Beating the Bushes:

A Race Like Any Other?

   When was the last time a presidential race wasn't called "the most crucial," "critical" or "important" in American history? And when was the last time a presidential election cycle wasn't labeled "the dirtiest" or "sleaziest" of all time? If memory serves, the last time was 2004. And before that was 2000. And before that was undoubtedly 1996.

   Heck, probably the only campaign that wasn't considered either "the most crucial" or "the dirtiest" of all time was back in 1788, when George Washington faced only the nominal opposition of John Adams, who was really running for Vice President anyway. [Back then, who ever came in second automatically became V.P.]

   Truth to tell, every since then, American presidential races have been filled with charges and counter-charges, tepid half-truths, hi-jinks and the sinking feeling that if one's candidate is defeated, the country will undoubtedly go to hell in a hand basket. In other words, Koheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes was absolutely correct: "There is nothing new under the sun."

   In the first truly contested presidential race -- between Adams and Jefferson in 1800 -- the Adams-backed Federalists accused Republican Thomas Jefferson of everything from bilking creditors and business partners to being an abject coward. Adams' operatives called Old Tom a "howling atheist," and claimed that if elected, he would confiscate and burn all the Bibles in America. Even worse, the Adams crowd warned voters that a President Jefferson would burn down all the churches, put an end to the institution of marriage and clap the country's women into bordellos.

   Things were even nastier in the 1828 race when President John Quincy Adams ran against Andy Jackson. Adams' acolytes claimed Jackson was an adulterer, a liar, a bigamist, and a murderous drunk who gambled on cockfights. They even went so far as to publish a broadside elucidating Jackson's many brawls and duels, during which, they claimed, he "killed, slashed and clawed various American citizens." Not to be outdone, Jackson partisans struck back, calling Adams an elitist tyrant who lived in a "presidential palace" in "kingly pomp and splendor." They further charged that he traveled on Sunday instead of going to church, and had had premarital sex with wife Louisa.

   Not even Abraham Lincoln was spared the brush of derision; he was variously labeled a "fiend," "butcher," and just plain "Ignoramus Abe." Oh yes, he was also accused by his opponent, Stephen Douglas, of being totally without experience. [Lincoln had served but one two-year term in the House a full fourteen years before running for President.]

   Then there was the presidential race of 1884, in which James G. Blaine accused Grover Cleveland of having sired an illegitimate child ["Ma, ma, where's Pa"/He's gone to the White House, ha-ha-ha!"] The Cleveland camp responded in kind, tagging their "unworthy" opponent, James G. Blaine, the "continental liar from the state of Maine."

   One of my favorites goes back to the 1968 presidential tilt between Nixon and Humphrey. In that race, Dick Tuck, the "clown prince" of political dirty tricks, lined up a couple of dozen obviously pregnant women at a railroad siding, all holding aloft signs which proclaimed "NIXON'S THE ONE!!"

   You've got to admit, Presidential campaigns are never boring.

   Which brings us to 2008.

   Unless conservative Republicans somehow manage to raise the ghost of Ronald Reagan or Robert Taft, John McCain will be their standard bearer. And unless something totally unforeseen -- and completely unpredictable -- occurs, Barack Obama will head the Democratic ticket. [Indeed, in the latter case, the big news wouldn't be Hillary Clinton winning the nomination, but rather Obama losing.]

   Will an Obama/McCain race be the dirtiest of all time? And more importantly, is it the most crucial in all American history? The answer to the first is "probably not;" to the second, "it just might be."

   We've already seen and heard innumerable sleaze shots firing across the bow of Senator Obama's ship of state. The latest came not from the mouth of Senator McCain, but rather from a surrogate, Cincinnati radio-talk show host Bill Cunningham. In a "throw red meat to the lions" warm up prior to a McCain appearance in the Queen City, Cunningham repeatedly -- and monotonously -- used the "H" word, Senator Obama's middle name.

   And of course, there are all those charges about Obama being a Muslim sleeper that just won't go away. For his part, Senator Obama has remained remarkably diplomatic and dignified. The man seems rather unflappable. When Senator McCain tried to take the Illinois senator "to school" over his comment about al-Qaeda in Iraq, Obama responded not with irritation, but with irony. And have you noticed that whenever Senator Obama is about to speak about his Republican rival, he prefaces his remarks with acknowledgment and veneration for McCain's war record?

   Good stuff.

