It has become cliche to say that customer service has gone to hell. Complaints can now be met most places with a hearty "So what?" The former time's "This isn't my department" and "I just work here" are now the good old days we long for. As gas and food prices rise and jobs disappear and war goes on forever, we live on edge now, and that makes everybody grumpy. And just as everything gets tighter, we now hear that airlines are charging for every checked bag, and this is probably just the warmup for seeing those tip jars in all of those inappropriate places becoming additional charges. You know, cashiers charging us for making change, letter carriers asking $.50 per piece to deliver our mail, and disgraced Republican congressmen earmarking the federal budget to benefit their illegitimate children.
If you're mad as hell and can't take it anymore, come to Atlanta. Go to the ballpark. Sure, the food and drink cost too much. But if you just need somebody to be nice to you, you need Turner Field. Remember how everybody was just nice to each other in Andy Taylor's Mayberry? Turner Field would have been their ballpark had they had one.
It starts with the security guards. I've been to a lot of ballparks. Most of the time the customers are in an uproar by the time they are brusquely permitted to come in and spend their money. Not at Turner Field. Here, the security man is smiling from ear to ear and talking to the children of the families in line. "Who's your favorite player?" started the conversation, and in two minutes, the man-of a different race than the family-had become a friend. The wait seemed to disappear. We were having fun. At the turnstiles, smiling ticket takers thank the ticket holders for coming to the game. And wish them a fun evening.
Then you move to the kids handing out that evening's promotion. Most of the time in most of the places, promotions are employee hell. Grasping, rushing people are trying to grab and go. At Turner Field, things move comfortably, items being handed out with a "Here you are, sir" or a "Here you go, buddy" to the little kid. Every person is spoken to and smiled at.
Workers in the clubhouse store thank you for coming in, and whether you buy anything or not, thank you again as you go out. Every concession stand attendant wears a smile and thanks you for stopping at their booth, and coming to Turner Field. Every vendor smiles, speaks and visits, not slacking, but being human. One vendor handed a beer to a customer during a discussion of Chipper Jones' OPS before moving on. Three seconds later, the section's usher brought the vendor back to issue an apology. The offense? The vendor hadn 't removed the twist-off bottle cap for the patron. Told it wasn't a big deal by said patron, the vendor said, "Yes, sir, it is. We're all about customer service." He wasn't kidding!
The Braves' spectacular veteran radio men, Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren, repeatedly thank fans for coming to the game during each broadcast, dropping in our ears the same message that the behavior and manner of all the other staff people have already communicated throughout the experience.
When the game is over, on the way out, most parks have people positioned to speak sternly to anyone who might be attempting to leave the park with a swallow of beer still left in a bottle or cup. At Turner Field, at the end of the game and workday, smiling faces meet you again, and, once more, thank you for coming before inviting you back for the next game.
If your life has been beating on you; if you have recently felt slighted or mistreated; if you think there is no more customer service; if you just want to spend an evening being treated like a human being, come to Turner Field.
And the baseball ain't bad, either!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Baseball is Life on the Road: Atlanta
Flashback: September 1, 2006, Red Sox rookie pitcher Jon Lester, 7-2 on the season, has been diagnosed with lymphoma and required to begin immediate treatment, ending his season. Lester is 22 years old.
How does a person deal with that news? By accepting the embrace of his family, counting on the resources of his faith, allowing his friends to be his friends and seeking the best medical assistance available.
And when those elements fall together, wonderful things can happen.
Flashback: July 23, 2007, Second year Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester made a triumphant return to the mound in Cleveland tonight, gaining a victory over the Indians. And on this one night, not even the losing team could be upset about the loss. Lester, diagnosed with lymphoma less than a year ago, overcame his nerves to demonstrate his return to the form that made Sox fans' hearts beat faster with each appearance last year. The lefthander is 23 years old.
What a night that was! With his parents in the stands, the kid came back and was awesome. The Sox brass was right on target in handling Lester, letting him stay at Pawtucket and make 3 more starts after everyone said he was ready for his return to the bigs. They made sure. The good baseball fans of Cleveland are also due a tip of the cap. They knew what was happening, and even if they wanted their club to win, they certainly weren't rooting against the Sox pitcher.
