The Vig

I missed all of last night’s ABC debate. The reaction last night was swift and immediate. Sullivan echoes my thoughts on the larger picture here.

If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do. And a Clinton-Giuliani race could be as invigorating as it is utterly predictable.

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution.

For some reason word hasn’t leaked back to the Beltway political class that 2004 is over. Taking marching orders from Sean Hannity and asking “gotcha” questions just doesn’t work and certainly isn’t going to help solve any of the major problems this country faces both at home and abroad.

Another MSM incident this week didn’t get quite the coverage it should have. Bill Simmons, ESPN’s star Page 2 blogger had a podcast interview lined up this week with Obama. That was until the ESPN suits came in and spiked it.

There are lots of conspiracy theories floating around as to the reasoning. ABC’s performance last night certainly didn’t help, but I think Leitch pretty much hit the nail on the head with this comment:

We think it’s more a matter of pulling rank. Some online guy is gonna have Sen. Obama as a guest on his PODCAST? What the hell’s a podcast? Better to wait until Stu Scott can talk to him about Carolina hoops after the convention. Why waste the access on a podcast?

Bingo. ESPN has some great content on their website. It’s a shame they believe it’s all subserviant to their five television networks. It’s not like Obama won’t be doing a Sunday conversation (no doubt with Stu Scott) in August or September. But in the meantime, if Obama is content to show up on some backwater podcast to help break down the NBA playoffs, why on Earth would ESPN object?

“Can I talk to you for a second?” the voice asked from behind me.

I turned and found a Scottsdale police car had pulled up alongside me, the officer inside motioning me to the next street.  He pulled to a stop and quickly two other cars pulled up with him.  Two officers got out of their cars and approached me.

“We were curious if you knew anything about a drive-by shooting that happened up the street from here last week.”

“No,” I answered.

The first officer reached inside a file folder, took out a surveillance camera picture, and handed it to me.  It was a picture of me at a convenience store.  Only it wasn’t me.  The guy had a little more hair than me and was wearing one of those Tweety Bird t-shirts where Tweety was looking all gangsta.  I’ll be the first to admit I have zero sense of style, but I have more sense than to wear one of those shirts.

He explained the guy in the photo had been involved in an argument at a Circle K store up the street a few blocks and it had escalated into a shooting.  The Tweety Bird guy had shot another guy as guy #2 was walking back toward his apartment.  A civilian employee, they said, spotted me walking down the street and called me in.  That was a lie, of course.  I’d stopped to take a look at a radar van pulled off to the side of the road, curious to see what was inside.  No doubt THAT person was the one who called his buddies.  Either way…

Wow, I thought.  That guy looks just like me.  Put him in any other t-shirt and in nearly any other convenience store (I didn’t shop at Circle K/76 because their gas was always $.10/more per gallon than anyone else), and I would have told you the guy was me.

The cops asked me for some ID.  I didn’t have any on me since the shorts I was wearing didn’t have any pockets.  I wasn’t planning on producing anything for the authorities, so I didn’t plan ahead.  I did though recite my license number, my cars license plate number, and my home address for the officers.  I didn’t have anything to hide, after all.

They took a couple of Polaroids of me and sent me on my way.  They assured me everything would get sorted out and I probably didn’t have anything to worry about.  “Besides,” cop #1 said, “your glasses look completely different from his.”

And so I walked home, a little shaken, but whatever.

The next night, Thursday, I went to the Diamondbacks game with a date, took her back home in the north end of Phoenix, and made the long drive back to my place.  I arrived around 12:30 or so.

As I got out of my car, three or four other cars surrounded me from different angles and their doors opened all at once.

“Scottsdale Police, get your hands where I can see them.”

My hands immediately went up.  Wow.  They really think its me.

“Walk backward toward my voice.  Put your hands on your head and get down on your knees.”

A full felony arrest.  I’d heard about these in college but had never actually seen one.  Except, of course, on Cops.

An officer came over, cuffed my wrists and stood me up.

“Do you have any needles or anything sharp in your pockets,” he asked.

“No.”

He searched me and asked if I knew why I was being arrested.  I told him I figured it had to do with my being questioned the other night, but didn’t offer anything more.

They drove me over to the police station near Scottsdale Stadium, and ran me through the whole finger print/mugshot thing.  One of the officers went out of his way to thank me for being cooperative.

“It’s safer for everyone,” I replied.  He agreed.

It must have been 3am before they finally stuck me in a cell.  It was bare except for a thin mattress on a concrete bunk.  And a toilet, of course.

