TO MY REPUBLICAN FRIENDS

Thinks got a little hot and heavy over the weekend with the comments to my last blogpost. So let me say the following:

I can't truly say "I feel your pain." But I can relate to what it feels like to support losing teams. I am, after all, a Democrat. And a Vikings fan. And a Twins fan. And a devoted Stanford Cardinal. (And yes, I watched Stanford's defense fall apart down the stretch to F-Ucla on Saturday.) So I understand the value of venting.

This morning, do yourself a favor. Disregard my words and focus on the eloquent and moving words of Colin Powell this past weekend. I'm willing to bet that you are incapable of descending into the Rush-ian depths of blaming Powell's endorsement simply on his race. And I assume you would recognize that Powell is one of the more distinguished public servants of this past generation. So just listen to what he said about Obama. And then consider whether Obama's highest advisors are truly willing to lower their shields against the terrorists.

As it has been pointed out, I work in D.C. -- nearly at the midpoint of the Capitol and the White House. The last thing I want to see in Washington is a President who is soft on terrorism. But I don't think you'll find that in Barack Obama. Powell, obviously, doesn't either.

GREAT MEN OF TEFLON

With seventeen days left until the election, the GOP seems to be heading for a train wreck. John McCain, having lost all three debates according to the polls, is reduced to authorizing sleazy robo calls by the same firm that slimed him eight years ago. Apparently, his irreligious brand of uber-patriotism doesn’t require him to follow the Golden Rule. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin, who still feels no need to answer the media’s questions, was campaigning in North Carolina, where she praised the audience for living in one of the “pro America areas of this great nation.” I guess that means that they won’t be supporting Barack Obama, who was publicly referred to by Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (Rep. MN) as “very anti-American.” Pity today’s GOP – they’re stuck with Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore when they would have obviously preferred Lee Atwater and Joseph McCarthy.

Yes, “my friends,” I am beginning to feel the death rattle of a campaign. Their only hope left is the Bradley Effect. Secret racists are going to have to come out of the woodwork on election day like cockroaches, especially in purple states like Virginia and Colorado, which are giving Barack his seemingly comfortable margin. It could happen. But right now, it is really looking like America is going to give Sarah Palin and the First Dude a few more years to take out their binoculars and protect us all from the Commies across the Strait.

Frankly, the probable outcome just makes sense. We seem to be at the beginning of the worst economic crunch since the Great Depression. The Republicans had been in power for more than eight years when the market crashed in 1929. Now, we’ve had nearly eight years of light and breezy Republican rule leading up to our present economic mess. Who can blame the voters for wanting to try something different, particularly given that the last Democratic President presided over the greatest stock market boom in decades?

For me, though, I don’t want to focus on one party versus another. I’d prefer to focus on a few individuals. Namely, those 20th century American statesmen who have most achieved “greatness” – or perhaps I should say, who have had “greatness thrust upon them.” What do you say we pick one from each party? I nominate Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Roosevelt took office when the nation’s economy had hit rock bottom. Viewing that economy as the victim of benign neglect on the part of the government, FRD aggressively summoned governmental power by means that would have previously been viewed as “socialist” by most Americans. As a result, he provided the stimulus our economy needed to get back on its feet. For this, and for his subsequent command of the American military during World War II, he was elected not once, not twice, but four times.

Yes, “my friends,” Roosevelt made mistakes – serious mistakes. As a Jew, I am duty bound to remind you of his appalling conduct in preventing boats containing German Jews from finding safe haven in the United States. Despite possessing clear information about anti-Semitic atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people (my own grandmother was presented a book entitled “Hitler Terror” in February 1934), FDR callously sent these passengers back to Europe … and the ovens.

So no, Roosevelt was no saint. But he became a hero to the American public, and is now generally beloved by Americans, including even Jewish Americans. Such is the benefit of lifting up a nation from its depths and allowing it once again to dream of greatness.

It’s exactly what Ronald Reagan did five decades after the Great Depression. Just think back to the White House that Reagan inherited. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had become an almost tragic figure. When he would address the nation about our great “malaise,” I could have sworn that we were being led by Droopy Dog. Unlike Droopy, however, Carter could hardly be an object of pity. He was just too damned sanctimonious. Watching him occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was like watching a clinical depressive blaming everyone but himself for his problems.

