Playing Cornhole with Vilsack
Wednesday December 17, 2008
Categories: Politics
Let me agree with Rod, Ezra, and Matt that Tom Vilsack is a very disappointing pick by Obama for Secretary of Agriculture. As someone who lives in corn-producing state, I've seen my otherwise level-headed governor pander time and time again...
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About The New Christians
Tony Jones is the author of many books, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life. He is a leader in the emergent church movement and a renowned expert on postmodern theology and the American church landscape.
Find out more about Tony, his books, and his speaking schedule at his website.
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GMObama.
Tony - generally I am in total agreement with you, but to start slandering a very good man just because he is from Iowa is a bit much. Do you think that none of us in Iowa care about feeding the hungry or internation agricultural issues? Is that sort of thinking only going on in Minnesota? Get real. Vilsack did a great job as Iowa Governor. When elected he promised to only stay for two terms and he lived up to his promise. He never appeared to be in big agri-business' back pocket and in many cases went against the grain (pun intended) on such issues.
He is a smart, articulate and humble man who did not grow up in Iowa but lived from many years in small town Iowa. Christians shouldn't go around making assumptions and accusations (especailly about other Christians) but instead looking at the facts. As Luther said in his catechism on bearing false witness, attempt to expain your neighbor's actions (Obama's in this case) in the best possible light.
A 2006 Washington Post article wrote of the Governor:
There may be no better sign of the changing debate over the nation's farm subsidies: A Midwestern governor running for president calls for cuts in a system that has steered hundreds of millions of dollars a year to his state...
Politicians such as Vilsack have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms...
It would have been nice to have an ag secretary with some street cred in sustainability, consumer orientation and local/regional/direct farmer-to-consumer marketing.
Given the title of this post, shouldn't it be included in your SSM blogalogue section?
(I know that was completely evil...the devil made me do it!)
Salon.com had a brief response from Michael Pollan on the choice. http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/12/17/pollan_vilsack/index.html
If Vilsack makes Michael Pollan nervous, he makes me nervous.
cornhole is the coolest game ever. perfect with a cigar in your hand and giant sideburns.
Ga'll, one would think, that a President who is very concerned about renewable energy and global climate change would be concerned about that activity which, left to its currents trends, uses energy wastefully in the production and use of artificial petsticides, seeds, and fertilizers; all of which deplete the soil, both by nutrient loss and erosion, and wash into our water sources and rise into our air. For goodness sake, there are major problems happening in the Gulf of Mexico because of BigAG in the midwest. We have got to support the small organic farm.
I still love you BO
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