Flashback: May 19, 2008, Jon Lester pitched the 18th no hit, no run game in Red Sox history, throttling the Kansas City Royals. Lester, whose victory over cancer in 2006-2007 will always be the biggest victory of his life, was never in danger tonight. He got stronger as the game wore on, still throwing in the mid-90's in the ninth inning as he worked toward the 130th and final pitch of the game. The celebration was marked by a bearhug from catcher Jason Varitek. The Red Sox captain tied a Major League record courtesy of Lester's effectiveness: this was Varitek's fourth no hitter caught, tying him with Ray Schalk of the White Sox for most times behind the plate for a no-no. Another touching moment came with Terry Francona's embrace. The emotion was evident as the manager, often described by Lester as a second father from the growth of their relationship during Jon's illness. The pitcher told Joe Castiglione and Dave O'Brien during the post-game interview that there are few people, much less managers, like Tito.
Friends, there are few people so young who have lived the valleys and mountaintops of life that Jon Lester has. He is 24 years old, and his future has never been brighter. And baseball is going pretty well, too!
How does a person deal with that news? By accepting the embrace of his family, counting on the resources of his faith, allowing his friends to be his friends and seeking the best medical assistance available.
And when those elements fall together, wonderful things can happen.
Flashback: July 23, 2007, Second year Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester made a triumphant return to the mound in Cleveland tonight, gaining a victory over the Indians. And on this one night, not even the losing team could be upset about the loss. Lester, diagnosed with lymphoma less than a year ago, overcame his nerves to demonstrate his return to the form that made Sox fans' hearts beat faster with each appearance last year. The lefthander is 23 years old.
What a night that was! With his parents in the stands, the kid came back and was awesome. The Sox brass was right on target in handling Lester, letting him stay at Pawtucket and make 3 more starts after everyone said he was ready for his return to the bigs. They made sure. The good baseball fans of Cleveland are also due a tip of the cap. They knew what was happening, and even if they wanted their club to win, they certainly weren't rooting against the Sox pitcher.
Flashback: May 19, 2008, Jon Lester pitched the 18th no hit, no run game in Red Sox history, throttling the Kansas City Royals. Lester, whose victory over cancer in 2006-2007 will always be the biggest victory of his life, was never in danger tonight. He got stronger as the game wore on, still throwing in the mid-90's in the ninth inning as he worked toward the 130th and final pitch of the game. The celebration was marked by a bearhug from catcher Jason Varitek. The Red Sox captain tied a Major League record courtesy of Lester's effectiveness: this was Varitek's fourth no hitter caught, tying him with Ray Schalk of the White Sox for most times behind the plate for a no-no. Another touching moment came with Terry Francona's embrace. The emotion was evident as the manager, often described by Lester as a second father from the growth of their relationship during Jon's illness. The pitcher told Joe Castiglione and Dave O'Brien during the post-game interview that there are few people, much less managers, like Tito.
Friends, there are few people so young who have lived the valleys and mountaintops of life that Jon Lester has. He is 24 years old, and his future has never been brighter. And baseball is going pretty well, too!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Apologies
Let's set aside forgiveness for a moment, because forgiveness and apologies are not the same thing, and I would argue that they aren't even connected.
Let's think about apologies.
We hear them all the time. There is The Celebrity: "If I have done anything that has offended anyone, I am truly sorry." This is barely an apology, and what is being apologized for is not the behavior behind it. Rather, the individual who depends on us to provide them with album sales, tv ratings or movie/sports ticket sales is sorry that we are so unhip as to be offended by what they did. If we, the great unwashed masses, just understood that being young, famous, great looking, and/or rich is an entitlement that exempts those fortunate few from the normal standards and requirements of life, then there would be no problem. Asleep in a running car facing the wrong way on a one way street at 3 in the morning with a pharmacy of illegal substances scattered around me? Sorry you're offended. Driving around drunk with the kids up running around in the car? Sorry you're offended. But if you'd just get with it and learn who I am, then you'd understand I'm entitled to act like this!