Carter’s Presidency was going badly enough when a group of Iranians decided to seize American hostages. Talk about Murphy’s Law! Carter appeared powerless to do anything in response to the terrorists, and Americans felt like laughing stocks. We were obviously desperate for a change. Even a former B-actor who didn’t seem especially intelligent or hard working and who resided on the far right wing of American politics came across by comparison as a breath of fresh air. And so Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected.

One of the things I’ve learned from my dear friend (and nearly the next Senator from Oregon) Steve Novick is that every Democrat needs at least one modern Republican politician to admire. (I’m sure this applies in reverse to Republicans, but I’ll let them speak for themselves on that score.) For Novick, that beloved Republican is Richard Milhous Nixon. For me, it has become Ronald Reagan.

Readers of this blog have read enough of my praise for Reagan in previous posts, so I’ll try not to be too redundant. Suffice it to say, for present purposes, that Reagan shrewdly took advantage of the fact that this nation was ready for bolder, more assertive leadership and implemented a vision combining an aggressive foreign policy with a commitment to laissez-faire economics. We disagree fundamentally on domestic policy, but I cannot deny that he was effective in carrying out the policies that he promised to advocate when campaigning for the office of President. And as for his foreign policy record, is there any doubt that Reagan behaved brilliantly in putting the God-forsaken Cold War out of its misery?

Believe me, “my friends,” I haven’t always been a fan. When they named our local airport after the Gipper, I winced. With the passage of time, though, I came to appreciate Reagan for his honesty, his clarity of vision, and for achieving some very tangible and profound results. As conservative Republicans go, he’s clearly my favorite. And so, when I hear his fellow travelers refer to the man as “great,” I acknowledge the truth of their statement. Similarly, when I heard the Clintons bash Barack this past winter for giving the Gipper his due, I was indignant. No modern politician who hopes to unify this nation, and God knows that we have to do something about our presently polarized state, can ignore altogether the genius of Ronald Reagan. That would be as crazy as ignoring the genius of FDR.

Well, “my friends,” you wouldn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know where I’m going with this. We have now come to yet another fork in the road in American history. Nobody yet should be talking about The Great Depression II, but our economy has clearly reached crisis proportions. Forget the fact that we’ve lost a zillion dollars in paper assets during the past several weeks. The fact remains that we live in a society where people have become addicted to living beyond their means and where our workforce is no longer the world’s envy when it comes to education and training. We’re also fighting a seemingly endless two-front war with a military that is stretched like an old rubber band. Not surprisingly, comparisons made between the modern U.S. and the Roman Empire at the time of Nero are becoming more and more frequent.

That’s right, “my friends,” the soup we’re in is pretty thick – just like it was in 1932 and 1980. It’s obviously time for a brand spanking new approach, and a new political party to spearhead that approach. But more to the point, it’s time for the American public to get behind the leader who has the stones to step up and take the reigns. Many right wingers would lament the fact that America allowed FDR to create one alphabet soup government agency after another, but history has looked kindly on the economic policies of Mr. Roosevelt. Similarly, many of my fellow liberals wish that we had fought Reagan tooth and nail when he came to power. But even though I disagree with so much of what he did, I have to admit that it was the GOP’s turn in 1980 to grab the national wheel and taker her around for a spin. Call it democracy. Call it faith in experimentation. Call it the right of every American to see what would happen if we took government off the people’s back.

Well … Americans have the same right to see what would happen if, after a period of unbridled capitalism run amuck, we insert some powerful governmental controls. I’m convinced that Barack Obama will do just that, while never forgetting that this is NOT a socialist country. To me, anyone who labels Barack as a creature of the far left is either ignorant or engaging in demagoguery. Barack is a center-left politician who is about to assume control over a country that is center-right at a time when a leftward swing is not only inevitable but necessary. His ability to lead effectively is largely a function of whether the opposition party attempts to rally around him (the way the Democrats rallied around George W. Bush during the first year and a half after 9/11) or whether they attempt to thwart him. We’ve grown accustomed to the latter treatment during the decades after Reagan left office, and the result has been a do-nothing Congress and a government mired in gridlock. But can we really afford more gridlock? Does anyone seriously think that the world economy would benefit from a Calvin Coolidge-type approach coming from Washington? It’s a scary prospect.

Roosevelt and Reagan were men of Teflon. Given the conditions under which they took office and their clear accomplishments after they assumed command, nothing their opponents threw at them ever seemed to stick, or at least not for long. That explains FDR’s four Presidential wins and Reagan’s ability to win 49 states in 1984. John McCain and his McCarthyesque running mate are beginning to realize that Barack Obama has some of the same Teflon qualities. But can he retain that Teflon if he is elected?

