Month: July 2008

Senator Chameleon

The man never ceases to amaze.  When 72 senators voted for a “sense of the Senate” resolution last year rejecting the moveon.org ad rhyming (Gen.) Petraeus with “betray us,” O. took a pass, though he voted on two other bills that day, explaining:

“The focus of the United States Senate should be on ending this war, not on criticizing newspaper advertisements,” Mr. Obama said. “This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq.”

But the other day in Independence, Missouri, when he came out as a patriot, he bemoaned the fact that “a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.”

“That was then,” says Kim Strassel in Wall St. Journal’s Political Diary

 — back when Mr. Obama was apparently eager not to ruffle the Netroots activists. This is now — with the MoveOn.org endorsement firmly in hand, Mr. Obama evidently feels free to pander in the opposite direction. Mr. Obama is certainly serving up the audacity of something, but I wouldn’t call it hope.

He’s got brass.  But as for balls, can you imagine him confronting an international enemy with something he believes in that goes against the polls?  This will be the Obama security problem — not the leftist friends who can’t count on him but his firm determination to do anything that preserves popularity.

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Food, glorious — sardines!

I am in close daily contact with someone who has my best interests at heart but can’t abide sardines for reasons connected with the disease “food prejudice.”  I am recommending this item to that person:

Dr. Bowden [author of The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth] calls [sardines] “health food in a can.’’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.

He suggests what packed in — olive or sardine oil — and how to eat them — “plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.”

I like them — no, make that love them — plain, thank you.

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On tee-vee tonight, life at the polls

NY Times review of “Election Day,” produced by #3 Daughter Maggie, opens with the Chicago story:

All that slick, heavily financed campaigning at the top of the ticket in a presidential election year makes it easy to forget that the whole democratic system sinks or swims on mundane things like this: “E, F, G, J, H.”

That is the alphabetic sequence that Jim Fuchs, a Republican committeeman in Chicago, reads off with dismay as he examines a polling-place something-or-other on Nov. 2, 2004, in “Election Day,” a ground-level look at the Bush-Kerry election on Tuesday on PBS’s “P.O.V.” series. It’s not quite clear what he’s looking at, but it is clear that it has been incorrectly assembled, possibly confusing voters; Mr. Fuchs quickly has it replaced.

Mr. Fuchs, who spent the day keeping an eye out for irregularities in Democratic Chicago, is one of an assortment of people the film follows from the predawn hours until the polls close on the day of the election. The documentary’s director, Katy Chevigny, set videographers loose all over the country that day, and the resulting vignettes are full of glitches, some less innocent than others: long lines, lost voter registrations, shortages of ballots, general confusion and understaffing.

Fuchs is a great subject.  His and the film’s cinematic marriage was made in heaven. 

The NYT man continues.  A disapproving note:

The film isn’t as dispassionate as it strives to be; its choices of focus include an Indian reservation and a group concerned with voting rights for ex-convicts, and several times it lets its subjects indulge in aimless complaining about the economy that seems off-topic.

But see the Chicago and Cincinnati stories and the heart-touching closer that leaves audiences cheered, even cheering.

An concluding, approving note from NYT:

But the overall collage is interesting, and a bit disheartening. Four years after the ballot mess in 2000, there were still far too many ways for the simple act of voting to go awry.

Disheartening if you dwell overly long on the personal, sad parts, but cheering at the end, as I say above.

It’s on most PBS stations tonight — check local listings.

Directed by Katy Chevigny; Maggie Bowman [cheers!] and Dallas Brennan Rexer, producers; Penelope Falk, editor. Co-produced by P.O.V. and Independent Television Service.

And: WTTW-Channel 11 is the Chicago station, set for 10 Chi time.  But look also at Chicago Tonight, same channel, 7 to 8, for appearance of Maggie Bowman to discuss the film, barring breaking news that edges her off the air.

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