   But what about the importance of the 2008 race? Is it the "most crucial," the "most important" in a long, long time? As we noted above, it just might be. Throughout American history, certain elections have presented watershed moments; distinct opportunities to counter an increasingly stale past with a progressive vision of the future. This has been especially true when either:

   1. The two major candidates represent different generations, or

   2. One candidate is decidedly younger than the man he is seeking to replace. A couple of facts:

   * Of the 56 presidential campaigns between 1788 and 2008, the younger candidate has won 37.5% of the time.

   * In five races between 1788 and 2004, one candidate was old enough to be the other's father.

   * In three of those five, the "son" defeated the "father." [Pierce v. Scott in 1852, Clinton v. Bush in 1992, and Clinton v. Dole in 1996.]

   The first time two candidates representing different generations squared off was in 1836. In that race, Martin Van Buren faced the much-older William Henry Harrison. Van Buren won, thereby becoming the nation's first post-colonial born president.

   In 1960, John F. Kennedy became the first president who was born in the 20th century. Kennedy's youth, charm and "viga" were bipolar opposites of the avuncular Dwight Eisenhower, the man he would replace. Moreover, being nearly 30 years younger [27, to be precise] than Ike, Kennedy attracted the votes of a generation just entering the political process.

   John McCain is 27 years older than Barack Obama. Never before has one candidate been so much older than his opponent. [The next closest would be Buchanan v. Fremont in 1856; the victorious Buchanan was 22 years older than Fremont.] Far more important than this statistical anomaly however, is the fact that Senator Obama represents -- and is giving voice to -- a potentially new, previously untapped slice of the American electorate.  He has managed to raise more money -- and from more of the so-called "little people" -- than any candidate in history.  And while many belittle his message of hope, calling it "full of sound and fury signifying nothing," he has managed to touch a yearning nerve.  For countless millions, "the politics of hope" trounces the politics of fear.

    Over the past five-plus years, America has become mired in an endless war.  We are in intractable debt.  Our civil liberties are being stripped away in the name of security.  America's reputation in the community of nations is about as low as the value of the dollar.  Both home foreclosures and the price of gas are at an all-time high.  Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our borders are porous. The Lady With the Lamp has seen her torch go out.  The national treasury has become the personal vault of the "haves" and "have mores." The president has become a caricature. We are all but rudderless. 

   And yet, despite all of the above, the party of John McCain still argues about cutting taxes, codifying marriage, and crediting creationism.  These so-called "wedge issues" -- and a host of others -- are the politics of America's ancien regime. 

   Weigh all this against the hopefulness of the Obama campaign. It represents a generational change. It is a message that reaching out to one's adversaries -- whether on Capitol Hill or abroad -- is worth a try. It is a call to our "higher angels"  It can be a new beginning.

    Indeed, it is a race unlike any other.

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

Note: In last week's piece, "The Truth About IT," I wrote that the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] "has found no evidence of anti-Semitism by Reverend Wright . . . did not support Reverend Farrakhan."  I was quoting a profile on Reverend Wright written by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor; it ran on April 30, 2007.  There is a possibility that Ms. Kantor's contention is incorrect.  I am attempting to determine the truth of the matter.  If I have erred, I apologize.  KFS

 

The Truth About "It"

   It seems like hardly an hour goes by  without my receiving the "IT" email from a friend, congregant, student or reader.  These emails come in two varieties:

• Those who sincerely want to know if "IT" is true, and
• Those who want to clue me in as to "IT's" absolute, unvarnished truth
  

  The "IT" to which they are all referring is the widely-reported, highly-documented "fact" that Senator Barack Obama is a not-so-closeted anti-Semite who would be an unmitigated disaster for Israel. 

   Regardless of whether the correspondents are seekers of truth or broadcasters of Bull Durham, their emails all contain the same monotonous litany of "facts":

• Senator Obama belongs to a Chicago church whose pastor, the anti-Semitic Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., is both a friend and vocal supporter of the Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan.
• Senator Obama was quoted as telling the people of Iowa that "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."
• Senator Obama wrote one "Ali Abunimah" that "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't  said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race.  I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front."
• Senator Obama has a dismal voting record on all things Israel.  
• Senator Obama is receiving advise on the Middle East from no less an Israel-hater than Zbigniew Brzezinski.

    A few questions are in order:   

• Where in the world are people getting all these "facts?" 
• Why are so many accepting them as the God's honest truth?
• What's the motivation underlying this supposed laundry-list of duplicity?
• Why are so many so willing to accept these "facts" as truth?
• Indeed, is any of it true?

   Let us not be left in suspense.  The above "facts" -- and these are a mere sampling -- are patently false, bogus, mendacious, and just plain fabricated. 

   As Mark Twain once noted, "A good lie will have traveled half way around the world while the truth is putting on her boots."      

   Let's lace up our boots and walk a truthful mile.