I’ll freely admit that, as a politician, Barack has been damned lucky. He ran for U.S. Senate against a Republican who was forced to quit due to scandal. That Republican was replaced by a carpetbagger whose mouth seemed to run about ten times faster than his brain. Moreover, now that Barack is running for President, he finds himself opposing a party with an approval rating of less than epsilon and a candidate who has neutralized his one advantage (greater experience in government) by nominating a neophyte for Veep who apparently can’t identify a single newspaper or magazine that she reads. No question, Barack has received his share of fortunate breaks.

Still, “my friends,” this man hasn’t merely had greatness thrust upon him. From where I’m sitting, he owes his accomplishments primarily to what he has achieved. It has now been more than twenty months since Barack kicked off his campaign on a cold February day in Springfield, Illinois. During these past 600+ days, he has spent virtually the entire time under the nation’s microscope. And from what I can tell, he made only one stupid mistake ; he referred to Pennsylvania’s Reagan Democrats as “bitter.” That’s one boo-boo. One fumble. One bogey. In more than twenty months.

So Barack has been incredibly steady and disciplined. But he hasn’t merely grinded par after par. He’s made plenty of birdies, and more than a few eagles. His speech after winning in Iowa was brilliant. His speech after losing in New Hampshire was even better. He went on to deliver other brilliant speeches – one about race effectively shut down the Jeremiah Wright red herring, and another was at the Convention, where he cleverly toned down his oratory and provided a few more details about his agenda. But Barack is more than just a modern-day Demosthenes. Let’s not forget the incredible organization that he has put together. This organization could conceivably effectively neutralize the Bradley Effect: even though more rednecks will vote against the “Negra” man than they are willing to admit to pollsters, the pollsters may also be underestimating the number of new voters whom the Obama organization will be bringing to the polls. Barack’s organization has also done a masterful job at fundraising, destroying the famed Clinton machine in the winter and breezing by the Republicans this fall.

Barack’s greatest accomplishment may be the way he has effectively navigated between the Scylla and Charybdis of modern American race relations. If he came across as a tad more subdued or understated, he’d be branded as another passive “Democratic Loser,” like Dukakis or Mondale. But if he dared come out firing with too much heat, he’d be viewed as another “angry black man.” Hell, he’s already been called “uppity” by a Congressman despite having behaved like a perfect gentleman.

Just imagine how white America would view Barack if he had acted with half the petulance or arrogance that McCain brought to the debates. Fortunately, we haven’t had to worry about that; even conservative pundits have acknowledged that Barack has consistently displayed perfect pitch in his demeanor. In the end, it is that demeanor – Barack’s seemingly steady hand – that will likely trump all the other factors in these perilous times to earn Barack the Presidency.

That’s right, “my friends,” Barack has come across as cool as Eastwood. As cool as Reagan. As cool as Tiger. How’s that for EQ. Not bad for the first African-American President in the history of the Harvard Law Review.

So let’s say that the odds-makers are correct and Barack wins a comfortable victory. Or let’s say that even cynics like me are correct and that, despite a significantly underestimated Bradley Effect, Barack wins a squeaker. What then? Will he become a President made of Teflon? Or one, like “Still-President Bush,” made of Velcro?

I can’t yet answer that question. But the future of this nation for decades may hinge on that answer. Can we really afford to have another four to eight years of partisan pugilism and Potomac paralysis? We need to lead the world, and not with our cries about responding to imaginary weapons of mass destruction but with our responses to very real weapons of economic and environmental degradation. Are we going to cede that leadership role to Europe? Or Asia? Or do we plan once again to be a player on the international stage? If so, we need a heck of a lot of unity here at home – the same kind of unity that we had during Roosevelt’s war against the Nazis or Reagan’s war against the Russians.

Barack doesn’t appear to be the man of vision that Reagan was. Nor do I see from him the passion of, say, a Martin Luther King. But what I do see is an incredible IQ to match his incredible EQ. And, more specifically, I see his ability and willingness to assemble the best and brightest advisors available on a range of issues, mine their collective wisdom to identify sound positions, and then artfully sell those positions to the public.

Such qualities, “my friends,” are precisely what we will need in our next leader.

SLIME

Sundown tonight concluded the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, and from all appearances, I was fully partaking in the festivities. At 2:00 this afternoon, I gave a talk about Moses the Heretic during the break between the Musaf and Afternoon services, and this allowed me to talk at length about justice, peace and truth. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about slime.