Another prominent apology is The Connected. It goes like this: "I have behaved/thought/taught/preached this way for years, but if being me is going to cost me my fortune/access/audience, then I'll pretend to be someone/something else." Think Jimmy Swaggart. Brother Jimmy, you'll recall, reached out to a series of women who had fallen into the prostitution profession. Only he wasn't bringing the good news that Jesus repairs broken lives; only the good news that he had a hundred dollar bill burning a hole in his pocket. The first time Jimmy got caught he gave a tearful performance in the platform of his church telling God and everybody how sorry he was that he had fallen short. Scary, the prospect of losing a cash cow TV ministry! But Jimmy being Jimmy, he shortly after got caught again, and that time he was far more honest. He told the world that this was between him and God and it was nobody else's business. Except like the police.
The newest proponents of The Connected are Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee. Each of these fellows was drooling over the prospect of having their dog winning the race for the White House, Wright with Barack Obama and Hagee with John McCain. Each could almost taste the sweetness of filling the role cornered by Billy Graham over the last 40 years: spiritual advisor to the President of the United States. Only one problem: There are so many slow news days during our interminable election cycles that finally, when everything else on God's green earth had been covered, the media got around to some stories on the candidate's preachers. That's precisely when the remarkable sound bites from Rev. Wright's sermons started making the rounds. Because there is no media person in America that can't appreciate the attention that an angry black man with a microphone can generate in these United States. Wright's first response was to give a calm, sedate interview to Bill Moyers to demonstrate his intelligence and share his biography. He tried to be someone other than who he is, to hold onto his access. But when it became apparent that Obama couldn't afford to keep this relationship, Wright was then freed up to be himself at the National Press Club and before the NAACP convention. And all while the great majority of white America still has no grasp whatsoever of the prophetic nature of black church preaching, which is all about hyperbole, energy and protest. White America doesn't understand this, because white preachers don't engage in much prophetic preaching, because prophetic preaching makes people uncomfortable, and uncomfortable people may not want to pay or even keep around those who make them uncomfortable.
Now, John Hagee is getting some attention. Hagee is a nut of long-standing. He equates the 1948 political resolution of "What do we do with the Jews?" with the biblical chosen people, and talks about the "special responsibility" we Americans have to fund the defense of Israel, no matter what they do to the Palestinians, Lebanese, or anyone else within their reach. That's us non-Catholic Americans. Because the Catholic Church, in Hagee's estimation, is the "Whore of Babylon" mentioned in Revelation. Not the Roman Empire, but the Roman Catholic Church. Bright guy, this Hagee. But as John McCain was fearful of not looking conservative enough to get the Republican nomination, the great political maverick from Arizona began to pander to clowns like Hagee and those who run Bob Jones University. Now, with the cameras turning on McCain's new BFF, some of those old statements are causing trouble. Hagee's afraid of losing his access (which can't happen soon enough), so he has rethought his lifetime of whackiness, and has now apologized for that whole "Whore of Babylon" thing. How do you call that a mistake? "Uh, I now realize that it's just an escort service"? After all, "whore" of the great enemy of ancient Israel and, symbolically, of the early church isn't like "That's a Dodge Caravan! No, wait, I'm sorry I ever said that. I now realize it's a Grand Caravan." There is a bit more difference here.
No, Pastor Hagee is apologizing for being who he has been his whole adult life, and who he is today. And he better be careful. Jeremiah Wright can do what he wants because he's retired now. Hagee has to keep his standing with his whacky Texas church (double redundancy, I know), especially if he loses out on the Succeed Dr. Graham Sweepstakes.
Here's a thought: how about from now on, apologies offered only after getting caught don't count; and neither do self-serving apologies, or those that blame the recipient of the apologies. Unless you have realized on your own that you screwed up, and aren't scrambling to save your career or position, just keep it to yourself.
Thanks for not wasting my time!
Let's think about apologies.
