Vice Presidential Debate on The Huffington Post

Campaign Cool Downs: 10 Steps To Inner Peace (SLIDESHOW)

2008-11-03T15:40:44Z

When politically provoked, here are 10 no-fail ways to go from riotous to relaxed.

Debate parties starting to feel like World War III? Are you alienating friends and family with your staunch, hyper-educated self clad head to toe in campaign gear? Be proud. Now check your ego and be effective.

Politics are personal and that's why you feel like showering when you go toe to toe with someone whose opinions insight riot in your. Between the economic upheaval and the ecosystem's "debatable" fragility the hot button issues determining Election 2008 have some of us so heated up that we are lashing out. And it's not becoming or impactful. Where we need to spend energy is in how we elegantly express ourselves and become commanding orators not Dem-ish diehards. So how do you take ferocious passion and turn it into a beautiful, flowing dispatch that might just compel McCain's constituents to convert? A little bit of yoga.

It only takes 5 days for your typical boiling point to be retrained. A study from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education of China and the University of Oregon's Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative demonstrated that 5 days of relaxation training showed an increased ability to resolve conflict and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than in the control group.

These 10 yoga tricks will increase your ability to see political differences as the perfect alchemy for a nation in need of respectful discourse in order to become dominant in peace brokerage, leadership and financial rejuvenation.

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Ambria Miscia: Do You Elect Anarchy When You Elect not to Vote?

2008-10-28T18:38:13Z

Inadvertently, I believe in some ways we do choose anarchy when we decide we've just become so dreary of our downward-spiral of a political system we aren't going to bother on Election Day. However, when a friend or acquaintance who I think of as any sort of equal tells me, 'What's the point of voting? My vote doesn't count. They're all crooked anyway,' even amidst everything we've seen between the war and the economy downfall during the last right years, I'm astonished.

I'm not bewildered at those whom are overcome with jaded views of the voting system or have adopted cynical opinions of our politicians -- hey, I get it -- where were the WMDs?? I'm rendered speechless, however, at the fact that people seem to forget their sixth and seventh grade history lessons. My first day of sixth grade I walked into Mr. Borget's class and on the chalkboard was Santayana's famous phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Now to clarify -- I'm not talking about the rest of the world laughing at the fact that nearly half of this country might good and well elect four more years of failed policies under the Republican administration. This is an administration which has already been exposed through documentaries and news reports for protecting those they deem 'friends' -- about 7% of this country and a small, but entitled, few abroad -- all of whom have financial interests with the oil and weapons industries to make sure the money finds its' way back into their own pockets. No, I'm not talking about what an irony it would be to elect more of that.

I'm not even talking about a possible continuation of this copy-cat administration that actually gets elected because they chant juvenile catch-phrases that kindergartners can understand so as to get their wildly supportive 'base' amped up in a high school homecoming game way (intellect, be damned! - in fact let's call these smarty-pants Democrats 'elitists' and put a negative spin on being well-spoken!).

No. I'm talking about the history of this world. Anarchy! 'Oh, those are medieval times,' a lot people think. Not so fast!

First, what's anarchy again? The definition is: The absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder. This issue was brought to my attention recently and I was forced to reflect on the extreme luxury we now have, to not have any desire to 'get involved with politics.'

Wow; must be nice! And you know what, it is! I mean, it's pretty cool to just be living here in the U.S., right!? I mean, who has time to live through genocide? I mean, with our busy latté-sipping schedule, and all. How about a famine -- not having enough food or the energy to find any food because the mafia is the one hording it and dispersing it since there is no FBI to regulate them? Maybe it might be cool to watch the end of one dictatorship where everything falls apart as you know it, only to be sliding right into the hands of some other slimy dictator? How about getting robbed or shot - but having no police to call? Damn, that would suck! Would it bother you if there were no longer any working traffic signals? How about rapists and pedophiles running around without any sort of legal repercussions -- never mind having that cool State-run website on the internet where you can see where all the creepy sex offenders live? Would it be kind of a problem if schools weren't in session because no one was keeping accounting of taxes, therefore no teachers had any work? Would it bother you if your creepy, long-haired neighbors were building a bomb and having a few late-night deliveries of highly enriched uranium but there was no CIA to call? Catch my drift?

Well, probably not; you've never actually experienced it, nor have I, so one paragraph isn't going to grip us with actual despair. It's not our reality. Yet, if you turn on the news, it's creeping up just a tad. It's not our fault; we were born into this privileged nation.

I suspect the people reading this are not the people this article is directed at.

My point to you, then, is this: we have to be a little more conscious of those around us who are so busy, or so jaded, that we just shrug our shoulders when they say, 'Eh, it won't make a difference,' or 'Oh, I'm just not interested in politics; it seems so crooked.' I've heard it a million times and while I'm not encouraging shoving politics down your co-worker's throats, it might be a nice little wake up call to point out adversity those in lawless countries face. Wouldn't it suck to not be able to vote? Or wouldn't it suck to have a rebel army bang down your door while you are getting ready to take a hot shower on a cold night and ask you - with a machete - which candidate you are voting for? And then having to vote for a candidate (probably the one you don't want to vote for...)?

Toss out a few of these little facts about other countries that struggle with a constant instability of government. Then tell them you're going to call them 'Ungrateful One' until Election Day. Just Kidding. Kind of. A few hiccups in deregulation (absence of the law) have been:

• In New Delhi, India in 2006 there was widespread neglect on the part of the Indian government to regulate Medical Labs and doctor's offices. Medical examiners and nurses were encouraging people to have lab tests they didn't fully require and sometimes medical treatment they didn't require at all. People who were in the lowest income brackets were coaxed into paying 25 -50 % on top of the already-inflated price, not to mention, receiving treatment they didn't even need. Many times, when there is a 'neighborhood epidemic' people are apt to follow popular protocol to avoid getting sick. Case in point: How many times have you gotten a Flu Shot because other people encourage you? Think about that mentality translating to undereducated masses in unmonitored, overpopulated cities.

• The demise of the government of Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia from 1969 thru 1991, rebel groups such as the Somali National Movement (SNM) and the Somali National Democratic Front (SNDF) contributed to an onslaught of anarchy. Anarchy in a country that made its only money through farming and agriculture, but constantly fought severe draughts. Chaos in the already problem-riddled country erupted through the 90s with disorganized, radical rebel regimes in power, but having no real control and sparring an ultimate genocide in the Jubbah Valley, where people were tortured, raped, burned, shot, killed and the rest left to die or become completely displaced.

• Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the years to follow would prove to be a bleak passage from communism to democracy. Russia was a junkyard of the Cold War; lawlessness was rampant as monopolies and privatization began to conquer the cities and western parts of the country (think Enron in a 'government' position without ANY sort of regulation - or better, Dick Cheney running the country from his home office, with the Halliburton factory in his backyard). The black markets boomed police were dysfunctional and completely buried in their own business agendas; the middle class became increasingly poor, cold and totally unmonitored. Nuclear materials and weapons were in the hands of poor family men who resorted to arms dealing on Turkish borders because it was the only means to making any kind of money. KGB integrated (then took over) big business monopolies and trade, with no one stopping it. Public outcry resulted in empty gestures and token promises on the part of Boris Yeltsin, and the rest of an overwhelmed 'democratic' government. Imagine undertaking the absolute ordeal it would be to flush out mafia and illegal trade, which in effect, was the exact commerce Russia had begun to survive on in the mid 90s.Then the daunting task of making separatist countries and cities act in any kind of accordance, after the country had successfully rebelled and overthrown an entire communist government! Think of that moral climate!

Maybe the choice between Obama and McCain ain't that bad after all. Perhaps showing up to make a few checks in a few boxes at the high school down the street is kind of an easy responsibility in turn for the comfort we enjoy to be able to post a Ron Paul picket sign on our front lawn - without losing sleep over the fact someone might send a lynching mob over - is worth it. Just sayin'.

Chris Blake: Joe Biden's Tears Ease a Father's Fears

2008-10-22T17:16:56Z

It's been a couple of weeks since Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden famously choked up during his debate with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, but I still choke up myself just thinking about it. Every day or two, I get to relive the moment on YouTube.

Much has been said about this moment. It's been lauded and derided. Analyzed and politicized. Many have called Biden's tears political gold, but few have questioned their authenticity. It's hard to fake the fear of losing a child.

In fact, watching a United States senator and vice-presidential candidate reveal his fear before a national audience was quite a remarkable thing. Most of us were brought up to believe that our nation's leaders must be strong. That our nation's fathers must be brave. We must not show we're afraid. But Biden did, and in doing so, I think he provided some much-needed release for our nation's mothers and fathers.