You see, not long after my talk was over, I skipped the Afternoon service and headed home to join my wife. She spent most of the day dealing with the consequences of a blockage to our sewer line. By four o’clock, it was my turn. The basement was disgusting. Then again, I should have recognized the dreck. It was very reminiscent of the crap that I’ve heard over the airwaves recently from John McCain and his minions.

I don’t have much time to post before I head out for a wedding in California. So let me cut to the chase. The McCain campaign’s efforts to link Barack Obama with a known terrorist aren’t just slimy, they’re pathetic. From what I can tell, William Ayers was a terrorist when Barack was eight years old, but by the time Barack came to know the man (and not especially well at that), Ayers was a professor. And he has since come to be awarded for his citizenship by the city of Chicago.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Barack Obama isn’t a Muslim, and he isn’t a Jew. He’s a Christian. As such, he associates himself with a religious tradition that, perhaps more visibly than any other faith, extols the possibility of redemption. Well, I don’t know about you, but the life of William Ayers sure seems like a classic case of redemption to me. It would have been odd for Obama, as a Christian, to refuse to treat the man with respect given the extent to which Ayers appears to have given up violence in exchange for scholarship and charity.

Let’s assume that I’m wrong, though. Let’s assume that Bill Ayers’ association with Barack Obama truly was a legitimate issue – the kind of issue that should make us question Barack’s qualifications for President. That certainly seems to be the position of Sarah Palin. If that’s the case, then why didn’t John McCain have the stones to raise the Ayers issue during the recent debate? Not once did he mention the name Ayers. Nor did he mention any of Barack’s other associations with unpatriotic individuals. McCain left that to the rants of his lieutenants, and the fascistic types who attend their rallies and spew unspeakable comments. During the debate, McCain was all substance.

I guess it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Perhaps because McCain was all substance, Barack was too, and the general consensus is that Barack either tied or won. Some say he won handily. But frankly, even a tie for Barack wasn’t exactly what McCain needed. He needs a game changer. He won’t find one on the issues. So, as I discussed in my last blog, he’s apparently resorting to slime … though only in situations where Barack isn’t given a chance to defend himself.

Are you watching this, America? It sure looks to me like the implosion of a once-beloved politician. My only question is whether members of his party – not just journalists, but other politicians – will start to say enough is enough. Do you want irony? It was Joe Lieberman, McCain’s dear friend, who finally (and thankfully, from my perspective) blew the whistle on William Jefferson Clinton from the Democratic side of the aisle. Now, we need a Lieberman-like figure on the GOP side to call out McCain for his chicken-shit brand of slime. If that doesn’t happen, the voters won’t just blame McCain/Palin. They’ll blame ALL the Republicans, and if that happens, the dreaded 60 votes in the Senate may not be out of the question.

Stay tuned.

DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES. OR DO THEY?

It has been a little while since I attempted to handicap the Presidential race in this blog. Most recently, I had effectively declared the race a toss up, after having predicted an Obama victory for months. The fact is that Barack ran a lackluster campaign during most of this summer, and even though he came up with a pair of Kings when he put on a convention in Denver, McCain answered with a pair of Aces when he introduced Sarah Barracuda in St. Paul. At that point, this game was as close to 50/50 as it gets.

But then … we’ve seen one GOP disaster after another. And Barack? He hasn’t had to do anything but watch and get out of the way.

For a guy like me with savings in the Market, it is sad to think that the only way your candidate can open some ground in the polls is for you (and others like you) to lose lots of money. That may, however, be the reality. When McCain declared the “fundamentals” of the economy sound at the same time that things were clearly beginning to fall apart, he revealed himself as being totally worthless when it comes to economics. Don’t get me wrong – I can sympathize. Econ was my first major in college, and though I finished the coursework and even developed a pretty good grasp of microeconomics, the macroeconomic principles were always lost on me. So I’m not so much putting down McCain, as pointing out that at a time like this, no candidate can afford to be exposed as ignorant about what could be the most critical area of the next Presidency.

The truth is that the fundamentals of the economy are anything but sound. And McCain’s excuse for making the statement – that he was talking about the American workforce – is as lame as it gets, for it suggests that he doesn’t know the first thing about economic terminology. That’s right – it suggests that he knows even less than I do about macroeconomics, which would be pathetic.