We hear them all the time. There is The Celebrity: "If I have done anything that has offended anyone, I am truly sorry." This is barely an apology, and what is being apologized for is not the behavior behind it. Rather, the individual who depends on us to provide them with album sales, tv ratings or movie/sports ticket sales is sorry that we are so unhip as to be offended by what they did. If we, the great unwashed masses, just understood that being young, famous, great looking, and/or rich is an entitlement that exempts those fortunate few from the normal standards and requirements of life, then there would be no problem. Asleep in a running car facing the wrong way on a one way street at 3 in the morning with a pharmacy of illegal substances scattered around me? Sorry you're offended. Driving around drunk with the kids up running around in the car? Sorry you're offended. But if you'd just get with it and learn who I am, then you'd understand I'm entitled to act like this!
Another prominent apology is The Connected. It goes like this: "I have behaved/thought/taught/preached this way for years, but if being me is going to cost me my fortune/access/audience, then I'll pretend to be someone/something else." Think Jimmy Swaggart. Brother Jimmy, you'll recall, reached out to a series of women who had fallen into the prostitution profession. Only he wasn't bringing the good news that Jesus repairs broken lives; only the good news that he had a hundred dollar bill burning a hole in his pocket. The first time Jimmy got caught he gave a tearful performance in the platform of his church telling God and everybody how sorry he was that he had fallen short. Scary, the prospect of losing a cash cow TV ministry! But Jimmy being Jimmy, he shortly after got caught again, and that time he was far more honest. He told the world that this was between him and God and it was nobody else's business. Except like the police.
The newest proponents of The Connected are Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee. Each of these fellows was drooling over the prospect of having their dog winning the race for the White House, Wright with Barack Obama and Hagee with John McCain. Each could almost taste the sweetness of filling the role cornered by Billy Graham over the last 40 years: spiritual advisor to the President of the United States. Only one problem: There are so many slow news days during our interminable election cycles that finally, when everything else on God's green earth had been covered, the media got around to some stories on the candidate's preachers. That's precisely when the remarkable sound bites from Rev. Wright's sermons started making the rounds. Because there is no media person in America that can't appreciate the attention that an angry black man with a microphone can generate in these United States. Wright's first response was to give a calm, sedate interview to Bill Moyers to demonstrate his intelligence and share his biography. He tried to be someone other than who he is, to hold onto his access. But when it became apparent that Obama couldn't afford to keep this relationship, Wright was then freed up to be himself at the National Press Club and before the NAACP convention. And all while the great majority of white America still has no grasp whatsoever of the prophetic nature of black church preaching, which is all about hyperbole, energy and protest. White America doesn't understand this, because white preachers don't engage in much prophetic preaching, because prophetic preaching makes people uncomfortable, and uncomfortable people may not want to pay or even keep around those who make them uncomfortable.
Now, John Hagee is getting some attention. Hagee is a nut of long-standing. He equates the 1948 political resolution of "What do we do with the Jews?" with the biblical chosen people, and talks about the "special responsibility" we Americans have to fund the defense of Israel, no matter what they do to the Palestinians, Lebanese, or anyone else within their reach. That's us non-Catholic Americans. Because the Catholic Church, in Hagee's estimation, is the "Whore of Babylon" mentioned in Revelation. Not the Roman Empire, but the Roman Catholic Church. Bright guy, this Hagee. But as John McCain was fearful of not looking conservative enough to get the Republican nomination, the great political maverick from Arizona began to pander to clowns like Hagee and those who run Bob Jones University. Now, with the cameras turning on McCain's new BFF, some of those old statements are causing trouble. Hagee's afraid of losing his access (which can't happen soon enough), so he has rethought his lifetime of whackiness, and has now apologized for that whole "Whore of Babylon" thing. How do you call that a mistake? "Uh, I now realize that it's just an escort service"? After all, "whore" of the great enemy of ancient Israel and, symbolically, of the early church isn't like "That's a Dodge Caravan! No, wait, I'm sorry I ever said that. I now realize it's a Grand Caravan." There is a bit more difference here.
No, Pastor Hagee is apologizing for being who he has been his whole adult life, and who he is today. And he better be careful. Jeremiah Wright can do what he wants because he's retired now. Hagee has to keep his standing with his whacky Texas church (double redundancy, I know), especially if he loses out on the Succeed Dr. Graham Sweepstakes.