   Most, if not all the "facts" about Senator Obama reaching our inboxes come from the vitriolic pen of right-wing blogger Ed Lasky.  His Blog, "American Thinker" has recently run such anti-Obama, anti-progressive pieces as:

• "John McCain Will Keep the Country Safer"
• "Can Anyone Stop Obama?"
• "Obama's Global Tax" and
• "The Left Wing School Agenda and the Banning of Patriotism."

   In preparation for this writing this piece, I chatted up both current and former members of Congress, one of Senator Obama's real Middle East policy advisers, and read more than 50 articles.  I extend thanks and appreciation to my good friend, former California Congressman Mel Levine [one of the senator's real advisers] for providing me with more ammunition than I could possibly use.  Among the facts -- yes, verifiable facts -- I uncovered in my research were:

• Speaking at a foreign policy forum in Des Moines on December 18 of last year, Senator Obama said, "I start with the premise that Israel is a stalwart ally of ours and their security cannot be compromised.  I also start with the premise that the status quo is unsustainable and that what would be good for Israel security will be the kind of two-state solution that allows the Palestinians to live and prosper in their own state and allows Israel to maintain the security of its state . . . . I think everyone knows what the basic outlines of an agreement would look like.  It would mean that the Palestinians would have to reinterpret the notion of right of return in a way that would preserve Israel as a Jewish state." 
• Contrary to what Lasky reports, Senator Obama has consistently and forcefully denounced both Louis Farrakhan and anti-Semitism.
• The Anti Defamation League [ADL] has found "No evidence of any Anti-Semitism by Reverend Wright," and that "Reverend Wright did not endorse Farrakhan's views."
• The Christian Science Monitor reported that Senator Obama ". .  strongly disagrees with any portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that advocates divestment from Israel or expresses anything less than strong support for Israel's security." [7/16/07]
• That most of the major Jewish leaders in Chicago -- those who have known him longest and best -- are among his most ardent supporters.  These leaders include Congresswoman Jan Shakowsky, Penny Pritzker and Lester Crown.
• That Senator Obama successfully co-sponsored the "Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, which, among other things, "Provides assistance for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority [PA] only during a period for which a presidential certification has determined that no PA ministry, agency or instrumentality is controlled by Hamas unless the Hamas-controlled PA has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state of Israel's right to exist and the Hamas-controlled PA has made demonstrable progress toward purging from its security services individuals with ties to terrorism."
• After speaking at the national gathering of the American Israel Public Affair Committee [APAC], Obama received the imprimatur of Shmuel Rosner, Washington correspondent of the influential Israeli paper Haaretz: "Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass.  So he is pro-Israel.  Period."
• Senator Obama has repeatedly and consistently blamed Palestinian leadership -- and not the Israelis -- for the stalled peace process.  The New York Times noted [3/15/07] that, "Mr. Obama blames Hamas, which controls much of the Palestinian government, for the stalled peace talks; he does not blame Israel."
• On January 9 of this year, the New York Sun [hardly a bastion of political liberalism] noted in an editorial that, "Mr. Obama's  commitment to Israel, as he has articulated it so far in his campaign, is quite moving and a tribute to the broad, bipartisan support that the Jewish state has in America. As a candidate, he has chosen to put himself on the record in terms that Israel's friends in America, at least those not motivated by pure political partisanship, can warmly welcome."
• That contrary to what Lasky claims, neither George Soros, nor Zbigniew Brzezinski are advising Senator Obama on Middle Eastern issues.  According to David Axelrod, the senator's chief strategist, " . . .  [Brzezinski] is not an Adviser.  We do not call him an adviser and he does not call himself an adviser.  He is a supporter and endorser of Senator Obama, and they have spoken about the Iraq war once several months ago, a war which they both opposed from the beginning.  The only people who call Brzezinski an adviser are the Clinton campaign. . ."
• In point of verifiable fact, Senator Obama's advisers on Israel and the Middle East are Mel Levine, Congressman Robert Wexler [D-FL], former Clinton Administration Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, former Clinton National Security Adviser Tony Lake, former National Security Council member Dan Shapiro, Denis McDonough, former Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and Eric Lynn, Former Foreign Policy Adviser to former Congressman Peter Deutsch [D-FL]

 

    Now that we have laced up our "boots of truth," perhaps we won't feel so compelled to read the next scurrilous anti-Obama email that comes our way.  I cannot -- and will not -- inquire into the motivation of hack writers like Mr. Lasky.  I  only took one course in Abnormal Psychology.  Suffice it to say that where Lasky is on fraudulent crusade, we are supporting a phenomenal candidate.

