Pardon My Politics

The world has grown a dis­turb­ing ad­dic­tion for oil. Many oil fields around the world are head­ed for de­ple­tion. Na­tion­al statis­tics are un­re­li­able at best, or clas­si­fied at worst, and na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies con­trol up to 80 per­cent of oil and nat­u­ral gas re­serves.

How would CNN promote a show called “White in America?” Would they feature the thousands of meth addicts who have abandoned their children? The California rural and suburban white women who do more dope than Latino and black youth? And if not, why not? Can’t they get State Farm, Ford and McDonald’s to sponsor such a program? All of these companies are sponsoring “Black in America,”" the aim of which is to cast collective blame on blacks for the country’s social problems. For ratings.

Many are finding it disturbing that President Barack Obama initially gave the “all clear” signal to the Justice Department to investigate and seek criminal prosecutions against Bush Administration lawyers for the legal advice they gave relative to enhanced interrogation methods against terrorists in the aftermath of 9-11.

The situation is murky because it has also come to light that many members of Congress – from both parties – were briefed on these interrogations and voiced no opposition at the time of the briefing.

In order to celebrate the Fourth of July, our would-be world leader invited all of Iran to an embassy barbeque. This offer was later rescinded in an effort to punish the government for their most recent human rights violations against their own people.

But before Obama’s decision to change his mind on his decision, it had been widely hoped that he might employ a certain level of empathy in his meal to the Muslims. However, his previous gifting of DVD’s to the British Prime Minister and an iPod to the Queen of England made such consideration unlikely.

A sim­ple look at past cam­paigns and can­di­dates could pro­vide Re­pub­li­cans with the an­swers they need. Elec­tions are a re­ac­tive/chem­i­cal pro­cess – not a con­form­ing/sci­en­tif­ic one – cam­paigns and elec­tions are more akin to a per­son­al ro­mance than any­thing root­ed in loy­al po­lit­i­cal rea­son­ing.

The idea that Re­pub­li­cans need to find new pol­i­cy ideas – or change their mes­sage to en­tice a cer­tain vot­ing block is wrong. Vot­ers de­cide on their sup­port based on what a can­di­date…

When discussing his criteria for a Supreme Court Justice less than a month ago, President Obama said “I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” Evidently that is not a quality he requires of himself.