Still, when I reflect more deeply on the situation, I wonder if the “fundamentals” comment was really what tipped this election. Even had McCain not decided to channel his inner Bush (“Brownie’s doing a heck of a job”) when it comes to the economy, he would still be in a major mess. He has already admitted that he doesn’t understand economics. He hardly seems like an especially quick study. And his decisions to suspend the campaign one day, and drop out of a crucial swing-state a week later, make him look positively panicked. It’s gotten to the point where even Charles Krauthammer – yes, arguably the most conservative columnist who writes for a mainstream newspaper – has praised Barack Obama as being the steady one of the two. As Krauthammer said in yesterday’s Washington Post, after skewering McCain relentlessly, “Obama has “got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.”

Yes, Virginia – that wasn’t written by E.J. Dionne or Eugene Robinson, that was Charles By God Krauthammer. Now, finally, maybe it really is time for McCain to panic.

OK, fine, his troops might say. But what is there exactly to do? McCain is boring in the debates – steady, to be sure, but boring. It will be difficult to use those appearances as vehicles to change the game. What about the secret weapon – the Barracuda? Maybe she can get the job done, right? Well, maybe not. What Charles Gibson hasn’t done to knock her down a few notches, Katie Couric has. And what Couric couldn’t do to twist the knife, that was left to the brilliant Tina Fey. By the time that troika finished with the Barracuda, she was little more than a minnow. And a minnow isn’t nearly powerful enough to take on the extremely impressive debating skills of Joe Biden.

Believe me, folks, Biden was the best debater of all the Democratic candidates in this election cycle. And perhaps that’s why Barack selected him. He may well have developed quite an admiration for the man as being the kind of debater that Barack only wishes he could be.

Mainstream media pundits desperate for a close election may be grasping at something, anything, to keep this race close for the next month, and thereby boost their ratings. But trying to sell the idea that Palin fought Biden to a draw just won’t cut it. Biden may not have knocked Sarah out (and kudos to her for that), but this was no close decision. Give her the first couple of rounds, and give him the last ten. That’s an eight point victory, fight fans. Not a contest.

So then, what’s an old war horse to do? There’s a month left, and seemingly no hope. All the “fundamentals” of this election cycle seem to be tilting blue. Does this mean it’s all over?

What do you think, sports fans? Do you think McCain and Palin are going to go down quietly? We’re not talking about the party of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. We’re talking about the party of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater. And they’ve got the ultimate trump card: Barack’s skin color. Heck, it’s not just his skin color. It’s his name, his quasi-Muslim background, and his associations with radical whites and America-hating blacks. The job during the next month will be to turn Barack H. Obama, constitutional law professor, into B. Hussein Osama, radical of the religious-left.

That may indeed be John McCain’s best shot. My question is whether he wants to take it. Remember, folks, this is the Politician-Formerly-Known-As-John-McCain. At one point, he was quite literally the “Prince” of politics. Might it be possible that he will be willing to sling only so much mud? Might it be possible that, in the end, while he may not opt for the high road, he at least might avoid the seventh circle of hell?

I don’t know the answer to that question. But after one McCain/Palin screw up after another … after another … in the month of September, that might be the only question left to answer in October. Actually, no. There is one more question – if McCain does go for the gutter and spend the next month there, might he actually win?

I can’t answer that one either. But I haven’t forgotten the trump card. I’m sure Barack hasn’t either.

SMALL TOWN VALUES

Those of you who haven’t yet acquired Moses the Heretic – and yes, I realize that still refers to virtually everybody – would not yet know what, to me, is its most important page. It is the dedication page, which reads as follows: “To the Memory of Julius Bertram Spiro (1912-2002) – A free thinker. And the most humble man I’ve ever known.”

That page allows me to pay tribute to my beloved father, who has always represented my ethical role model. But just as importantly, it permits me to introduce the reader to something profound about Judaism. As the book goes on to say at page 299, “Moshe Rabbenu [which literally means “Moses, Our Rabbi”] is considered to have been the greatest of Jews precisely because he was supreme in his humility. The rabbis teach that others surpassed him in learning, but no one was more humble.” The funny thing is that I hadn’t learned that rabbinic teaching until I was an adolescent, and by then, I had already come to associate the characteristic of humility with the teachings of another famous Jew: Jesus of Nazareth. It seems that, at least in this one regard, Judaism and Christianity agree. And yet, when you think about the most visible leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities – the big machas, as my dad like to call them -- humility is among the last words you would use to describe them.