But especially the fathers. Fear is something we are trained not to readily convey. Especially not in plain sight. I never thought of my father as fearful, but years later in raising my own child, I presume he was. In fact, in thinking back, I realize he wasn't afraid to show his fear at all. Only he didn't express it through tears. He expressed it through discipline and instruction. He expressed it by being around and spending most of his waking moments preventing me and my siblings from stepping into harm's way. And he was always there.

I've taken to guiding my own son much in the same way. Every day, as the world reveals more of itself to him, we talk about the things to watch out for and how they can be circumvented. I fear what the world can do to him. I fear what he will one day be able to do to himself. I want him to know there are dangers to be wary of, but I also want him to enjoy his childhood and feel safe. So I pretend not to fear. And I try to take the edge off his own fear by convincing him no matter what might step out of the shadows, daddy's got it. And I try to always be there.

After a couple of days of replaying the "Biden Chokes Up" video on YouTube, I went to work creating my own video. I took a song I wrote about the fear of not being able to reach a child in trouble, and I set it to some old family footage I discovered on the Web from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. I found something so strange, magical and sad in these old films. All the little boys depicted in them have become the men they were to become. Most of them are either very old or have passed on.

I was amazed by how beautifully and concisely the films captured the boyhood experience. How tender and pushy boys could be. How a toy train could provide not only the wonder of exploration, but also a segue into the grown-up world. But I was distraught over not being able to find more clips of the boys with their fathers. The fathers! Where were they during these critical moments? For the most part, they were painfully absent. So much for paternal guidance. So much for always being there.

It wasn't until a few days after I had posted my video on YouTube that my son and I happened to be watching some old family movies of our own. I was pained to discover that in these family movies, I too was grievously absent. In fact, it seemed I had missed out on many of my son's biggest moments. His first birthday cake. His first Winter recital. His first haircut at the barbershop.

But as the sharp pangs of guilt began to set in, the TV revealed a reflection of someone in the barbershop mirror. And with a great sigh of relief, I realized I was there watching over my son after all.

I was the one holding the camera.

Click to view my music video for "Lullaby.".

Chris Rodda: Palin's "Role of the Vice President" Gaffe: An Historical Perspective

2008-10-13T15:33:24Z

The night of the vice presidential debate, I started writing a piece about Sarah Palin's utter cluelessness about the authority given to the vice president by the Constitution, but was forced to put it aside because other things came up that I had to deal with first. By the time I had a chance to get back to the piece, the second presidential debate had already taken place, so writing about the past week's vice presidential debate seemed a bit mistimed, and I didn't bother to finish it. The substantiation of Palin's abuse of authority as governor of Alaska, however, made her inflated notion of the authority she would have as vice president seem quite pertinent to the issue of her likelihood to abuse the authority of that office. Given Palin's ignorance of the limits of the vice president's authority, and her obvious lack of ethics in exercising the authority she has as a governor, I decided to finish what I started writing about her statements in the debate.

Sarah Palin's bizarre and ignorant statements about the role and authority of the vice president came in answer to moderator Gwen Ifill's questions about Palin's July comment that someone would have to explain to her exactly what it is the vice president does every day, and whether or not she agreed with Dick Cheney that the vice president was part of the legislative rather than the executive branch of the government. Palin's answers to these questions showed that she just plain doesn't know what the Constitution says about the office she's running for.

Responding to the question about her comment back in July that she doesn't know what the vice president does every day, Palin answered:

"Of course we know what a vice president does, and that's not only preside over the Senate, and we'll take that position very seriously, also, I'm thankful that the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president also if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate...."

What on earth was this woman talking about? What is this "bit more authority given to the vice president" that she's "thankful that the Constitution would allow?" The only actual legislative authority given by the Constitution to the vice president, as Joe Biden pointed out in his response to Palin's statement, is to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate in the event of a tied vote.

In a follow-up question, Ifill asked Palin:

"Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the Constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe, as Vice President Cheney does, that the executive branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that is, it is also a member of the legislative branch?"

Palin's answer, (which somehow ended with a completely off-topic statement about her executive experience as a governor, mayor, and oil and gas regulator), began:

"Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there..."

Since Palin attributed this fanciful notion of a "flexibility" in the Constitution giving the vice president some sort of legislative authority if they "so chose to exert it in working with the Senate" to the wisdom of the founding fathers, here's a little history lesson for her, starting with the role in the Senate of our country's very first vice president, John Adams.

Upon taking office as vice president, John Adams, as dictated by the Constitution, immediately assumed his position as president of the Senate, showing up every day to preside over that body. But Adams, who had no executive experience but plenty of legislative experience, was inclined, as president of this new legislative body, to be actively involved in its debates. As Adams himself put it, he was "more accustomed to take a share in their debates, than to preside in their deliberations."

At the beginning, some participation by Adams would probably have been condoned, and even welcomed, by the senators had Adams not been such a control freak and generally annoying guy, given to making long speeches and obsessing over matters that the majority of the senators thought were a waste of valuable time, such as a month long debate over the title by which the president of the United States should be addressed. Adams liked "His High Mightiness, President of the United States and Protector of their Liberties," which led to jokes behind the his back, with senators dubbing him the "Duke of Braintree" and "His Rotundity." Far more serious than Adams being annoying and disruptive, however, was the fact that, as distinct political parties began to emerge during the first congress, the senators saw the problem of the vice president not being objective in his role as Senate president, but using his position to add a voice for his party in their debates. All of this eventually led the Senate to basically tell Adams to just sit there and keep his mouth shut except on procedural items and tie-breaking votes.

So, far from Sarah Palin's notion that the vice president has some sort of constitutionally granted legislative authority if they "so chose to exert it in working with the Senate," our country's very first senators made it clear that it wasn't the vice president who had authority over the Senate, but the Senate that had the power to confine the vice president to their extremely limited constitutional role.

Another issue that arose during Adams's tenure as vice president was one related to the separation of powers, specifically Adams's signing of Senate documents as "John Adams, Vice President of the United States." Even though the vice president has no actual executive authority under the Constitution, many of the senators were concerned that the use of this executive title when certifying legislation and signing other Senate documents blurred the separation between the executive and legislative branches of the government.

This is how William Maclay, a senator from Pennsylvania in the first Congress, explained the issue in his journal, paraphrasing one of his own statements from the debate, in which he spoke for the majority of the senators:

"I rose. Said the very term Vice-President carried on the face of it the idea of holding the place of the President in his absence; that every act done by the Vice-President as such implied that when so acting he held the place of the President. In this point of view nothing could be more improper than the Vice-President signing an address to the President. It was like a man signing an address to himself. That the business of the Vice-President was when he acted exactly the same with that of President, and could not mix itself with us as a Senate."

I quote this particular passage from William Maclay's journal not only because it succinctly describes the Senate's concern over the particular issue of how the vice president, in his capacity as president of the Senate, signed legislative documents, but because it shows that our first Senate did view the vice president, when acting under the title of "Vice President," as being part of the executive branch.

Now, it is true that our early vice presidents did consider their role to be primarily legislative rather than executive, but this is because their job of presiding over the Senate was what they actually did day to day. It wasn't until the twentieth century that vice presidents began to sit in on cabinet meetings or to be assigned any real executive duties by the president. The degree to which a vice president acted in an executive capacity, however, depended entirely upon the relationship of the particular president and vice president. What most people don't realize is that the first president to actually choose their running mate was Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was running for re-election in 1940 and chose Henry Wallace. Prior to this, the vice presidential candidate was nominated by their party in much the same way that the presidential candidate was nominated. At first, Roosevelt gave Wallace quite a bit of executive responsibility, but when the two began to drift apart politically, Roosevelt stripped Wallace of all the authority he had been given. Clearly, while acting primarily as an agent of the president, as almost all vice presidents have since, Wallace was part of the executive branch.

During his first two terms, Roosevelt had also invited John Nance Garner, his vice president from 1933 to 1941, to attend cabinet meetings. This, however, did not give the vice president any more actual power, and when Roosevelt and Garner began to disagree on important issues during their second term, eventually becoming bitter political enemies, Garner made his infamous statement that the office of vice president wasn't "worth a pitcher of warm piss." Garner was not the first or the only vice president, or proposed nominee for the office, to voice their opinion on the office's lack of power or influence. When the Whig Party was looking for a running mate for Zachary Taylor in 1848, Daniel Webster, then a Senator from Massachusetts, was approached by the party. Webster turned down their offer, reportedly saying, "I do not propose to be buried until I am dead."