They got me up around 7:30 or so to transport me to another, unmarked, station.  I was driven there by a young female officer.  We made small talk along the way.  I asked her if she watched Seinfeld.  She did.  I told her I felt as though I’d fallen into bizarro world.  It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me.  There’s someone out there who looks just like me, I explained.  Maybe she bought it, maybe she didn’t.  I certainly wasn’t offering her anything.

When we arrived at the second station, they checked me in, and stuck me in a new cell.  Alone, again.  After a few hours, a detective around my age came to retrieve me.  He shook my hand and explained the process.  They had some questions for me.  I didn’t realize until weeks later that this guy was “good cop”.  We walked down to an interrogation room, where I met “bad cop.”  I made the mistake of trying to shake his hand.  After a few awkward moments, he finally gave in.  When I sat down, they started in.

Contrary to what the current administration would have us all believe, the point of an interrogation is not to ascertain the truth, it is to produce a confession.  If the confession also happens to be the truth, all the better, but it’s really immaterial.  So it was from this angle they chose to pursue me.  We spent two hours thrusting and parrying.  They told me they knew it was me.  The victim, who survived, by the way, had identified me from the Polaroid and got physically ill at the sight of me.  That’s always nice to hear.  Bad cop would put the screws to me, then good cop would try another angle before bad cop would go back in for the kill.  At one point bad cop got up out of his chair, squatted down next to me, and very firmly demanded I quit lying and tell the truth about what had happened that night.  The truth was I was sitting at home studying for my marketing class.  How boring can a guy be?

The session ended when I finally asked for an attorney.  It was something I should have done the moment they read me my Miranda rights, but figuring the truth was on my side, there was no reason not to talk, you know?  I asked for an attorney when they started asking me to take a lie detector test.  I wanted to get legal counsel before we started breaking out the divining rods.  They told me my refusal made it look like I had something to hide.  I didn’t care.  We were through talking.

It was back to the cell.  I asked them to turn the phone on so I could start making calls.  To this point, they’d denied me access to a phone.  They’d let me know I was going down to the Madison Street Jail for further detention until I could see a judge.  It was time to call family.

Uncle Darrell knew exactly who it was and where I was the second he picked up the phone.  He knew I knew better than to call collect.  We both got a quick chuckle out of my predicament before he called my dad at the office to let him know what was up.

All of this, no doubt, was being recorded.  Sometimes I wonder if there ever came a moment when good cop and bad cop knew they had the wrong dude.  From their perspective though, the Scottsdale police department had recently gotten some heat from the local press for the percentage of minorities they were arresting.  So guilty or not, I was quite a coup for them.  An innocent white guy.  If they played their cards right, they’d be able to arrest two white suspects for one crime and drive that percentage down just a hair.  A brilliant move from their perspective.

Around noon or so, I was cuffed again and driven down to Madison Street Jail, Maricopa County’s intake facility.  Just a few months before, Sammy The Bull had wandered through the same place.  In case you’re not already aware, Maricopa County’s sheriff is Joe Arpaio. “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”  He of the pink underwear and green baloney.  I was going to be his guest for a little while.

The intake facility at Madison Street was known as “the horseshoe”.  It’s basically a series of tanks arranged in a “U-shape” on the ground floor of the jail.  As you wind your way through the different tanks, the deputies process your paperwork, do your medical intake, photograph and fingerprint you again, and then send you in front of a judge.

It was that very first tank they sent me into which set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

As I walked through the door, a guy in the back of the room shouted “Hey!  It’s Butterbean!”  Butterbean, of course, being a 300-plus pound boxer known for both his girth and his shaved head.  A perfect nickname for me.

I politely waved and took a seat on the floor.  Sheriff Joe doesn’t believe in such a thing as overcrowding.  So while all 15 or so bunks in the room were occupied, there were probably twice as many men stuffed inside.  With all the smell and noise you would expect.  There were thieves, junkies, drunks, and any number of other criminals in with me.  It was a concentrated side of society I’d never seen.

An hour or so after I arrived at Madison Street, I heard my name called and was told I had a visitor.  It was the attorney my parents hired.  He was a nice enough guy who promised he’d be tough with the system and wed get everything sorted out.  He asked me what had happened, I told him.

“So you’re innocent?” he asked, mildly shocked.

“Well yeah,” I replied.

“Oh!  Well that makes things much easier.”

Good to know.

He spent a few minutes telling me what to expect.  He said I’d see a judge around 9 or so and she would set my bail and then wed make arrangements to have me out sometime on Monday.

I swallowed hard.

“Monday?”

“It’s the weekend,” he said.