   As Sir Winston Churchill would have it, "Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is."

    Much has been made of the fact that in Swahili, the name Barack means "blessing."  In Hebrew, the name "Barack" means "lightning."  Hopefully, the "Barack" [lightning] of truth will help illumine the "Barack" [blessing] that is the gentleman from Illinois.

©2008 Kurt F. Stone 

The Passing of a Hero

   Heroes come in many shapes and sizes.  Heroes are also so-anointed for many diverse reasons.

• Some, like Alvin York or Audie Murphy earned humankind's exalted badge on the field of battle. 
• Some, like Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel or Mohandas Gandhi became international icons because they pursued peace. 
• Some, like Helen Keller, Ludwig von Beethoven or Franklin Delano Roosevelt were accorded heroic status because they never let physical debility stand in the way of awesome achievement.
• Some heroes are purely personal and subjective: to me, Sir Charles Chaplin is a hero; to others, a deeply flawed wastrel. 

 And then there is Tom Lantos.

   California Congressman Lantos, who died this week at age 80, has been a living, breathing hero for more than 60 years.  And yet to tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of millions, his name, his humanity, his heroic deeds are virtually unknown.  Lantos' death brings to mind the truth of a statement from the great French poet Alphonse de Lamartine: "Sometimes when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated."

   A brief thumbnail sketch of Tom Lantos is in order.

  Thomas Peter Lantos, the only child of upper-middle class Jewish parents, was born in Budapest in 1928.  In 1944, when the Nazis overran Hungary, Lantos was dispatched to Szob, a town 40 miles north of Budapest, where he was put into a forced labor camp.  The first time he tried to escape, he was beaten to a pulp.  He eventually did escape; his blond hair and blue eyes were a "natural disguise."  He then made his way back to Budapest, where he spent the rest of the war living in an apartment provided by one of history's most selfless heroes: Raoul Wallenberg.

     Wallenberg [1912-?] was a Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews.  He did this by purchasing 30 apartment buildings, planting a Swedish flag on top of each, and then declaring that as such, were all Swedish territory.  Tom Lantos was one of the lucky few.

    But wait: there is more.

    Note: [What follows comes from the new edition of my book The Congressional Minyan: The Jews of Capitol Hill, to be published later this year by Rowman & Littlefield].

 "Noting Lantos' 'Aryan' coloring, Wallenberg put Lantos to work helping out in an elaborate anti-Nazi underground, delivering a bottle of medicine or loaf of bread to Jews Wallenberg had hiding throughout Budapest.  Dressed in a military cadet's uniform, Lantos was able to move around undetected by Nazi authorities.  His good deeds, however, were not based strictly on altruism or a desire to help his fellow man, but fatalism. 'I probably wouldn't survive,' Lantos thought at the time. 'I decided I might be of some use.  In retrospect, I was doing things I never should have done, because they took more courage than I'm sure I had.'"

    Such is the nature of heroes.

 

    Tom Lantos came to the United States in 1946, married his childhood sweetheart Annette Tillman [a first cousin to Zsa Zsa Gabor], earned a PhD in Economics from Berkeley, and became a professor at San Francisco State.  In 1980, he was elected to the House of Representatives from a San Francisco-area district.

   One of Lantos' first acts upon entering Congress was to push through a bill making Raoul Wallenberg one of only two people [Winston Churchill being the other] to be declared an honorary citizen of the United States.      

   Throughout his nearly 28-years in Congress, Tom Lantos was -- understandably -- one of that body's most strident voices for, in the words of Bob Dylan,

    "the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse.    And for every hung-up person, in the whole wide universe . . ."

 A champion for the dispossessed of every nation, Lantos was arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy for protesting the genocide in Darfur.  He attacked human rights abuses in China, led the charge for imposing trade sanctions against the regime in Myanmar, and founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.  As a staunch enemy of totalitarianism, Lantos was at first a vociferous supporter of the war in Iraq; he later became disillusioned and helped draft a resolution to oppose the president's troop surge.

    Tom Lantos was survived by his wife Annette, two daughters, two sons-in-law [one of whom, Richard Swett, served in Congress and was Bill Clinton's Ambassador to Denmark] seventeen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

    A courtly, impeccably-tailored old-world gentleman who spoke 5 languages, Lantos was, in the words of Felix Adler the very definition of a hero.  For Adler once wrote,

    "The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets for men to see by."

 You sir, kept those torches blazing for four-score years. And for you, we say in the words of the Biblical Jonathan to his dear friend David  [1st Sam: 20:18]:

    "V'nifkad'ta, ki yipakayd moshavecha" . . ."