Here's a thought: how about from now on, apologies offered only after getting caught don't count; and neither do self-serving apologies, or those that blame the recipient of the apologies. Unless you have realized on your own that you screwed up, and aren't scrambling to save your career or position, just keep it to yourself.
Thanks for not wasting my time!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Hillary Clinton, Disciple of Lee Atwater
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Brother, is there ever!
It is a pattern that goes back to George Wallace's 1968 and 1972 efforts (the latter, prior to the assassination attempt, obviously). It's the pattern that Lee Atwater recognized when studying past campaigns for a way to convince white southern men that Democrats are not their friends. It is the pattern that every Republican president in the last 30 years has used to enter the White House: convince the working poor whites that the blacks are their problem. And that the Democrats are more concerned for "those" blacks than "us" whites.
There is a remarkable quality to Americans when it comes to our public life together: we mean to get ahead. That is why so many of us are resistant to appeals based on economics, which inevitably means class. We just can't bring ourselves to see the rich as our problem, because we all hope to be them someday. So we accept "Right to Work" which is spectacular double-speak for "Right to Fire Whenever It Suits Me Whether I Have a Reason or Not." We accept all-time high corporate profits for ExxonMobile, among others, when they are destroying the economy with their price-gouging on gas prices. We admire Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for their fortunes. Hell, we even made a celebrity out of a chump hustler like Donald Trump. Why? He has, to date, been rich once more than he's been poor.
Those in the poorer classes will not blame the wealthy, because we're all sure that we're just one promotion, one authored book, one computer innovation, or, at the bare minimum, the right sequence of numbers on our lottery ticket from moving into Manhattan's Dakota, the Kennedys' Palm Beach, or the Governator's block, and living the high life with all of the people on the cover of the National Enquirer.
So someone else must be the problem, the reason I haven't gotten there yet. George Wallace had an explanation: those smart Washington lawyers have handed the country over to the [blacks]. Atwater used it to elect Reagan. They attacked Affirmative Action, and interpreted it to mean that Reconstruction had returned with a vengeance, and that vengeance was in the hands of angry black people. George I advertised Willie Horton, and his idiot son ran an ad with white hands opening an envelope and reading the enclosed letter that informed the recipient that their job had been given to a black person. Why? Washington mandates! From the old Republican whipping-boy, the Democratic Congress! This is hideously brilliant! In one fell swoop, racism becomes acceptable, and anti-intellectual biases are embraced. If you think this is hyperbolic, remember the basis of the last two Republican campaigns for president: smart, accomplished people like Al Gore and John Kerry aren't like us. We shouldn't vote for them, thinking they're smarter than we are and all. We like the other guy, the one who can't form a complete sentence. The one who stumbles over his words. The one who lost every business he ever ran until his buddies gave him a piece of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and the only reason he didn't run that into the ground is that the Rangers were already the worst franchise in Major League Baseball. He makes us feel good about ourselves. Let's have him! He's no elitist like Gore, with his Harvard education. No, our boy has the Common Man's Yale degree! That he got through a legacy admission, not any merit or accomplishment on his own. Now, that's Affirmative Action!
Now, on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton joined this parade of shame. She made the statements at the head of this post, to scream from the mountaintop that the black candidate and his black supporters are about to steal our party and our country. If Hillary means to join the Republican Race Brigade, she needs to remember one thing: Obama can't steal this nomination. He's earned his position through a long, hard campaign. HE'S AHEAD, for crying out loud. And what eats at Hillary Clinton is that she can't catch him at this point.
Then again, perhaps she has studied the Atwater Manual so thoroughly that she has grasped the concept that she might be able to steal the nomination if she can tell the Big Lie often and loudly enough.
After all, that's how Rove got dubyer two terms in the White House.
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Brother, is there ever!