Even our first vice president, whose apparent wishful thinking and ego led him to initially view his position in the new government as one of great authority, eventually conceded that this was simply not the case. It's interesting to look at how Adams's opinion changed over the course of his first four years in the office.

In a May 1789 letter to Benjamin Lincoln regarding a disagreement with Massachusetts Governor John Hancock over the supremacy of the federal government over the state governments, Adams called the vice president the "head of the Legislature." He even went as far as saying that the vice president was "of equal rank" to the president, an interpretation of the office that is so bizarre that the words "of equal rank" and "equals" are almost edited out of the quote because they make it look like Adams didn't understand the Constitution. Here's the entire quote, weird part and all:

"The Constitution has instituted two great offices, of equal rank, and the Nation at large, in pursuance of it, has created two officers, one, who is the first of the two equals, is placed at the head of the Executive; the other, at the head of the Legislature."

In 1793, after the Senate had silenced Adams in their debates, he wrote to Abigail that the vice presidency was "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

Another of our country's founders to consider the office of vice president to be legislative rather than executive was the second man to hold the office, Thomas Jefferson, who also described the office as "honorable and easy." While Adams was unwillingly edged out of any involvement in the executive decisions of Washington administration, Jefferson wanted no part of that branch of the government. Jefferson, of course, was elected under the original election procedure where the candidate with the second highest number of votes became vice president, so he ended up as vice president to Adams, a member of the opposing party. Jefferson took the constitutional role of the vice president to the extreme, writing to Elbridge Gerry shortly after taking office that he not only wouldn't, but couldn't, be involved in executive decisions, even if asked.

"Those who may endeavor to separate us, are probably excited by the fear that I might have influence on the executive councils; but when they shall know that I consider my office as constitutionally confined to legislative functions, and that I could not take any part whatever in executive consultations, even were it proposed, their fears may perhaps subside, & their object be found not worth a machination."

It's pretty clear that Jefferson's statement that the Constitution would actually prohibit the vice president from advising the president if asked wasn't his real opinion, but merely what he wanted those in the faction of Adams's party that hadn't supported Adams to think was his opinion. Gerry was concerned that this faction, led by Alexander Hamilton, would be so fearful of Jefferson influencing Adams that they might attempt to cook up some plan to drive a wedge between the two.

Of course, Jefferson, who really didn't have any involvement in the executive branch, using the excuse that the Constitution confined him to the legislative branch to avoid unnecessary partisan trouble in no way validates Dick Cheney's use of this same excuse to avoid inspections of his clearly executive office.

It would be preposterous to think that our country's first senators, who considered the mere signing of documents by John Adams with his title of "Vice President" to carry the implications of an executive act, wouldn't have considered our modern-day vice presidents, whose primary role has become carrying out executive assignments and acting as an agent of the president, to be part of the executive branch of the government.

While Joe Biden, responding to Sarah Palin's agreement with Dick Cheney that he is member of the legislative branch, was a little off in saying that Cheney invented the notion that the vice president is part of the legislative branch, I certainly think that William Maclay and the rest of the founders would agree with Biden that Cheney "has been the the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" and that he's using the legislative branch excuse "to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive."

I don't know what they'd make of Sarah Palin's answer. I know I certainly don't.

"Yeah, so I do agree with [Cheney] that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also."

Did she really begin by saying that she agreed with Cheney that the vice president is part of the legislative branch, and then tout her extensive executive experience and how as vice president she'll put that experience to use in the White House, which is ... ummm ... the executive branch?

Steven Petrow: Joe Biden's Tears Remembered

2008-10-12T20:27:35Z

As I watched Senator Joe Biden tear up at the tale end of the much ballyhooed vice presidential debate, I had a visceral moment of déjà vu. In case you missed what jump started it, the senior senator from Delaware became momentarily misty-eyed as he refuted the notion that "just because I am a man" he couldn't understand what it's like to wonder whether or not a child would "make it" after a life-threatening accident. Watching him that evening, it was hard not to think about Biden's honorable character and love of family -- especially as we now know his mother-in-law was to die the morning after.

Still, as the campaign comes down to the wire, John McCain and Sarah Palin are doing their very best at character assassination. We've all heard the clips: Palin claiming that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" and McCain's newest ad, "Ambition," which out and out calls "that one" a liar. And at a Republican rally earlier in the week, a rally that hinted at a mob lynching, a conservative radio talk show host said to McCain: "It's absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hurts. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him."

Of course, the "character" closest to Obama -- other than his wife Michelle -- is Joe Biden.

That evening of the VP debate, Biden didn't have to proclaim his "character" -- he simply showed us. He didn't tell us explicitly about the tragic deaths of his first wife Neilia and his 1 year-old daughter Naomi (both his sons were also severely injured in the car accident) just after he had been first elected to the Senate in 1972 and only days before Christmas. But I knew what he was remembering. I knew because, as a 15 year-old in the fall of '72 -- before any of my grandparents died, even before our beloved spring spaniel passed away -- my teenage heart broke to learn of the Biden family tragedy, the first time I began to understand the invisible and random hand of the fates.

Earlier that fall I had campaigned for Senator George McGovern as much as I could after my ninth grade classes ended, going door-to-door in my Queens, N.Y. neighborhood, pasting a ginormous blue and white McGovern sticker across my loose-leaf notebook, and finding myself ridiculed by many for supporting such a "dove" (this was at the height of the Vietnam War).

But in my periphery lay Joe Biden, then the 29 year-old father of three, who fought a tough campaign focused on ending the war in Southeast Asia, the environment, civil rights and, yes, change. On Election Day, Nixon carried Delaware by a landslide, but the young lawyer, along with his wife and trusted partner, won his Senate seat in a huge upset by a mere 3,000 votes.

Only weeks later, wife and daughter would perish and I would write Sen. Biden a note of condolence. Who knows what I wrote because that letter is long gone, but not his response back to me, which arrived later that winter. I've kept it all these 36 years. His letter came in a heavy, cream-colored envelope with the return address, United States Senate Washington, D.C., engraved in dark blue in the left corner. He addressed it to "Mr. Petrow," probably the first time anyone had called me that:

"I offer a belated thank-you for your kind words of condolence. I deeply appreciate your sentiments. I owed so very much to Neilia. She had a talent for making not only her own life worthwhile, but also the lives of those around her. She was both a loving mother and a loving wife. In addition, she was my political confidant, in whose judgment I had implicit and utmost trust. Neilia looked forward to our coming to Washington. Now our life has been completely torn apart by an event I shall never completely understand. Neilia deserved better. Best wishes, Joe Biden"

Image courtesy of the author

Included in the letter were the Mass cards for both Neilia and Naomi. On the back of his wife's card was a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet: "Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field." And on his infant daughter's: "Dear God, What greater thing can be said of Amy than Ezekiel's words: 'As is the mother, so is her daughter.'" -- Ezekiel 16:44

Image courtesy of the author

After his tears, and after the debate, I went into my voluminous files to see if my recollection of Biden's dark days of 1972 matched the honorable and loving family man I had just witnessed on the stage in St. Louis. If my memory had any weakness, it was in not recalling the full promise and shattered life of the freshman senator from Delaware who, in the winter of his own despair, took the time to write a 15-year-old, while taking on his new duties in Washington D.C. and at home in Wilmington as a single father of two. So while McCain and Palin do their best to undermine the Democrats trustworthiness and character, let us praise the family man from Delaware who could and should be our next vice president.

Visit Steven Petrow on the Web at www.gayandlesbianmanners.com

Jerry Weissman: David Brooks Does a U-Turn

2008-10-10T16:37:24Z

In his column after the vice presidential debate last week, the New York Times' David Brooks, a man with deep respect for erudition, surprisingly wrote of Sarah Palin's performance in the encounter, "She spoke with that calm, measured poise that marked her convention speech."

This week, according to Danny Shea's piece here on the Post, Brooks reversed gears. He appeared at a reception to introduce The Atlantic's new design and sat down for an open microphone interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. Brooks, a long-time conservative himself, talked about his roots in politics and sang the praises of William Buckley and Ronald Reagan, particularly that they were men "who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning." And then Brooks added, "But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices." Shea reported that Brooks concluded, "She is 'absolutely not' ready to be president or vice president."