Wow.

He told me not to worry, to just keep to myself and everything would work out alright.  He said he’d never had a client get injured inside the jail.  Good to know.

He handed me his card, shook my hand, and he took off.  I went back to the tank.  The card was the only thing I had with me for the rest of that weekend.  I remember reading it over and over when I couldn’t sleep.  Funny how little things like that can become so meaningful.

Like the lawyer said, I was called before the judge around 9:30.  He was there to help represent me.  The cool thing about hiring your own attorney for these things is you get shoved to the front of the line for everything.  I was the first guy called up.  The judge read the charges and asked if I understood them.  I replied I did.  She then set about determining bail.  My attorney pleaded my case.  Good kid.  Full-time job.  Never been arrested before.  Blah blah blah.  He’d told me earlier to expect $250,000.  She set it at $97,500.  I thought we got off light.  The guys in the back let out a whistle to let me know that I hadn’t.  Suddenly I had a little cred.

The attorney then had a few more words for me.  Mostly that he’d spoken with my dad and he was flying down.  A few other things.  Then he was gone.  And I was moved further into the process.

The judge essentially separates those who are going home that night from those who aren’t.  Guys who could get away with posting $500 and less did and were home within hours.  Guys like me were moved around the bend of the horseshoe and were prepped to be moved to another facility.  It’s a slow process which involves a lot of waiting.

The next tank I was moved into had the first motormouth I’d encountered.  He was working his way around the room, asking where guys were from and what they were in for.  I had a quick decision to make.  I didn’t want to say I didn’t do anything.  That would be whining.  I didn’t want to say what I stood accused of.  That might make me a target.  So I had to find a third path.

“What are you in for?” the guy asked.

“Giving false information to a cop.”

“Who did you say you were?”

“Butterbean.”

And with that, I’d made 20 friends.  And a jail nickname was born.  Wherever I went after that, I was Butterbean.  Didn’t matter where.  The next tank?  There was a guy in there who’d already heard the story.  Into the showers?  Same deal.  Heck, in the visiting room, I was greeted four or five times as Butterbean.  Fascinating how quickly word travels on the inside.

So where are we?  Friday night? I spent the next 36 hours in the same tank with a rotating cast of characters as we waited for a bunk to open at our final destination.  Most of the guys went to the Tent City although a few were sent to more exotic locales like Durango or the ominous sounding Towers.  Me?  After what could only be described as a very cold interaction with some administrator who knew the victim, I was sent upstairs into maximum security.  I was issued a badge and a set of striped garments, and yes…even the pink undies.

I asked a guard whether going to maximum security was a good thing.  He said it depended on your outlook.

“There’s a lot fewer games in maximum security,” he said.

Sounded good to me.

A couple of things about this particular weekend.  Not only was it Easter, but the Blazers were also at the beginning of the 2000 playoff run.  They were playing Minnesota that weekend and I needed a score.  You haven’t lived until you’ve asked a certified gang banger for an NBA score.  Needless to say, I didn’t find out hw my Blazers had done until Monday when I saw my first sports section.

I was bunked with a gay, diabetic bank robber.  The guy was old school.  He had me immediately sized up and knew I had no business being in there.  He told me we’d be staying in our cell 24/7 until I was let out.  No mixing with anyone.  He assured me I’d be fine.  What choice did I have?

My cellmate, in an effort to establish his own cred, hung his first pair of prison issued socks over the bars of the cell door. He instantly drew a crowd of other prisoners.  See, his socks had four digits on them.  They’re on some bizarre hybrid of numbers and letters now.  The four digits meant my new best friend had first been exposed to the correction system before I was born.  He explained he’d finally had enough of the running and figured he’d serve his three years and go live out his years with his mom.  A nice strategy, I suppose.  I hope it worked out for him.

Monday finally rolled around, and just as my attorney told me, I was let out around 1 or so.  On my way out, I was given my next court date and was asked if I was going to be there.

“With bells on,” I replied.

She got a good chuckle out of that.  There was another guard there who quickly picked up on the fact I was green to the whole jail experience.

“You don’t belong in here, do you?” he asked.

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Huh.

After my release, I walked to the address on the card.  My attorney laughed as I walked in.  He and his assistant had been arguing over whether to go pick me up.  The attorney assured his Kato that I’d find  the place alright on my own.  I did.