It is a pattern that goes back to George Wallace's 1968 and 1972 efforts (the latter, prior to the assassination attempt, obviously). It's the pattern that Lee Atwater recognized when studying past campaigns for a way to convince white southern men that Democrats are not their friends. It is the pattern that every Republican president in the last 30 years has used to enter the White House: convince the working poor whites that the blacks are their problem. And that the Democrats are more concerned for "those" blacks than "us" whites.
There is a remarkable quality to Americans when it comes to our public life together: we mean to get ahead. That is why so many of us are resistant to appeals based on economics, which inevitably means class. We just can't bring ourselves to see the rich as our problem, because we all hope to be them someday. So we accept "Right to Work" which is spectacular double-speak for "Right to Fire Whenever It Suits Me Whether I Have a Reason or Not." We accept all-time high corporate profits for ExxonMobile, among others, when they are destroying the economy with their price-gouging on gas prices. We admire Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for their fortunes. Hell, we even made a celebrity out of a chump hustler like Donald Trump. Why? He has, to date, been rich once more than he's been poor.
Those in the poorer classes will not blame the wealthy, because we're all sure that we're just one promotion, one authored book, one computer innovation, or, at the bare minimum, the right sequence of numbers on our lottery ticket from moving into Manhattan's Dakota, the Kennedys' Palm Beach, or the Governator's block, and living the high life with all of the people on the cover of the National Enquirer.
So someone else must be the problem, the reason I haven't gotten there yet. George Wallace had an explanation: those smart Washington lawyers have handed the country over to the [blacks]. Atwater used it to elect Reagan. They attacked Affirmative Action, and interpreted it to mean that Reconstruction had returned with a vengeance, and that vengeance was in the hands of angry black people. George I advertised Willie Horton, and his idiot son ran an ad with white hands opening an envelope and reading the enclosed letter that informed the recipient that their job had been given to a black person. Why? Washington mandates! From the old Republican whipping-boy, the Democratic Congress! This is hideously brilliant! In one fell swoop, racism becomes acceptable, and anti-intellectual biases are embraced. If you think this is hyperbolic, remember the basis of the last two Republican campaigns for president: smart, accomplished people like Al Gore and John Kerry aren't like us. We shouldn't vote for them, thinking they're smarter than we are and all. We like the other guy, the one who can't form a complete sentence. The one who stumbles over his words. The one who lost every business he ever ran until his buddies gave him a piece of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and the only reason he didn't run that into the ground is that the Rangers were already the worst franchise in Major League Baseball. He makes us feel good about ourselves. Let's have him! He's no elitist like Gore, with his Harvard education. No, our boy has the Common Man's Yale degree! That he got through a legacy admission, not any merit or accomplishment on his own. Now, that's Affirmative Action!
Now, on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton joined this parade of shame. She made the statements at the head of this post, to scream from the mountaintop that the black candidate and his black supporters are about to steal our party and our country. If Hillary means to join the Republican Race Brigade, she needs to remember one thing: Obama can't steal this nomination. He's earned his position through a long, hard campaign. HE'S AHEAD, for crying out loud. And what eats at Hillary Clinton is that she can't catch him at this point.
Then again, perhaps she has studied the Atwater Manual so thoroughly that she has grasped the concept that she might be able to steal the nomination if she can tell the Big Lie often and loudly enough.
After all, that's how Rove got dubyer two terms in the White House.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Decision Time
The final counts are not yet in, but at this moment (10:35 pm cdt), it appears clear that Sen. Barack Obama has won North Carolina and there is no more than a 5%-point spread between Sens. Obama and Clinton in Indiana. Make no mistake: that Indiana circumstance is a victory for Sen. Obama. (Edit: at 1:48 am, with 99% reporting, the margin is 2 points. Stick the fork in this race. It's done.)
In the interest of full disclosure, I voted for Hillary Clinton in our state's primary. I respect her for many reasons. I respect her husband's work as President. He remains the only winner that I have voted for in a presidential election. (At least the only one who was sworn in after winning the election. Come to think of it, I have voted for as many winners as losers: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry vs. Jimmy Carter (1980), Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis. Bush/Rove stole two of them.)
It is now time for Sen. Clinton to concede the nomination.