In his column today, Brooks reprises what he said in his interview, by repeating his praise of Buckley and Reagan and the high value they placed on ideas. Then Brooks goes on to lament the fact that over the past 15 years, the Republican Party has "decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare." And that "the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Six-packs in the heartland and the over-sophisticated, overeducated, over-secularized denizens of the coasts." Brooks then concludes, "But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the 'normal Joe Six-pack American' and the coastal elite."

Welcome back to the high standards of the world of ideas, Mr. Brooks. Welcome back to erudition.

Sara Geiger: Can She Speak Now?

2008-10-08T18:13:45Z

Jayne Lyn Stahl: Domestic Terrorism or Dissent?

2008-10-08T13:57:40Z

During the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin couldn't resist showing off her knowledge of a new term: "domestic terrorist" any more than she could refrain from slapping that term onto those Barack Obama is said to have known 40 years ago.

Well, we have breaking news for Governor Palin, and any other candidate for elected office, now and in future. Those of us who were at Kent State, and others, like myself, who protested the war in Vietnam at universities in Buffalo, who staged sit-ins at administration buildings that included, but were not limited to, the likes of current Nobel Laureates like J.M. Coetzee, didn't think of ourselves as "domestic terrorists," but as citizens exercizing our constitutional right to dissent, a right which police in Maryland recently put on life supports when it classified more than 50 members of nonviolent protest groups as "terrorists" while listing not just their names, but all their personal data, into state and federal databanks.

As The Washington Post reported, a police superintendent, Terrence B. Sheridan, exposed the covert military action which placed not just those opposing the war in Iraq, but those opposing capital punishment, under surveillance from 2005 through 2006. Mr. Sheridan told the Senate that those 50 odd names have no place in Maryland police databases: "It's as simple as that."

Pity Joe McCarthy because nobody seems to have told him he's dead, or maybe he has better things to do than rest in peace, and is out haunting not just Maryland, but the US Patriot gangbangers who want to put dissent on perpetual hold.

Apartheid isn't just about race. Ideas can be subdued, too. Likewise, free speech isn't rocket science, but someone will have to explain that both to Ms. Palin and her sidekick, Mr. McCain, who by merely evoking the term "domestic terrorist" intend to draw blood more than votes.

Indeed, in what historians may someday look upon as a last ditch act of desperation, Ms. Palin's labelling of now professor, but one-time Weather Underground radical, Bill Ayers, as a "domestic terrorist" says a whole lot more about her worldview than his.

We simply cannot let a term like "domestic terrorist" slip through the cracks unnoticed, and unchallenged, especially from one whose intent is to occupy the Oval Office.

When Senator Obama becomes our next President, we must insist that, along with Congress, he acts to reverse this dangerous trend, as well as euthanizes that pernicious piece of legislation, the USA Patriot Act, which will someday be known as the great purge of the U.S. Constitution

Video: Presidential Debate Town-Hall

2008-10-07T19:20:36Z

FULL DEBATE COVERAGE, ANALYSIS

Watch the town-hall presidential debate live with CNN's player.

-OR-

Watch it streamed live on Hulu.

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Earlier Watch the vice presidential debate in its entirety.

Ellen Bravo: Peaceful Revolution : What Women Wish Gwen Ifill Could Have Asked

2008-10-07T15:07:51Z

Gwen Ifill was hobbled by more than a broken ankle at the vice presidential debate. The rules prevented her from asking any follow-up questions. I work with eleven statewide coalitions representing a million people, all fighting for policies that value families at work. Here are some questions we wish Gwen Ifill had been allowed to ask:

For Governor Palin: "You've said one of your three priorities as vice president will be working with families of children with special needs. I received letters from many women in this situation who said what they need is paid sick days and affordable family leave. A representative of your campaign told the Families and Work Institute that the McCain-Palin ticket opposes these measures as 'mandates.' Please explain your opposition. If Congress passed such bills, would a President McCain veto them?"

For Senator Biden: "You said that even though you're a man, you know what it's like to be a single parent. Your ticket has stated its support for policies such as paid sick days and expanding family leave. How much of a priority will you give these? Will you make it possible for members of your administration to go home at night to their families?"

For Governor Palin: "You told the viewers that you're middle class just like them. Yet you were able to bring your infants to work, you have a husband who can take time off without risking his paycheck or his job, and you have health insurance to pay for expensive therapies if you need them. Half the private sector workforce lacks even a single paid sick day or coverage under the Family and Medical Leave Act; only 8 percent of women have paid maternity leave. What would your administration do for families like these?"

Women are clamoring for answers to these questions. Despite all the hype about family values, our workplace policies don't value families. Every day workers risk their jobs to care for their loved ones, or put their loved ones at risk in order to keep their jobs.

The consortium I work with, together with groups such as MomsRising.org, have come up with an agenda to help resolve these dilemmas -- new workplace standards to meet the needs of "today's workforce).

Fifty-five organizations with millions of members are urging candidates to embrace this agenda. For us, it's the missing piece in the economic security puzzle.

The polls show an overwhelming majority of women support these standards. Our movement is helping activate these women, including young people who are voting for the very first time.

Recently I asked my college students whether they'd ever been told to come to work sick. Nearly every one raised their hand. These are the workers who serve us food, care for our kids, handle our groceries. My students typically have no choice - they rely on their jobs to pay for their education. Most workers are in the same boat.

My students are beginning to understand the consequences on Wall Street when we don't have standards in place - the system crumbles. We also need labor standards to ensure opportunities for those on Main Street. Paid sick days and affordable family leave are as basic today as minimum wage and ending child labor were 70 years ago.

Bad economic times are the worst time for someone to lose a job. A third of all bankruptcies stem from illness, and another 10% follow the birth of a child. We can't put women in the dangerous position of having to give up their jobs in order to care for themselves or their families.

The policies we want are low cost and cost-effective - most have no cost for government. They also save the government money in health care, welfare, unemployment benefits. And they cut costs for employers.

Women are going to decide this election. What we want is simple: candidates with straight answers and meaningful plans to value families at work.

A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.

Disgrasian: Why So Soft, Gwen?

2008-10-07T14:17:26Z

Dearest Gwen,

Love you, love your work. There is no question of that.

Here's the thing: You had a tough night last night, with a big spill down the stairs, tons of folks accusing that you were probably too Pro-Obama to moderate the Vice Presidential debate fairly, and close physical proximity to the most ridiculous candidate ever to stand on the debate stage.

That all sucks. And you had a big job on your hands. But we can't help but think that the fear of seeming biased ultimately caused you to go soft on Sarah--whose robo-answers, lack of decorum, and refusal to directly answer most of your questions should have been called out and reeled in.

The fact of the matter is: SARAH PALIN IS OUT OF CONTROL. This was the one opportunity for us to really see it, and with stronger moderation combined with Joe Biden going for the jugular (as well as choking up rather beautifully), we could have seen her go down.

Instead, we got winked at.

Sigh. Oh well.

Worried,
DISGRASIAN

Lucy Bernholz: Palin = Cruella Da Ville?

2008-10-07T14:05:30Z

A friend of mine has a 16 year old daughter, with whom she watched the Vice Presidential debate. About halfway through the teen turned to her mom and said, "Mom, anyone who has ever seen even one Disney movie can tell that Sarah Palin is the bad guy in this story."

Ann Handley: Sarah and Me: Junior High with Sarah Palin

2008-10-07T12:58:00Z

On the surface, I should like her. Sarah Palin is 44, precisely my age. We were born three months apart. And like me, she's a mom and works full-time.

We should hang out, clink our highball glasses, and salute the kind of kismet that competent women often need to create real achievement. Except, in her case, the kismet catapulted her to the national stage and into history. In my case, it occasionally lands me a first-class upgrade.

Sarah and I could talk about stuff that professional Moms our age talk about: The rush of being in charge; the need to wear seriously rimmed glasses, even if your eyes don't require it; and techniques for gagging and hogtying that persistent little voice in the back of our heads that suggests our ambition comes at the obvious expense of our kids.

But for some reason, I can't warm up to her. And last Thursday, when she stood on stage in St. Louis and faced off against Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate, I studied her face on the small screen and understood why. I know Sarah Palin. I went to school with her. And then, with a small shock of recognition, I saw who she was... and realized: I hated her in junior high.

In school, her name was Pam. When I met her, we were 7th graders. She had feathered brown hair that bounced around her shoulders as she walked down the hall, surveying her domain, left to right, like the felted nodding-dog dashboard ornament my grandfather had in his car. Her eyes were hooded with a shade of azure eyeshadow, and her full lips could reveal her horsey teeth in a sweet smile or condescending sneer with equal ease. Sometimes, her mouth seemed to hold both expressions at once. I thought Pam had real talent, and I practiced her expressions at home before my bedroom mirror.