Growing up, my mom used to joke about my dad being a “nice Jewish boy” from a hick town, and having lived a parochial life as a child. His “town” is known to the world as Brooklyn, New York, and for some reason, my mother – who grew up in the Bronx, only a stone’s throw from Manhattan – thought of her own upbringing as more cosmopolitan. She loved to tell me that when my dad was 14, the farthest he had traveled from Brooklyn was Hicksville, Long Island. The two towns are less than 30 miles apart on the map, but they must have felt like light years’ apart to my father. For dad, Hicksville represented small town USA, an impression that was reinforced by its very name. Perhaps he was unaware that, to a large segment of the American population, Hicksville is just another part of the great-place-to-visit-but-you-wouldn’t-want-to-live-there megalopolis known as the New York Metropolitan Area.

I’ve been thinking a lot about small town USA lately thanks to our Presidential election campaign. My interest was piqued during the primaries when Joe Scarborough used his morning TV show to bash Barack Obama incessantly for not doing enough to “connect” with the so-called “Reagan Democrats.” I would listen to these voters rhapsodized as men and women who hailed from towns (small and large), as opposed to metropolitan areas, and who would ultimately decide the outcome of November’s election. Every day on the Morning Joe program, Scarborough would invite Patrick Buchanan and other guests to hail the importance of these critical “swing voters”: invariably, they were described as white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian (though they could be either Catholic or Protestant), gun toting, non-elitest, and patriotic. And just as often as they were romanticized over the airwaves, Barack Obama was mocked for his inability to gain their affection. They had become the heirs of Jefferson’s “yeoman farmers” – the class of Americans whom the Sage of Monticello most trusted to decide the outcome of American elections. Scarborough et al. were crystal clear in their message: these rural Americans are the most authentic representatives of our nation, and any road to the White House necessarily goes first and foremost through their towns.

Scarborough’s message bothered me, for it came across as divisive, anti-democratic, and bigoted. Well, strike that. It struck me as all those things, but perhaps also a fourth: accurate. No, I wasn’t suggesting that rural folk are somehow more authentic exemplars of the American spirit than people who hail from Brooklyn or the Bronx. God forbid would I ever suggest that. But the rural Americans do appear to hold in their hands the key to the White House, despite their relatively small numbers. If a Presidential candidate’s themes will “play in Peoria,” they will likely play well in New York or Chicago, but not necessarily vice verse. That explains why so many Presidents from Truman to Bush Jr. either hailed from rural America or would like to pretend that they did. That explains why, in the past 60 years, if you hoped to win the Presidency representing the political party of the cities (i.e., the Democratic Party), and you didn’t have the genius of a JFK, you had better bring your best bucolic banter. Barack is a brilliant orator, and a thoughtful man, but he is “no John F. Kennedy.” That has made me worry that he simply isn’t rural enough to be elected President as a Democrat.

Those worries didn’t exactly dissipate when Sarah Palin accepted her party’s nomination for Vice President. Palin’s speech was beautifully delivered and extremely shrewd in its content. And at the heart of the speech was a message that resonated throughout America: “I, Sarah Palin, will bring small town values to Washington.”

Palin was a proud as a peacock when she uttered the following words: “A writer observed: ‘We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.’" Succinct. To the point. And completely consistent with the American myth that small town Americans are somehow more authentic than the rest of us. Sarah went on to tout herself as a fighter, a reformer, a profile in courage – in short, just the kind of hero who is ready and willing to shake things up in the reptilian city of Washington. Who among us was unmoved by her charms?

Well, my wife, for one.

Kathleen Adele Ketcham was born on April 30, 1959, nearly five years before Sarah Palin. She spent her entire childhood in the northeast Indiana town of Albion, Indiana, which was roughly 30 miles from Ft. Wayne. Albion is the seat of Noble County, but the town itself is so small that you could quadruple its population and it would still pale in comparison to Sarah’s Wassila. What’s more, I have visited Albion on numerous occasions since Kathy and I started dating and I have never seen anyone with skin as dark as mine. And I’m white.

Back in the 19th century, there was actually a community of Jews living in Noble County. They lived in a town called Ligonier, 12 miles west of Albion. But that community was long since gone by the time Kathy was born. In the last half-century, Noble County consisted solely of Protestants and Catholics, and her family attended the local Methodist church, which was right next door to her school. The school, of course, was public – Albion had no private schools, not even Catholic ones.

