Recently in Politics Category

Let the world meditate for a moment on this picture:

What an amazing country we are.

We aren't even up to the peaceful transfer of power moment. That is something extraordinary in its own right - something beyond extraordinary really.

This was just the, "Hey, you just kicked me up and down the football field but you won. Why don't you drop by for coffee moment."

I am struck again by President Bush's decency. He is handling this transition with a dignity and honor that must be recognized. How easy it would be for him to be small and bitter and petty. But by all accounts he is anything but. He is doing honor to the office.

But more than anything I am struck by the symbolism of it all. This newly elected president, this newly elected black president being shown his new office.

It is amazing stuff, wondrous stuff.

One of the reasons I've not blogged much (understatement) for the past several months is that I've been rather busy and preoccupied on a business project. The project is a new online magazine and community focusing on American culture - everything from pop culture to politics and fashion to family.

It is called Culture11 and you can find it at www.culture11.com.

There are many stories to tell about its creation, its name, and my participation but I encourage you to take a few minutes and check it out.

Our hope is that you will find some irresistibly interesting perspectives on life in America from some of the country's most dynamic voices. We aim to be an online destination that has the editorial excellence of a great magazine, the thrill of a terrific conversation, and the comfort of a supportive community all rolled into one.

We're still in the beta stage and working out a few bugs so we could use your input. We're also launching very quietly - no big press releases or press conferences, no claims that we are going to change the world. We just want to build something that can be an everyday part of life.

Two more things. I am going to keep JWalking here at Beliefnet. I love this company and this little community. At the same time, I will be blogging at Culture11 with a friend of mine named Joe Carter. He is our managing editor and we will call our blog Kuo & Joe. I know, massively original. I hope you will check that out as well my blog here.

Let me know what you think about any and all of this... my new email is david@culture11.com

Note - Most of my blogging now occurs at Culture11.com a new media company. My blog is here.

John McCain had a good night at Rick Warren's forum on faith and character and so on. Barack Obama had a better night. How much better? We'll find out in a few months.

It isn't that Obama out performed McCain. He didn't "out Jesus" him or "out evangelical-ize" him. The crowd seemed to favor McCain a bit.

But that's the thing.

He didn't need to. For Obama a draw was a massive win.

Here was an audience of evangelicals in one of the most conservative counties in the United States. They interrupted him with applause on numerous occasions. They gave him a standing ovation. And HE is the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Think this ever happened to John Kerry in 2004?

I'm trying to find anger or bitterness or shock at all that John Edwards did and didn't do and said he did and said he didn't do.

There is, of course, sadness - sadness for all those people who worked so hard for him, sadness for all of those who he let lie to cover his sin, sadness for his self betrayal and more than anything, sadness for his children and for Elizabeth.

Beyond that? I've got nothing.

Why should I?

He was just a man running for office - just a politician running for president.

He had an affair.

Stop the presses!!

He lied.

Noooooooo.

He's narcissistic... really?

One of the dangers of modern politics is the temptation to elevate these frail creatures to super human levels... to put so much hope and faith in them that they become little gods. Look no further than the passion and hope attached to one Obama.

This is both an expectation too great for frail humans and a hope thoroughly and completely misplaced.

Politicians run to be leaders of our government, at most the chief executive of the government. Their power is sublimely and appropriately limited. Hopefully they can deliver on the limited things a government can touch. Beyond that, we are wrong to have 'faith' in them.

Faith is a word best applied to our relationship with God. We'd be better served and less angry and shocked at politicians' invariable foibles if we remember that.

John McCain's band of white advisers had best take a stroll down the lane of African-American oratorical history before they launch their next anti-Obama missive. [This is not to suggest that there is anything racial about McCain's ad. I'm sure that his color blind associates aren't even aware that Sen. Obama has more melanin than Sen. McCain.]

McCain's new web ad, "The One" mocks Obama's grand, seemingly arrogant oratory.

The problem with it is that it simultaneously mocks generations of African-American oratory. As my friend Patton Dodd pointed out to me, would the fact that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., filled his speeches with grand rhetorical flourishes make us doubt his ability to lead? I'm wondering what the ad meisters would do with this "arrogance"

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Or consider Barbara Jordan. Should her 1976 convention speech, one of the greatest political speeches in American history, have caused people to doubt her leadership ability simply because she said,

There is something special about tonight. What is different? What is Special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker.

A lot of years passed since 1832, and during that time it would have been most unusual for any national political party to ask that a Barbara Jordan deliver a keynote address...but tonight here I am. And I feel that notwithstanding the past that my presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred.

By the McCain camp's standards, every great speaker should be disqualified from public office simply because they refer to themselves in the personal pronoun and because they use rhetorical flourishes. Perhaps this gives an insight into who McCain is considering for his VP pick - someone who utterly boring in their public addresses... Al Gore.