For Republicans clearly this president is not their president, and this country, under this president, is not their country. "We want our country back," they cry.

And when it comes to peace: The Republicans want us to fight our way to peace, not talk our way to peace--blind to the contradiction that this poses.

After listening to, or watching these wingnuts, I know now why it was necessary to fight a civil war in this country, and why Jim Crow lasted so long. There's a certain number of whites who will resist black progress, and, in the process, resist white progress towards filling in the racial divide. These whites gain more by resisting, than by cooperating; by holding back, than moving ahead; by increasing racial tension, than by relaxing it.

The Nobel Peace Prize could be seen as a finger in the eye of Republicans in this country who spend their days tarring and feathering President Obama.

I've read several articles justifying the Nobel Committee's decision to select President Obama as this year's recipient of The Nobel Peace Prize. Their reasons compel a reassessment of his achievements, but perhaps not as well as the following video segment from Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC:

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Achievements take on many colors and aren't always seen in our existential world of actions versus ideas, construction versus idealism, and material efforts versus a change of heart, humane aspirations, and noble pursuits.

And it belies the oft-repeated grumbling that people abroad see our president as some kind of lamb, one that's afraid of his own shadow. It's not about timidity in international policy, but the use of "smart power" which I've discussed before in one of my blog entries by that name.

The world's people don't want a bellicose America, one that lead international diplomacy with a heavy hand, and a fighting stance, but one that's willing to talk with enemies and seek common ground where possible.

Some days, the callous, racialistic events in this country transport me back to the forties and fifties and a "Colored Only" existence, justifying the anger and, yes, rage, I occasionally feel toward this country.

Isn't it ironic: the country that gave us a black president is working just as hard to take him away. It's this dichotomy, this white schizophrenia with which blacks must live that impacts our own sanity.

How do we keep our head, so to speak, while all those around us are losing theirs. And yet, I know how the story will end. We wrote the ending first ... before the story began. It's done that way sometime, when you wish to be certain of the outcome, because, if you don't, a story can get away from you, and create its own ending.