The math is clear: there is no way that she can surpass Sen. Obama. The only thing she can accomplish by continuing to contest the nomination is electing another out of touch Republican who has made it painfully clear that he will disregard the will of the American people and remain in the Iraq quagmire. Sen. McCain has also refused to reject George II's bloodlust for Iran.
The Clintons seem to have made a couple of decisions. President Clinton has acted abominably over the last several months. He seems far more concerned with his legacy than his wife's campaign. He could have done far more to protect his legacy by telling the intern to put her skirt down when she flashed him her thong.
Senator Clinton seems to have decided that a McCain presidency is preferable to an Obama administration. Maybe it has to do with 2012; maybe she really believes that Obama's pastor speaks for the Illinois senator; maybe, maybe, maybe.
I, for one, would rather have a president associated with Jeremiah Wright than one associated with John Hagee. Wright is angry. Hagee is crazy.
I, for one, would rather have a president short on foreign policy experience than one who has already enunciated his BAD foreign policy intentions.
I, for one, am ready for a president who started his career as a community organizer, working through the church to make a difference in the lives of our poorest, least-educated, most abandoned citizens, rather than another from the pious party who, no matter how good a game they talk, betray no knowledge of or commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I, for one, am ready for a president who has the fortitude to call on us to dream big dreams and aspire to noble aspirations, rather than these who practice the gospel of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove: slash and burn personal destruction, and manipulation of the fears of people.
Would I like for Obama to have the economic experience of FDR, the foreign policy accomplishment of Nixon and the personal diplomacy expertise of Jimmy Carter? Sure. But maybe right now, we need a president who can inspire like Jack Kennedy. One who embodies in his person the changes we have experienced in who we are as Americans. One whose very election would say to the world that we are growing up and growing beyond our historic pettiness, racism and exclusionary policies.
The time has come, Senator Clinton. Do the right thing. Do it now.
In the interest of full disclosure, I voted for Hillary Clinton in our state's primary. I respect her for many reasons. I respect her husband's work as President. He remains the only winner that I have voted for in a presidential election. (At least the only one who was sworn in after winning the election. Come to think of it, I have voted for as many winners as losers: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry vs. Jimmy Carter (1980), Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis. Bush/Rove stole two of them.)
It is now time for Sen. Clinton to concede the nomination.
The math is clear: there is no way that she can surpass Sen. Obama. The only thing she can accomplish by continuing to contest the nomination is electing another out of touch Republican who has made it painfully clear that he will disregard the will of the American people and remain in the Iraq quagmire. Sen. McCain has also refused to reject George II's bloodlust for Iran.
The Clintons seem to have made a couple of decisions. President Clinton has acted abominably over the last several months. He seems far more concerned with his legacy than his wife's campaign. He could have done far more to protect his legacy by telling the intern to put her skirt down when she flashed him her thong.
Senator Clinton seems to have decided that a McCain presidency is preferable to an Obama administration. Maybe it has to do with 2012; maybe she really believes that Obama's pastor speaks for the Illinois senator; maybe, maybe, maybe.
I, for one, would rather have a president associated with Jeremiah Wright than one associated with John Hagee. Wright is angry. Hagee is crazy.
I, for one, would rather have a president short on foreign policy experience than one who has already enunciated his BAD foreign policy intentions.
I, for one, am ready for a president who started his career as a community organizer, working through the church to make a difference in the lives of our poorest, least-educated, most abandoned citizens, rather than another from the pious party who, no matter how good a game they talk, betray no knowledge of or commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I, for one, am ready for a president who has the fortitude to call on us to dream big dreams and aspire to noble aspirations, rather than these who practice the gospel of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove: slash and burn personal destruction, and manipulation of the fears of people.
Would I like for Obama to have the economic experience of FDR, the foreign policy accomplishment of Nixon and the personal diplomacy expertise of Jimmy Carter? Sure. But maybe right now, we need a president who can inspire like Jack Kennedy. One who embodies in his person the changes we have experienced in who we are as Americans. One whose very election would say to the world that we are growing up and growing beyond our historic pettiness, racism and exclusionary policies.
The time has come, Senator Clinton. Do the right thing. Do it now.
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