We had Study Hall in the auditorium together, which allowed me to study technique from afar. We had assigned seats in the auditorium, and prescribed rules about talking, and facing forward, and chewing gum.

All during 7th grade, Pam flouted the rules, changed seats, chewed gum, sat in the back between two boys, whispering and cocking her head close to them with an intimacy I found exciting. When one of the teachers would call her on any of it, she'd fix them with a certain look, widen her eyes, and conjure up that sweet, apologetic, toothy smile. And, somehow, she always got away with it. She had everyone fooled--the teachers, administrators, the janitors who scraped her gum off of the bottom of the folding seats--and it was astonishing. Like them, I was transfixed, in total awe and wonder at her celebrity.

One time, though, she caught me studying her in my absentminded way, and she stared back at me pointedly, narrowing her eyes and raising her clenched fist to her chin, vibrating it in my direction, as if to warn me about getting too close. It took me a few days to peek in her direction again.

That winter, I had a brand new yellow ski parka. The color of a ripe banana, it was hip-length, with a cool belt that fastened snugly at the waist with a brass T-buckle. Unlike most of my clothes--which either came from an older girl who lived in my neighborhood or from a discount store with cheap brands--the coat was new and it was fashionable. In school, it became my anti-anxiety parka: I wore it constantly as a sort of armor as I walked from class to class, sweating through my day.

The only time I took it off, in fact, was when I walked into the auditorium. Miss Dolan, an exacting English teacher who demanded that both the rules of school and the rules of conjugating Latin verbs be followed with the same precision, despised it when kids wore hats or jackets in school. It wasn't worth protesting, even if I had a voice that spoke above a whisper. It was best just to peel off the offending clothing and park it where she pointed, on one of the last two rows as we entered the auditorium. We could collect them an hour later, on the way out.

One day, I walked into study hall and noticed with a quick rush of pleasure and embarrassment that Pam had the same yellow jacket I did. Since my strategy at that point of my life was to attract as little attention as possible, sharing a wardrobe with a popular girl wasn't a good way to fly below the radar, I thought. But then I reconsidered: in a way I couldn't quite pinpoint, it was validating.

A few weeks later, I noticed that Pam's coat had a huge blue stain on it, as if a pen had leaked in her pocket. And a few days later, when the bell rang in study hall and we filed as usual along the narrow aisles to the door, I paused to collect my coat. But it wasn't in the usual spot where I'd left it. I cast around, confused that it wasn't there, a panic beginning to bubble in my gut.

"C'mon," my friend Denise said, tugging at my arm. And when I didn't budge, it was Denise who flagged down Miss Dolan and explained what had happened: I couldn't find my coat, which I always folded in half and placed exactly on the same seat. Miss Dolan set her iron blue eyes on me, "Is that right?" she sniffed, with a slight suspicion. I nodded mutely, and pointed at the backside of the yellow coat in the front of the line: Pam.

Miss Dolan shouted above our heads. "Pam!" she barked. "Are you sure that's your jacket?"

Pam turned to Miss Dolan and there it was: the sweetest, most dazzling smile you'll ever see. All her teeth were bared, but she didn't seem threatening. Instead, she seemed so heartbreakingly cute and friendly, really, that I felt a flicker of something inside, and I tapped at Miss Dolan. "It's okay..." I started to whisper.

I don't think she heard me, though, because at that moment Pam piped up loudly. "Oh, this is mine," she assured our teacher, nodding. "We have the same one." Then she pointed at a spot behind me, "That must be hers."

Miss Dolan stooped to retrieve an identical yellow parka from the floor. As she held it up I could see the indigo stain on the right pocket. She shoved it toward me, depositing it into my arms, and waved us through the doors. "All right? All right," she pronounced, in the manner of someone who was used to seeing issues without nuance, in black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. "Out you go."

I didn't mind, really. All I could think was, She noticed we had the same coat. It would be a while before I'd see it otherwise.

In The Nation last week, Linda Hirshman called Sarah Palin a "Mean Girl," the kind of girl Rosalind Wiseman terms a "Queen Bee" in her chilling 2002 book about tweenagers, "Queen Bees & Wannabees." Like the name suggests, the Queen Bee is the royalty of the middle school, a larger-than-life figure who (unlike an actual queen bee) packs a barbed stinger, and wields it at will.

I picked Hirshman's story out of one of the 358,000 results you get if you Google "Sarah Palin Mean Girl." Hirshman likened Sarah's shenanigans onstage at the Vice-Presidential debate to a kind of staged performance art piece of "The Rules," Ellen Fein's and Sherry Schneider's controversial 1995 book that, as Hirshman put it, had upended 30 years of feminist teaching.

"Forget all that equality and intelligence stuff, 'The Rules' advised. Who wants to be Hillary Clinton? Men are simple, attracted to sexual symbols and bright, shiny objects. If you want them, they argued, you must sport long hair and wear sexy, attention-getting clothes," Hirshman writes. She points out that the suit Palin wore for the debate with Joe Biden was "some amazingly iridescent material, and she sported an eye-popping sparkly rhinestone flag pin. The governor as the It Girl of the '90s singles scene."

It wasn't just her clothes, of course. But her flirty demeanor, her "hey there, Sailor!" wink, as Richard Cohen says, and "all those doggones, references to her working-class status (net worth in excess of $2 million), promiscuous use of the word 'maverick,' repeated mentions of 'greed and corruption on Wall Street' ... and, of course, that manic good cheer. "

As Amy Poehler said during a recent Saturday's "Saturday Night Live" sketch, looking over at Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, "When cornered, you have a tendency to become adorable."

Adorable, I thought, as I leaned into the screen, scrutinizing her. She was dazzling. Heartbreakingly cute. And friendly.

I hadn't thought about Pam in a long time. But, suddenly, there she was. Between the relentless smiles, and widened eyes, the winks, I recognized both the Mean Girl and the old familiar sense of being played. I felt the lack of anything close to sincerity, or the truth. And then I recognized her: playing to her spectators to get what she wants, at whatever the cost.

As Hirshman wrote, the real problem is that how a Mean Girl acts "does not have to reflect what she really believes--or even what she knows." It only has to be effective with the target audience--of 7th grade boys, or junior high Latin teachers, or voters.

I know Sarah Palin because I went to school with her. And, in fact, most women did. Then, the Queen Bees or Mean Girls were just that. Now, they're really scary.

Ann Handley also writes about work, culture and life at A n n a r c h y.

Liz Umlas and Rachel Eliana Berman: Palin Brings Laughter To The Masses

2008-10-07T12:25:14Z

Liz Umlas has joined forces with her daughter Rachel Eliana Berman to entertain OffTheBus readers with their political cartoons. Rachel supplies the artistic skills, and Liz brings the political ideas.

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Richard Cohen: Who Lost The Debate? The Media

2008-10-07T10:45:53Z

Reading William Kristol's column in yesterday's New York Times, I discover that Sarah Palin and I have something in common. Kristol, who was once Dan Quayle's chief of staff and therefore, shall we say, has a Mister Rogers approach to certain politicians, got Palin on the phone and reported that "she doesn't have a very high opinion of the mainstream media." This is where we are in agreement. On account of Palin, neither do I.

In her debate against Joe Biden last week, she mischaracterized Barack Obama's tax plan and his offer to meet with foreign adversaries of the United States. She found whole new powers for the vice president by misreading the Constitution, if she ever read it at all. She called one moment for the federal government to virtually disappear and a moment later lamented the lack of its oversight of the financial markets. She asserted that she "may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you [Biden] want to hear" because, apparently, the rules don't apply to her on account of her being a hockey mom. Fer sure.
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Not enough? Okay. Palin also said that she "and others in the legislature" had called for the state of Alaska to divest itself of investments in companies that do business with Sudan. But, as the indefatigable truth-hunter at The Post found out, the divestiture effort was not led by Palin. In fact, her administration opposed the initiative, and Palin herself only came around to it after the bill had died.

Bill Swadley: My Name Is Bill Swadley, And I Work For Fox

2008-10-07T08:06:26Z

"I'm at Fox now." That's what I used to tell people when I first started working for my current employer, after a strategic move from the world of the small independent studio to mega-corporate entertainment where I now spend my 9-5's. A colleague of mine, when I told him of the general consternation and dirty looks I was getting as a result of that statement, set me straight. "I tell people I work for 20th Century Fox. It's much less inflammatory."