I knew that Kathy’s parents were Methodist when I first visited their house, but I didn’t know much about their political views. Then, I came across a rug in their bedroom draped over a cedar chest. It contained a large picture of an elephant and bore the inscription “This is Hoosier Country.” Could the elephant possibly be a reference to the Republican Party, I wondered? No, I decided – I was thinking too much like a politics-obsessed Washingtonian. Surely, the elephant must be some kind of state symbol.

Well, it’s a state symbol, alright. But only in the sense that for decades, the state has voted Republican. And yes, the rug was intended to reveal my in-laws’ political affiliations. Kathy’s dad was actively involved in Republican politics, her brother was a member of the local Teenage Republican club (the TARS, as they were known), and she herself also identified herself as a Republican. In fact, as a young child, my wife rode on the Republican float in the town parades and threw candy to the people who lined the streets.

So yes, Sarah Palin would have viewed Kathy as an authentic small town American.

Except, perhaps, for one thing – Kathy made the mistake of thinking for herself when it comes to the true spirit of religion. She must have noted that Jesus of Nazareth was a community organizer, not a governor. She must have recognized that Jesus hung out with prostitutes, spoke out for the needs of the poor, and called out the odds against rich people entering the Kingdom of Heaven. She must have found all sorts of tributes in the gospels to the ethos of peace, but precious few about the need to be victorious in bloody war. And she must have read Jesus’s words, memorialized in Chapter 13 of the First Letter of Paul to the Church at Corinth, that while faith is important, love is even “greater” and that love “is never boastful or conceited, it is never rude or selfish, it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”

Strange, but whenever I read about Jesus, I’m struck about how much that guy comes across as a lefty. Just like me. And just like most other Jews I’ve met. It seems that, as Christians like to say, “Jesus was [indeed] a Jew.”

My wife, as a child, read a lot. While the Sarah Palins of the world were figuring out how to become BWOCs (Big Women on Campus) at their local high schools, Kathy was hitting the books. It seems that, in her small town household, books were revered. And she was gifted with a good mind. So she became her school valedictorian. Then, like everyone else in her family, she went to her state college, Indiana University. It was at IU when she heard a speech given by a man who is surely known to Sarah Palin simply as a “loser.” His name was George McGovern. In listening to McGovern speak about the values of peace, service to the poor, and the need to fight bigotry and accept diversity, Kathy thought she was hearing a modern-day disciple of Jesus. Soon thereafter, she changed political affiliations.

I met Kathy when we were ILs together at Harvard Law School. She seemed somewhat out of place there. She not only hailed from a small town, but she didn’t seem especially full of herself or competitive. I’ll never forget how, before exams there, a guy would walk down the halls and say “Gentlemen, Start your Engines.” Well, that wasn’t Kathy. She tells me that when she enrolled, she had no particular passion to practice law. In fact, she didn’t even know why she went to law school except that a couple of her friends talked her into taking the LSAT and, without studying at all for it, she practically aced it. So she applied to Harvard, was accepted, and decided that enrolling there would be the sensible thing to do.

Kathy was a very successful lawyer for about seven years. Then, not surprisingly, she walked away from the profession for good. For the past several years, she has served as the Media Specialist at a public elementary school. That way, she can combine her love for books with her love for children, hopefully nurturing each of her students into becoming the same kind of thoughtful, compassionate person that she has always been and always will be.

I hope you can see by now that Kathy has never thrust aside the values that she learned in her small town. She attends religious services at least once a week and sings in the choir. There’s just one thing – the services she attends are Jewish services, and the language in which she sings, is Hebrew. But is that difference really so significant? The values espoused by our rabbi are hardly different from those found in the gospels. Indeed, anyone who studies the teachings of the great Rabbi Hillel, one of the leaders of the Pharisees in the decades before Jesus was born, will be struck by the similarities between Hillel’s ethical teachings and those of Jesus. It seems that Christianity has strayed from Judaism mainly in its metaphysical doctrines, and if you asked Kathy, she would tell you that she has studied the topic and has no confidence whatsoever that Jesus would adopt the metaphysical principles that have been advanced in his name.

When I think back about Sarah Palin’s “great” speech, certain lines offend me – the shot at community organizers, for one. But I can listen to Palin speak and nevertheless admire her for her spunk, self-confidence, and even her ambition. My wife seems to be a bit more cynical, which is odd because she is normally the more tolerant of the two of us. Clearly, something strikes her as very hypocritical about Palin cavorting around as a “small town hockey mom,” on the one hand, and a person qualified to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency, on the other.

