Obama's flip-flops are growing worrisome

I’m worried about Obama. It’s not the usual right-wing bombast (he’s an anti-Israeli-crypto-Muslim). In fact, my problems are the opposite of theirs. Now that the nomination is surely his, he’s taken some “centrist” positions in a vain hope to win over moderate Republican support.

First it was agreeing with the Supreme Court’s gun decision. That strict constructionalists failed to notice the words referring to the maintaince of a well regulated militia as the raison d’être of the Second Amendment’s very limited acquiescence to individuals bearing arms amazes. In 1973 the Court said, “Let the slaughter intensify, legally” and it did. Now the Justices are saying it again, and it will. And Obama supports them. Narrowly the case was about whether people in Washington, DC had the right to a loaded gun in their house for self defense and a rifle for hunting, but the chuckleheads who constitute the NRA are going to take this as the opening shot to bring home an alleged right for anyone not yet convicted of a crime to pack a rod.

Then it was his advocacy of federal funds going to faith-based groups. That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave, or maybe it’s the wall of separation between church and state cracking. Or both. Have we learned nothing from the Jim Jones fiasco? You remember Jim. He established Jonesville in the jungles of Guyana after first conning such luminaries as Vice President Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and then when his frauds were becoming public he had an investigating congressman and his entourage murdered and then ordered the mass suicide of his 900 Kool-Aid-drinking-faith-based-community. And now in his swing to the right Obama wants to give money to people who on the one hand say “We will use it wisely” and on the other object to government scrutiny of how they spend money—based on their constitutional right of separation of church from state.

Not that Obama isn’t getting pilloried from those with whom he is trying to make friends on the right. He is. When he spoke of giving federal funds to religious groups he hedged. “First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can’t discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion.” Bill Donohue (I wrote about him in the December 8, 2006 edition of the Voice & Herald, you may recall) shouted “Fraud!” Donohue, who fronts the “Catholic League,” fulminated: “What Obama wants is to secularize the religious workplace.” He argues that Obama’s position is “a body blow to religious groups that apply for federal funds.”

And in this Donohue may be right (I hate to write that). Obama, who billed himself in this specious speech as “someone who used to teach constitutional law” ought to know better. Part of the reason for the separation of church and state is actually to protect religion from the state. If government can impose a requirement that religious institutions can not insist that people hired share their religious convictions and sensibilities than government would, in effect, be delivering the body blow of which Donohue protests. Oh what a tangled web Obama weaves when first he practices to, to what? To deceive? Maybe.

And has he changed his position on bringing the troops back from Iraq within 16 months of his taking the oath of office? I don’t know. He says “yes” and explains “no.” He challenges those such as me who hold him to our standards. I’ve been saying these things all along, he says; we weren’t listening. Ah, the fault dear reader is not in the man but in ourselves, for we were so desperate for change that we failed to pay attention. Is that what Obama is saying?

Not that John McCain has won my support. He is a Republican. George W. Bush is a Republican. Under Bush, though warned, we were attacked, we’ve fought the wrong enemy, spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives while the price of fuel has skyrocketed, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, the stock market is in free fall and the Taliban is on the rise. McCain is trying to put as much distance between himself and Bush as he can, but he’s still a Republican and while someday that emblem may not be a stigma, it is today. Just ask former Senator Lincoln Chaffee.

Morgan the Flying Dog

The Voice & Herald is on vacation. So this is a shabbatshalomagram message I sent out. Enjoy.

July 18, 2008

Shabbat Shalom, Haverim:

On Sunday last Penney watered the hanging geraniums we keep in flower boxes outside our bedroom and Sam’s. She filled the watering can, raised the window then the screen in Sam’s room and watered and she lowered the screen and the window. She went and re-loaded the can and came to our room where she raised the window and the screen and watered and lowered the screen and then we drove to Tanglewood (Hayden, Bach, intermission, Mozart, Schubert) where we rendezvous-ed with some friends. (I wonder if any of you were there as well? We saw some other people from Rhode Island; we always do, but I bet at least one other person on this list was there on the vast lawn or in the shed who we missed.)

We chatted, read, picnicked, looked up at the uncertain sky which serially sent forth sun, cloud, drizzle, sun, cloud, sun, drizzle, sun, and enjoyed. We drove home, stopping to eat at a pizzeria we like and arrived here at about 8:00. The odd thing is that the key didn’t open the door directly. The bolt, it turned out, had also been locked. Strange, I’m pretty sure I left the house last; I’m positive I didn’t lock the bolt. Ah, well. Morgan the Wonder Dog greeted us excitedly, complaining about the lack of fresh air, exercise, and toilet facilities, so we leashed her and took her out for a stroll around the block. There are two beagles in the neighborhood who compete for the honor of shrillest howlers as Morgan sachets past their homes. One lives to the West of the public tennis courts we walk around, the other directly opposite on the Eastern side. Sometimes their barking is in stereo. We smile condescendingly—stupid dogs, poor owners—and Morgan often turns her back to one or the other (as they are scrapping against glass windows barking and barking and barking) and squats, sticks her tail out vertically, and poops. “Take that you pesky Beagle,” she seems to be saying. We dutifully scoop and continue on.

As we returned to the house, conversation was on how one of us could have bolted the door and forgotten that he (or she—my choice) had. But as we got home I noticed that the flower basket was resting on the yew bush. It’s not supposed to be there; it’s supposed to be hanging in front of our bedroom window. I looked up and—voila! It wasn’t there. I pointed this out to Penney and realized that our across the street neighbor Rick has a key to the house and that he often turns the bolt when we’ve asked him to come in and feed the dog or whatever. “Rick must have bolted the door,” I said. “But why, she asked?” The window box has something to do with it,” I Sherlocked.

So when we got in, I called Rick. Yes he had been in the house. The dog had been out. “Huh?” I asked in my most unsherlockian tone. “Well, Andy from next door rang my bell this afternoon and he had Morgan by the collar and asked what we should do with her. I said I had the key so I’d bring her back. I did, then I checked to see that all the doors and windows were closed on the first floor; they were, so I left bolting the door behind me,” he reported.

Even though it was only 8:30 at night, the dawn was breaking. Penney went upstairs to our bedroom and invoked the deity. “The screen, it’s gone and there’s the impression of a dog in the bush below!”

It was all clear to us now. Morgan, upstairs (rummaging through the wastebasket, I’m sure—this is how she punishes us) had heard one of her (many) enemies walking in front of the house. She charged towards the window, went through the screen, knocking over the flower box in the process and either flew (in a manner of speaking) or plummeted (same result) onto the bush, apparently unscathed. At some point later one across the street neighbor collared her and the other brought her home, checked the doors and windows and left confused, wondering how she could have gotten out, bolting the door behind him.

That night, as we went to bed, Penney had a thought. “I wonder what the person who was walking by the house thought as he saw first the screen, then the flower box then the dog fly from the second floor window. I imagine that he picked up his dog and ran like hell. I would have.” “Me, too,” I laughed, and so did she.

So that was our Sunday. Nu? What was yours like?

As always I wish you all a week filled with love and joy, peace and prosperity, good health and the wonder of discovery. Be strong and resolute, Haverim.

Again, Shabbat Shalom.

I send you all my love,

Josh