He was right. Oddly enough, most people don't make the connection between 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment (the company I work for) and Fox News, home of the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, neo-con true believers who use their positions at the cable-news outlet to further the cause of the far-right wing. (When I'm speaking to young people, I usually leave out the F-word altogether, and just say I work for the company that does the X-Men movies and The Simpsons.)

But now, after watching the vice-presidential debate and becoming even more terrified at the thought that this half-wit from Alaska could actually ascend to the presidency one day, I must come out of the closet. Everyone knows that Fox News is, to put it mildly, slanted right. Their producers and on-air personalities are culpable in their fiery promotion of the Bush agenda for the past eight years no matter how flawed. Since the current election cycle began they've been "spinning" what the McCain/Palin ticket really stands for (i.e. more of the same), often to the point of absurdity. (If you haven't noticed the contrast of the anchors' sunny demeanor when they mention the names of McCain or Palin versus the dark seriousness with which they utter the surname "Obama," you aren't paying attention.)

A while back you may recall that Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" in one of her speeches during the primaries. The negative reaction against this Medusa was (finally and about time) swift and condemning from just about every corner of the political and cultural landscape. Except for Fox News, that is, which as most know was one of Coulter's primary delivery outlets for her hatred and bigotry at the time. Rather than condemning her use of the derogatory term, censuring her, and banning her from the channel, the producers at Fox News had Coulter on the air the next morning. No, not to apologize, but to defend herself!

I was so distraught that my company would actually give this harpy more air time after such bad behavior that I wrote a letter to one of the very high-up executives of the organization expressing my outrage. I received no response, but at least I felt that I had made my voice heard.

But now internal action just doesn't seem enough. This Fox employee can hold his silence no longer. Call it a self-serving cleansing if you will, but I must speak. (The following are the views solely of my independent writer persona. I've composed this on my own time, and the following content in no way represents the views of my employer or anyone other than myself.)

Hear me now! Many employees, and we number in the thousands, who work for the entertainment arm of News Corporation, the parent company of pretty much all entertainment entities with "Fox" in its moniker, often feel embarrassed, ashamed, and angry at the blatant, one-sided, dis-informational tactics of the producers, staff, and on-air "talent" at Fox News. In their efforts to swing this election in favor of McCain, their usual crimes of unfair and unbalanced journalism have become startlingly egregious.

Fox News put together a "focus group" during the Biden/Palin debate. This obviously hand-picked group of "common voters," touted to be 50-50 for the two tickets, was obviously screened, staged, coached, and almost entirely one-sided (the Palin side). I was not only outraged at yet another example of Fox News manipulating the perception of its viewers for the political benefit of the GOP, but that we, 20th Century Fox, home of American Idol & Fox Reality Channel, would be associated with such a lame-ass attempt at fake reality television. To top it all off, the focus group was sponsored by Budweiser! (In case you didn't know, Cindy McCain's day job is Chairwoman of an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Arizona.) How can Fox News present such fabricated crap with a straight face? I honestly don't know, and I don't even know whom to ask.

Trust me in this, except for the above-mentioned Fox News staffers, most of us in the other subsidiaries of the company have no idea who these people are, where they work, how they get their marching orders, or how they sleep at night. I can only tell you that the Fox I work for is a fantastic company. We are treated with respect and generosity. We are afforded opportunities to expand our careers and promote social concerns. We are diverse and inclusive. We tolerate and are tolerated in all shapes, colors, religions, and sexual orientation. Our individual politics span the range of ultra-liberal, to hard-line conservative, and everything in-between. And we, all of News Corp, its subsidiaries, and employees are very very green.

On that last point, in the approximate six years total that I have been with this company, the only pressure outside of our job descriptions News Corp. has ever passed down to us is a demand that we participate as fully as possible in the fight against global warming. In the last two plus years, News Corp. has stood as a penultimate example of the difference businesses large and small can make by becoming more aware of, and responsible for, its carbon footprint. This alone is enough to make me proud to say that I am an employee of News Corp. and 20th Century Fox.

So it's no wonder that many of us Murdoch's minions watch with dismay and confusion the daily neo-conservative drumbeat emanating from the Fox News Channel. They don't represent all of us. We've never gotten a memo telling us to be sure to vote Republican. We don't get e-mails from Sean Hannity bragging about the latest Democrat he reduced to tears on his show. Bill O'Reilly doesn't invite us to his book signings. We are completely out of the loop.

So the next time someone tells you, "I work for Fox," cut them some slack. Fox News is an enigma even to us. We don't get it any more than you do. It's like that uncle in jail who nobody knows what he did to get there and is never spoken of even inside the family. We just pretend he's out of town, and hope he doesn't come to visit if he ever gets paroled.

Dr. Anne Chapas: Skin and Politics 2: The VP Edition

2008-10-06T19:36:51Z

Thursday night' s vice presidential debate that was broadcast in high definition allowed us to see each candidate's skin in an unusual amount of detail. My professional dermatology colleagues all came to the conclusion that Joe Biden's softened lines between the eyes are most likely the result of Botox treatments. Before and after photos published in the New York Post, comparing his appearance with 2005 clearly show reduced forehead wrinkles, which could not be due to camouflage makeup. I think the look works for the Senator and helped him project an authoritative and calm demeanor while still giving the appropriate amount of facial expression.

Governor Palin's close-ups showed that makeup can mask the sun damage on her face, but glaringly missed the wrinkles and sunspots on her neck and chest. There's no doubt that the time spent in her home tanning bed according to Politico.com contributed to this severe sun damage. According to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, up to 90 percent of the visible changes commonly attributed to aging are caused by the sun or other UV sources.

The tanning industry, with $5 billion of annual revenue, has rushed to Palin's defense by defending her use of a tanning bed against those medical elite types like myself who warn that that UV exposure increases one's chance of developing skin cancer and hastens skin aging and wrinkles. Even if she scoffs at people who dedicate their lives to understanding, preventing, and treating skin cancer, you would think that she would use her own common sense and see how her running mate's sun exposure caused him to suffer from multiple melanomas.

Her use of tanning beds is irresponsible on a number of levels. Having a tanning bed in the home increases the chances that her young children will become tanorexics and develop skin cancer. Studies have shown that exposure to tanning beds before age 35 increases melanoma risk by 75 percent. Melanoma is currently the second most common form of cancer in people aged15 to 29 years old and this instance is rising. Over 19 states have passed legislation to restrict minors from visiting tanning beds to try to curb this epidemic.

From a public policy perspective, skin cancer treatments consume significant resources from our Medicare budget as skin cancer is one of the most costly cancers to treat. Medicare spends $426 million annually to treat skin cancers, even though it only covers patients over 65 years old. The American Cancer society warns that skin cancer is a bigger public health threat than lung or breast cancer, and that it regards tanning machines in the same category as cigarettes.

The society advises to "Avoid tanning beds and sunlamps" and that "Many people believe that the UV rays of tanning beds are harmless. This is not true. Tanning lamps give out UV rays. Health experts advise people to avoid sunlamps and tanning beds."

I hope that the governor will soon realize that using a tanning bed is not maverick behavior, but is just plain dumb.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: The First & Last VP Debate: This Soccer Mom Isn't Buying

2008-10-06T17:45:48Z

The other night, as the first and only vice presidential debate was starting; I was scrambling to get to my car from a rainy soccer field where I'd been standing on the sidelines with other parents while watching kids play. Jumping over mud puddles and dodging fast moving vehicles in the parking lot, my two soccer-playing kids and I scurried to the warm dry safety of our car.

Yes, I'm an official soccer mom.

Turns out I'm also a barometer too. First thing we did in our car was turn on the heat. Second was the debate. And my ears, I have to admit, perked right up because in her opening statement Gov. Palin said, "You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy, is go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, 'How are you feeling about the economy?' And I'll bet you, you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice, fear regarding the few investments that some of us have in the stock market. Did we just take a major hit with those investments?"

Soccer game? Did someone say parents? Stock market? Let me tell you something: This barometer of a soccer mom isn't hearing about investments, Wall Street, or the stock market on the sidelines. Nope. I'm hearing about healthcare, or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

Just last week on that same field, but different game, in warm, sunnier weather the talk among the soccer moms on the sidelines was glum. The conversation went something like this: "Where," someone asked, "can you get a part-time job with healthcare coverage for the family?" Another said, "Starbucks, I think. Heard you can work there as a barista for 20 hours per week and qualify for healthcare coverage for the whole family." "Not sure they're still hiring," someone else said, "but I'm trying to figure out how to make my schedule work so I can do it--not for the pay, but just for the healthcare coverage."