We hopped in his car, drove to my girlfriend’s place, picked up my keys, and headed back to my apartment.  The cops had searched my place and my car.  They left my car unlocked and it was ransacked by the neighbor kids.  A nice sight to come home to.  My apartment wasn’t in much better shape.  They turned the whole thing upside down looking for a gun and that Tweety Bird t-shirt.  There were piles of stuff in the middle of the floor.  The TV was off its stand.  My mattress was on the floor.  The place was just a mess.  They took, and still have, by the way, a few articles of clothing, but didn’t take anything else.

I finally went back to work a week or so later.  Every day when I came home, there was a police officer parked in the spot right next to mine.  He was waiting for me to emerge from the suspect vehicle, a blue pick-up truck.  No dice, of course, since my only whip at the time was my ‘95 Accord.  But that didn’t stop them from letting me know they knew who I was and where I lived.

Did they ever catch the real guy?  My attorney says they did.  I have my doubts.  I prefer to think I’m still the prime suspect.  As I learned on the inside, you’re nothing without your cred.  And remaining the prime suspect lets me keep it.

Here’s a comment that’s been making the rounds on the Web today.

I am convinced that this so called “Uncle” has influenced the man over 20 years. Obama can’t place his hand on his heart for the pledge, and his wife is just now proud to be an American. Let us all finally put the pieces of the Obama puzzle together, what this man and his family are truly about. They have their own self-serving agenda that does not involve the entire USA. At least when Hillary speaks, whether you like it or not, you know it’s the facts.

Last I heard Obama was a Muslim. Now I guess he’s a hate-mongerer. This, kids, is progress. The current Limbaugh-Hannity-Clinton lovefest is also progress, I suppose. It’s a curious phenomenon, one which this commenter is neck-deep in. Some suggest it’s an addiction.

Obama isn’t the crazy Black nationalist or whatever that Hannity and his friends wish he were. Anyone who chooses to believe that a) is ignorant and b) isn’t going to vote for him anyway.

The question for all of us now is will we allow ourselves to spend another decade walking this path we’re currently on, or do we make a change? If you like where we are and where we’re headed, you can’t do much better than Hillary or McCain. I’d prefer something new.

Update: Sullivan, as usual, speaks for me.

The relevant – the only relevant – question is: are Obama’s beliefs represented by the handful of video clips of the most incendiary of Wright’s sermons? Or to unpack it a little further: Does Obama believe that black people should damn America? Does he believe that racial separatism is a viable option? Is he a black liberation theologian?

Seriously, I can find absolutely no evidence that he is, and if anyone can, I will gladly eagerly air it.

Give me a speech or a sentence or an off-hand remark in the last twenty years in which Obama has said such a thing or reflected such a worldview and I will gladly post it. On the other hand, we have many, many, many examples of Obama’s own thoughts on these issues, several extraordinary sermons and speeches, two books, one of which is searingly honest about race and faith and identity. The notion that this immense record should be displaced by a few YouTubes by someone else seems, well, disproportionate.

They’re white, liberal, and over 60.

My father is 68, and has said vehemently that — although he might support Obama — he just doesn’t believe the nation is ready to vote for a black President. Another long-time family friend, almost 70 and Jewish, told me that he thinks there are still too many racist people in America, and that Obama doesn’t have chance in the general electorate. He told me this over dinner one night, and I said to him, “I hope you’re wrong.” He said, “So do I, but I doubt it.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. 1968 was 40 years ago.  A ton has changed since then, not the least of which is the demographics.  There truly are more of “us” today than there are of “them”.  Yet the polls suggest there is this segment of older liberals who are going for Hillary in part because “we’re not ready” for Obama.  I wonder when they pull the curtain in November whether these same liberals will vote for Nader for the same reason.  Its something to watch.

Yesterday’s front page article in The O struck close to home for me.  Those who’ve been with me through my various incarnations know how I became Butterbean.  Those who haven’t are in for a treat as I’ll be retelling the story on Good Friday, the 8th anniversary of my lost weekend in Maricopa County.  Long story short, I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit.  Unlike drivers in Oregon who are arrested for impaired driving but ultimately found to be completely sober, the record of my arrest has never appeared on my “permanent” record.  My experience as a guest of America’s Toughest Sheriff, though, stays with me.  Good times.

It is interesting how close we live to the line between freedom and….tyranny?  That seems to be a harsh word, but what else do you call it?  Cops have a ton of power in this country and while most use it for good, some are just a-holes with a badge.  Like this nice fellow encountered by a blogger down in Vegas.

I don’t know how we begin to stand-up to these folks and take back our Fourth Amendment rights.  Perhaps Kevin Mannix could draft a law which a) prevents anything short of a conviction from showing up on your record, and b) preventing felonies from being expunged.  THAT would be a Mannix law I could get behind.