I think it comes down to the value that my wife places on humility and its twin, modesty. When I look at Kathy, I see the same kind of person as my father. Both are very intelligent people, with hearts at least as big as their brains, and yet they also are sufficiently aware of what they DON’T know that they could never possibly boast about themselves in any way. Lord knows that they would never run for Vice President of the United States without a fundamental grounding in public policy issues, which Sarah Palin obviously does not begin to have. Of course, the difference is that neither my wife nor my father believe the nonsense that is peddled by extremists of all stripes that even a semi-literate representative of their own religious or political community is better suited to govern than one of the wisest exemplars of some “other” point of view. It’s just that attitude that has allowed Sarah Palin … and George W. Bush … to be so confident in their own gut instincts. Who needs books – who even needs reflection – when you are a conservative Christian and you have the teachings of your gut? That pretty much sums up the attitude of both our current President and the neophyte who could very possibly attain the Presidency in the next few years.

Like my dad, my wife has her opinions, but she doesn’t often preach them. In fact, she exudes the awareness that she may be wrong, for she is but a human being, and our minds are inherently limited and biased. It is precisely that perspective that allows her to be so tolerant of people who look different than she does, worship at a different church, and hail from a very different part of the country or world. My wife would have NEVER blasted community organizers, for she recognizes that these are people who could be making a whole lot more money elsewhere but are doing their best to serve the needs of low-income communities in urban areas. To insult them is about as slimy as insulting the members of the Peace Corps. Insult lawyers, insult politicians … they’re fair game. But leave community organizers alone. Please.

One day at work, I received an e-mail from Kathy. It included a passage from a blog-post written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr:

“Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965 that ‘some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”

That’s right – the “writer” that Palin quoted, but didn’t name, in support of her tribute to small town values was just another bigoted fascist. But that doesn’t take away from at least the half truth that Palin’s quotation included. It remains accurate that there are plenty of “good people … with honesty, sincerity and dignity” living in small towns. I have come to know a number of these people when I have visited my wife’s family and friends. And I can appreciate why they would take pride in their upbringing. My own question is, why do so many small town folk seem so fearful and put off by those of us who represent the “values” of the city? Are we not also good? Are we any less honest, sincere or dignified?

Speaking for myself, I would never claim to have killed the Bridge to Nowhere if I had not only supported the project but kept the money for my state. I think that statement is neither honest nor sincere. But every politician is entitled to make some stupid comments. If we grant that privilege to Obama and Biden, why not do the same for Palin? What I find less forgivable – what my wife finds less forgivable – is the idea that she can be somehow sequestered so that she doesn’t have to reveal her thoughts to the American public. We’re being asked by McCain’s handlers to vote for her based not on her academic credentials, the substance of her views, or her ability to express those views when not spoonfed by a speechwriter. Rather, we’re being asked to elect Sarah because of her smile, her legs, and the “charm” of her blind ambition. And yet that is precisely what the defender of all things white and rural, Joe Scarborough, applauds.

Just yesterday, Scarborough quoted Oakland Raiders’ owner, Al Davis, in saying that in politics, as in football, the correct motto is “Just Win, Baby!” In other words, it really doesn’t matter whether you comport yourself according to conventional definitions of honorable conduct – all that matters is that you get elected, and whatever you do to get elected is fully appropriate.

Well, Mr. Scarborough, those may be your values, but they’re not consistent with the expressed values of small town America. The last my wife and I checked, those values are supposedly steeped in Scripture. And Scripture includes the following admonition, “Justice, justice shall you pursue!” (Deuteronomy, 16:20) The rabbis are clear about what that means – to practice justice, not only must your goals be laudable, but so must be the means employed to reach those goals. If indeed the cynics who have given us Sarah Palin – and asked us to consider her candidacy in light of small town values – are truly enamored about this great experiment called “democracy,” they have a duty to make her, and her ideas, fully available to all Americans. And that includes those of us heathen who live in big eastern cities, and who come from backgrounds that do not celebrate Jesus – or any other human being -- as God.


Three days ago, I went out to dinner with my wife, who is now named Kathleen Adele Spiro. We were celebrating the fact that 20 years ago, in a Unitarian church in Indianapolis, Indiana, the two of us were married. When we mentioned to the waiter that this was our anniversary, he brought us a delicious desert with a single candle on it. I suggested that before we blow it out, we make a wish. Immediately, my head started turning to thoughts about our daughters … but before I could focus those thoughts onto a single wish, my wife made a suggestion: “Let’s wish that Barack Obama wins the election.”

“Agreed,” I said. Then we blew out the candle. And I smiled.