Times are tough.

Yet even in these tough times, most of the talk during the vice presidential debate was of stock markets, investments, foreign policy, and "the economy," which was more often than not a code word for "Fanny and Freddy," than Dick and Jane.

Sure, the economy matters (of course!), but the economy is about more than just Wall Street bailouts. It's about how we're going to pay for escalating childcare, how we can pull together healthcare coverage for our kids, and what's going to happen when we make less for the same job as a man and still need to pay the same mortgage or rent.

The debate moderator missed the mark by not asking including family issues in the ninety minutes of questions last night.

With a quarter of families with young children now in poverty, and the economic headlines looking like something that should only appear on Halloween, we can't forget about the everyday issues that families who aren't part of Wall Street are facing.

Indeed, now is the time when families need more help in the form of healthcare reform, paid sick days, fair pay, paid family and medical leave, and early learning opportunities; not less. And we soccer moms know it: A recent poll found that 89% of Americans are in favor of paid sick days, and 75% favor paid family and medical leave.

There are win-win solutions. The New Deal reforms which came out of the Great Depression of the 1930s uplifted the economy and the middle class--and weren't limited to financial institution bailouts.

It's time to start thinking more broadly about the reforms that are needed in our nation right now. And, it's time to include questions in all debates about where all candidates--male, female, Democrat, Republican and other--stand on family issues.

Everyone wants the soccer mom vote. After all, over 80% of American women have children by the time they are forty-four years old, and women make up more than half the electorate. But this soccer mom, this apparent barometer of a voter, isn't buying that Wall Street's woes are the only economic problems facing families right now. It's time to broaden the field.

Erik Ose: Signs of Growing Friction Between McCain and Palin

2008-10-06T15:38:58Z

The call to "Free Sarah Palin!" has been answered, and Palin off the chain is proving to be a loose cannon. The day after her debate with Joe Biden, Palin told FOX News she learned about the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan when she read about it in the newspaper that morning. Maybe this was just to reassure us she stays well informed by reading newspapers like The New York Times, part of her post-debate strategy to try a damage control re-do of her Katie Couric interviews that continued to drip out one Palin gaffe after another earlier in the week.

But then she claimed to have "fired off a quick e-mail" in which she said, "Oh come on, do we have to?" Over the weekend, she again questioned the decision to reporters outside a diner in Englewood, Colorado, saying she "would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows that we haven't given up there."

And yesterday, in a phone interview with William Kristol, Palin leapt at the chance to resurrect Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a way to drag Obama through the mud. "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more," she said. "Because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country...I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

When the far right wing clowns running the North Carolina Republican Party ran a racially-tinged attack ad during the primaries tying Obama to Wright, McCain graciously denounced it. "I've said again and again, I do not believe that Sen. Obama shares Rev. Wright's extremist views which he has stated," said McCain, and promised to "disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."

Either Palin never got the memo, or McCain has flip-flopped and flushed his honor down the toilet yet again in his quest for the presidency. The latter is certainly possible. With McCain-Palin's chances cratering like the economy, McCain has clearly signaled it's time to get McDesperate.

Responding to rising GOP fears that the election is slipping away, the McCain campaign has decided their only hope is "turning a page on this financial crisis," in the words of one senior McCain adviser, and relentlessly tearing down Obama.

"It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice," echoed another top McCain strategist to the NY Daily News. "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

But there's more going on with Palin's off the reservation moves than simply carrying out the McNasty plan of attack against Obama. Sarah Palin has her own agenda. She wants to be president, and knows this election is her best shot at elbowing her way into the Oval Office.

Laura Chase, Palin's campaign manager during her first run for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, remembers a night they chatted about her ambitions:

"I said, 'You know, Sarah, within 10 years you could be governor,' " Ms. Chase recalled. "She replied, 'I want to be president.' "

And she's not going to let John McCain stop her. At a rally yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska, playing defense far within the red state zone, Palin also claimed to be making her own calls about which states she barracudas into:

"The pundits were saying, 'Check out where she's going. She's going to Nebraska.' The pundits were saying, 'The only reason she would be going there is because they're scared. They have to shore up votes,' " Palin said. "I so wanted to reach into that TV and say 'no.' I'm going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska," Palin said.

These incidents are not the first time Palin has bared her naked ambition. In September, she made a revealing slip when she flipped the ticket at a rally in Iowa, referring to a "Palin and McCain administration." This happened back when the campaign was still babysitting Palin by restricting her to joint appearances with McCain. Now all bets are off as to what she'll say next out on the trail on her own.

Unless McCain reins her in again fast, we can look forward to another month of jarring moments like on Saturday when she misread a saying from Madeline Albright. Quoting off a Starbucks cup, she warned female voters at a rally in California, "there's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women."

In Palin's Mary Poppins bubble, why shouldn't she strut her stuff? At the moment she's pumped up from surviving her debate with Biden, although failing to realize she didn't do nearly enough to prove herself competent enough to be Vice President and reverse her drag on the ticket. But by stepping over the bar painted on the floor, her performance quieted the voice of reason that was beginning to percolate among conservative talking heads calling for her replacement.

Since she now knows McCain won't dump her, Palin is in the driver's seat and plans to stay there. And her take-no-prisoners nasty streak and extreme right wing views have found kindred spirits now that she's fully staffed up with veterans of George W. Bush's slash-and-burn, hyper-partisan campaigns. Like Tucker Eskew, Palin's new chief of staff, who was instrumental in trashing McCain when he helped run Bush's 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina.

Far from a fresh crop of reformers, the Republican operatives who are currently stage managing Sarah Palin are virtually all transplants from the Bush White House. As one Republican strategist told the Washington Post:

"It's insane to me that at the same time that it's running saying it's not going to be the Bush administration, this campaign looks like the Bush campaign on steroids."

Reminiscent of how John Edwards helped keep the Democratic ticket disorganized in 2004 by sticking to his own playbook, Palin is showing the nation McCain is already an afterthought for her. She even said so at the debate, reminding us she "joined this team that is a team of mavericks with John McCain, also." Mr. DeMille, she's ready for her 2012 closeup.

(UPDATE 10/25 - Politico published a jaw-dropping story today confirming that the McCain-Palin rift first spotted here three weeks ago has only gotten worse. Heavy on not-for-attribution interviews with four senior Palin advisors, it revealed that Palin "blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image." These are the same former Bush campaign veterans and dirty-politics practicing Karl Rove proteges who were hand picked by McCain's team to guide her. Meanwhile, McCain stalwarts on the inside describe Palin as "simply unready -- 'green,' sloppy and incomprehensibly willing to criticize McCain." Other stories that have trickled out in recent weeks tracing the McCain-Palin divide can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.)

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Adam Hanft: Sarah Palin and the New White Ebonics

2008-10-06T15:09:02Z

For a generation, conservative culture warriors have raged at liberals for orchestrating the dumbing-down of America. From the new math to whole language to even affirmative action, they argue, progressives have emasculated our educational standards. Through a morally and ethically dangerous relativism, the left has destroyed the conventions of our culture on every level.

Meanwhile, it is the right who has been identified with a rear-guard action to defend an America where people speak and reason properly, where language doesn't devolve into the lowest common denominator, where phrases born in rap culture, like "shout out" don't find their way into a vice-presidential debate.

So let's play a thought game. Imagine if a folksy, inexperienced black woman was nominated to be vice president on the Democratic ticket. And imagine that instead of coming from Alaska she came from Alabama, and instead of dropping white aw-shucksisms like "Doggone" and "You betcha" into her conversation, she used the equivalent black vernacular.

Imagine, as well, if her sentences didn't come close to parsing, if they were wickedly ungrammatical -- no, anti-grammatical -- clouds of disconnected thoughts and sound bites. The right would rise up in indignation and disgust, and the most vitriolic, the Rush Limbaughs, the Michael Savages, would decry the presence of Ebonics on the national stage.

Were she black, Sarah Palin's performance would have been skewered by the right as undignified and demeaning to the office she seeks. But because she is a culture warrior in heels, she is hailed by the right as a breath of populist fresh air, and her use of what conservatives once sniffed at as "substandard English" is celebrated as a signifier of her glorious everydayness.

There was a time when you could be a progressive and still respect American conservatives, at least from a Burkean perspective. On one hand, intellectual champions like Buckley offered a worthy opposition and admirable erudition. And on the other hand, the left's willingness to become identified with an ideology that sought to warehouse spelling, long division, and Tolstoy, was dumb.