Barack Obama’s speech yesterday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yolk of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

“Unity is the great need of the hour” is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I’m not talking about a budget deficit. I’m not talking about a trade deficit. I’m not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I’m talking about a moral deficit. I’m talking about an empathy deficit. I’m taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we’re still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can’t afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we’ve come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We’ve come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it’s just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It’s not easy to stand in somebody else’s shoes. It’s not easy to see past our differences. We’ve all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don’t think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country’s ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don’t happen in the spotlight. They don’t happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She’s been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

If you don’t think the man who spoke those words is worthy of being the next president, I can’t help you.

I spent most of yesterday stewing over Obama v. Clinton way more than I should have. But it’s alright, you know? Sometimes you’ve got to get fired up. And I am. Hillary has dominated the news the last few days and I’ve wondered how Obama would respond. I think she wanted Obama to lash out and get into a slime match with her. There’s no way to win that one. So what would he do?

Well…

You have seen a tone on the Democrat[ic] side of the campaign that has been unfortunate. I want to stipulate a couple of things. I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. They are good people. They are patriots….

I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this.

Obama said he wants to send “a strong signal to my own supporters that let’s try to focus on the work that needs to get done. If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it….

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically been on the right side of civil rights issues. They care about the African American community.… That is something I am convinced of. I want Americans to know that is my assessment.

And just like that, the pin is placed back in the grenade and handed back to a dumbfounded Clinton campaign. Obama’s comment accomplishes two things. First, it shows Obama to be a measured, level-headed leader. This is what we’re looking for in the next president, right? Right? Second, and this is the master stroke, by polishing their credentials and paying homage to their history of caring about the African American community, he lifted the Clintons out of the cesspool where they so clearly wanted to fight, cleaned them off, and placed them neatly back on dry land. What choice did Hillary have but to take the bait?

Our party and our nation is bigger than this. Our party has been on the front line of every civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, workers’ rights movement, and other movements for justice in America.

We differ on a lot of things. And it is critical to have the right kind of discussion on where we stand. But when it comes to civil rights and our commitment to diversity, when it comes to our heroes – President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King – Senator Obama and I are on the same side.

So the issue is dead for now.  Obama has made it clear that he alone is in charge of both his message and his surrogates.  Again, a sign of leadership.  Will voters require the same of Mrs. Clinton?

South Carolina’s Republican governor came out with an Op-Ed yesterday that I think captures the mainstream Republican zeitgeist. While he announces he won’t be voting for Obama, he sure seems alright with him should he win.

Sen. Obama is not running for president on the basis of his race, and no one should cast their ballot for or against him on that basis. Nonetheless, what is happening in the initial success of his candidacy should not escape us. Within many of our own lifetimes, a man who looked like Barack Obama had a difficult time even using the public restrooms in our state. What is happening may well say a lot about America, and I do think as an early primary state we should earnestly shoulder our responsibility in determining how this part of history is ultimately written.

Not a single mention of Obama’s “refusal” to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or his supposed secret life as a closeted Muslim. Just one man taking stock of another.  How refreshing.

I missed the memo that Matt Drudge had ditched his radio gig.  I used to enjoy listening to his show.  He very sloppily walked the line between old man shaking his fist at the sea and new media sage.  He simultaneously champions the new media and begs the powers-that-be to leave the Internet alone while at the same time he relishes scaring bluehairs with words like MySpace and porn.  It was an interesting show.

His replacement is a guy out of Cincinnati named Bill Cunningham.  As you can tell, Bill isn’t exactly down with the Internet.  Nor is he down with liberals.  Not like Drudge was.  Drudge, for all his faults, loves Hillary because she makes him money.  She also makes Rush and Hannity money too.  None of those three wants her to go away.  And I don’t think Cunningham wants her to either.  That said, Cunningham’s show is much more ideological than Drudge’s ever was.

Case in point, tonight he had Dinesh D’Souza on for a little intellectual stimulation.  Together they bemoaned the withering of Christianity in Europe.  D’Souza declared the reason for Christianity’s demise in Europe was because religion had become too close to the Crown.  It was a fascinating assessment, I thought.  Especially since our current administration is completely intertwined with religion and that has caused an electoral backlash against both.  Of course D’Souza didn’t see it that way.  He completely ignored his thesis and went on to declare America would be lucky to have a man of the cloth such as Huckabee as president.  He continued that bringing more religion into government would restore the greatness of both.  Right.  Good luck with that.

I’m so completely geeked for this show, it’s not even funny. What is funny is their video for my favorite tune from their current release, Boys and Girls in America.