But with their combination of anti-intellectualism and over-injection of religion into the public sphere, as reified by the Governor of Alaska, the conservative movement has abandoned any claim on our intelligence. You betcha.

Paige Donner: Hayden Panettiere says, Register to Vote!

2008-10-06T14:44:01Z

Hayden, who plays Claire on the hit show, Heroes, is also an eco-warrior who has jumped into the open ocean to help protect the rights of dolphins. When it comes to this year's presidential election, Hayden encourages her generation of voters to jump into the driver's seat and get registered to vote for November's elections.

Photo Courtesy Jennifer Regan
"Vote on the issues. Voting is what's going to effect change. Contact your elected officials and your candidates. Also, read up on the issues and be informed so you know what you're voting on."

When asked how she sees using her celebrity status to impact social change, Hayden responded, "Celebrity has influence because people like to read about them when they're standing in line at the grocery store. So if our actions can influence positively, great! When we want to make changes, it's not enough to protest or march. We need to contact our congressmen and elected officials to tell them how we feel about issues."

Photo Courtesy Jennifer Regan

She is a contributor to the book of essays, Declare Yourself, put out by DeclareYourself.com and published by Harper Teen. In it she says, "Did you know that four million Americans turn eighteen every year? You may not know it, but we are the fastest growing group of voters. It's a big group, getting bigger every day. The people in Washington will have no choice but to listen to us - but only if we speak up; only if we exercise our voting rights and don't silence ourselves."

Emily VanCamp, currently on Brothers and Sisters and formerly on Everwood, says that as a Canadian, she is all too aware of the fact that she won't be able to vote in the upcoming presidential election. She recently did a college tour for voter registration with other actors of her generation.

"For me it's about the fact that I can't vote. I pay taxes here in the U.S. and have now for 6 years but that still doesn't give me the right to vote here. I don't take the privilege lightly. Especially now when I don't have a voice." Emily said that the environment is the biggest issue for her right now as is the case with many of her peers. "The environment is a huge concern of mine right now. Especially coming from Canada where we grow a lot of our own food. I was raised in Port Perry which is a very sustainable town. I was raised in nature and so I still feel close to it. It's what I miss most, living here in Los Angeles," shared Emily.

Photo Courtesy Jennifer Regan
Scott Michael Foster and Amber Stevens from Greek on ABC Family advise: "Stay on your game and be educated about the issues at hand. Also, register yourself to vote!" DeclareYourself.com is a voter registration campaign organization founded by T.V. producer Norman Lear who encourages of age youth to get involved, register and vote.

Event was held at the Green Door in Hollywood.

Ali A. Rizvi: No Post-VP Debate Bump for McCain-Palin

2008-10-06T14:25:40Z

Frank Luntz and Bill O'Reilly predicted it wrong. There has been no poll bump for John McCain as a consequence of the VP debate.

Barack Obama's lead has actually widened in the first national polls conducted entirely after Sarah Palin and Joe Biden's vice presidential debate on Thursday, October 2.

For October 3-5, Hotline/FD shows a 6 point advantage (47-41%), Rasmussen an 8 point advantage (52-44%), and Gallup shows an 8 point advantage (50-42%), for Obama.

The Electoral College Map Obama leading by over 100 electoral votes, despite another 100 or votes still in the toss-up states.

Apparently, people were able to see through the Palin facade, despite the analysts and pundits largely declaring the debate a "tie." Karl Rove's campaign style, predicated on the assumption that the majority of people are gullible and can be taken advantage of, seems to have gone the way of trickle-down economics.

The McCain camp will now focus on Obama's alleged association with William Ayers - a last resort strategy - and deliberately target Obama's character, judgment, and patriotism. It's obvious why they feel the need to go down this route now.

I wonder if Bill O'Reilly has any more predictions.

Jerry Weissman: Sarah's Sentences

2008-10-06T13:29:55Z

The New York Times has a feature called "The Conversation" in which two of its star writers, David Brooks, their Republican-leaning columnist, and Gail Collins, their Democratic-leaning columnist, dialogue in print about the presidential race. In reaction to the intense public focus on Sarah Palin and her performance in the Vice Presidential debate - 70 million viewers saw it on television -- the two writers also had a conversation - with two vastly different points of view in their separate columns.

Mr. Brooks, a literate writer by any standard - his columns are often characterized by prolific references to erudite books - at first wondered in his column on Palin, "Was this woman capable of completing an extemporaneous paragraph -- a collection of sentences with subjects, verbs, objects and, if possible, an actual meaning?" But then, he concluded, "By the end of her opening answers, it was clear she would meet the test. She spoke with that calm, measured poise that marked her convention speech."

Ms. Collins, an equally literate writer - before becoming a columnist, she was a member of the Times editorial board and was the first woman ever appointed editor of the newspaper's editorial page - lamented in her column on Palin, that the Governor's "answers were murky in the extreme," and that her "intelligence and toughness may wind up buried under the legend of her verb-deprived ramblings."

The final arbiter of Sarah Palin's rhetoric was Tina Fey, whose impressions of the Alaska Governor on NBC's Saturday Night Live have become almost, if not more popular than the candidate herself. In a sketch that lampooned the debate, Fey portrayed Palin as she had in two previous outings - lampooning the interview with CBS's Katie Couric, and an imaginary joint press conference with Hillary Clinton - as a sentence-mangler of the first order.

See the actual debate. Read the transcript - without her undeniably effective visual image - and you'll find that Sarah Palin cannot parse a sentence.

Mr. Brooks, it's time to get past your party loyalty and return to your erudition.

Eric Morse: Obama's Keys To Winning Tuesday's Town Hall Debate

2008-10-06T07:52:21Z

With one presidential and one vice presidential debate behind us, a pattern is emerging: each time, the Democratic candidate has come to the table armed with facts and policy proposals, while the Republican catered to pundits and the public with an amalgam of attitude and atmospherics, colloquialisms and avoidance-by-way-of-personal-anecdote.

And in tomorrow's town hall meeting in Nashville, John McCain will be on his home turf. McCain's been described as the "master of the town hall," and Nashville may present his last, best hope of wresting the momentum from Barack Obama. Rest assured, he'll be in fighting form.

Obama, who has been criticized by opponents for being "aloof" and "professorial," may have his work cut out for him. But his laid-back, unflappable demeanor and his down-to-earth lifestyle create an excellent opportunity to connect with the voters in the room and those watching on television. Here's what he needs to do to capitalize:
• Keep it short. Like Al Gore and John Kerry, Barack Obama is a victim of the Progressive's love of policy nuance. The Harvard lawyer may love building and presenting a case, but he'll be speaking to "ordinary Americans" - likely white, working class, and skewing older. He'll need to keep his responses short, pithy and punchy. This is no secret, and he's pulled it off plenty of times, so there's no need to worry; but he'll have to keep it in mind the whole time. Even one belabored answer risks losing the audience for good.
• Make eye contact. And not just with those in the room. Obama should split his time between speaking to the crowd and directly to the camera. In the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday, we all witnessed the contrast between Sarah Palin's eyes staring through the screen and Joe Biden's, cast downward as he addressed moderator Gwen Ifill. Obama will be wise to remember that the people he needs to win over are on the other side of the camera.
• Get a move on. We've all seen Obama in town hall meetings, half-sitting, allowing his comfort with the constituents to create a relaxed, personal atmosphere. Even seated, his presence still commands attention. But this doesn't translate as well on camera. By contrast, John McCain is a mover. He prowls the stage, cracking jokes and addressing his "friends." In the context of the emerging campaign narrative, this contrast can serve Obama well - Obama the cool hand versus the jumpy and erratic McCain - but he must be careful not to cede control of the room. Obama has an advantage standing next to the shorter, stooped McCain, and as he walks with his languid stride, even stepping into the audience to connect with questioners, he can remain the singular focus for the entire 90 minutes.
• Yes, words matter. Obama often uses clinical language, referring to "the middle class." In more populist moments, he opts for "folks." But in informal town halls, he must go a step further, into the second person. I'd like to see him directly address a questioner, or even the television audience, with "you." I'd like to see him ask a follow-up question of those in the audience, put full names to anecdotal characters, even tell stories that extend beyond the campaign trail, into his personal life. The majority of undecided voters are not bigots or cynics - they're just waiting for him to invite them in.

Obama has every advantage a candidate could ask for, and Tuesday night may be his opportunity, not just to extend his lead in the polls, but to upset the undisputed champion of the town hall meeting.