     "You shall be sorely missed, because your seat shall be empty."  

      Lech b'Shalom . . .

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

'Tis the Season to be Loony

   Increasingly, American election seasons have become suffused with the dull gray light of stupidity. Those who are, in theory, capable of enlightening the electorate are instead hurling thunderbolts of darkness into the political abyss. Where we could indeed profit from rigorous analysis of each candidates' positions, past accomplishments and future dreams, we are instead led on a guided tour of what might be termed the "dirty underwear drawer of life."  Viewed from even a slight distance, the American political process has become far more the creature of The National Enquirer than The New Republic.                   

      According to pundits, prognosticators and political philosophasters:

• Senator John McCain is a closet liberal.
• Governor Mitt Romney is a true conservative.
• Senator Hillary Clinton is to the left of Emma Goldman.
• Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim plant.
• Governor Mike Huckabee never met a murderer he would not pardon.

  'Tis the season to be loony!

   For those of us who are engaged, reasonably literate and in need of a daily political "fix," the above "revelations" are, of course, the stuff of derangement.  If Senator McCain is a liberal, then I'm a fat, balding blond.  If Governor Romney is a true Conservative, then the Dolphins are going to take next year's Superbowl.  And if Senator Clinton is -- as has been consistently charged -- "the most liberal member of the United States Senate," then Jimmy Hendrix is alive, well and living with his grandchildren in Beverly Hills.      

  Just as I am putting a period after the words " . . . in Beverly Hills," word has come across the wires [well, actually the Internet], that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is suspending [read: ending] his campaign for the Republican nomination. Speaking before the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Romney announced that he was getting out of the race, "Because I love America, in this time of war, I feel I have to stand aside for our party and our country."       

   Had Romney stayed in the race, he would have faced a couple of obstacles, the most daunting of which was reconciling the moderate policies and views he supported while governor of oh-so-liberal Massachusetts, with the vastly more conservative ones he has espoused out on the campaign trail.  Add to this the innate [a nice way of saying "incoherent"] distrust many conservative "values voters" have for Mormons, and Romney's flip-flopping on a number of issues -- most notably abortion -- and one can readily understand his decision.  Campaign suspension means that Romney's 133 delegates are still tethered to their obligation to vote for him at the this summer's Republican National Convention.

   Let's get back to the looniness.

   While Romney was yet in the race, conservative talkers like Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Savage and Beck were puffing the "Mittster" as the only true, capital "C" Conservative in the field.  McCain?  Politically much closer to the likes of Hillary Clinton than to Robert Taft or Ronald Reagan.  Mike Huckabee?  A dangerous populist lurking in the wings, just waiting to foment class warfare in America. 

   Listening to all the so-called "Champions of Conservatism" the past few months, I now find myself indulging in a bit of schadenfreude and wondering just whom -- or what -- they're going to support in November.  If Rush Limbaugh is going to throw his support behind McCain, he will first have to down a five-course feast of crow.  Ann Coulter?  She will have to go back on her pledge to campaign for Hillary Clinton [I kid you not!] if McCain becomes the nominee.  As for Michael Savage . . . well, who can fathom precisely what planet he's going to move to?

   Part of their problem involves the very definition of "Conservative."  In ages past, conservatives believed that "that government which governs least, governs best."  Then too, they believed in balanced budgets, low debt, fiscal integrity and the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution.  Somewhere along the line, the term became skewed.  Today, "Conservatism" begins with low taxes, deregulation and eavesdropping, wends its way into the bedroom, and emerges as the leading spokes-faction for "Fortress America." They seem to have forgotten the folksy apothegm of their newly-anointed paragon Ronald Reagan: "Guv'ment isn't the solution to the problem; gov'ment is the problem."

   In order for the disciples of this new brand of conservatism [call it "Post Neo-Conservatism"] to support Senator McCain, they will have to don hair shirts, say a couple of thousand Hail Marys, and hope to God that their listeners and followers are brain dead.  For as of this morning, John McCain was, in their eyes, a dangerous liberal.

   Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

   Truth to tell, there are still a few moderate Republicans left in America; Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Minnesota's Norm Coleman and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter jump to mind.  Over on the house side one finds the likes of Connecticut's Christopher Shays, North Carolina's Walter B. Jones, and New Jersey's Christopher H. Smith.  And of course, there is always the "Governator," Ah-nold. 

   As for Senator McCain, his record, with a couple of notable exceptions [campaign finance reform, immigration, stem cell research, drilling in the Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] is at best, only faintly moderate. In the 109th Congress McCain opposed the White House only 15.6% of the time, and his party less than one time out of five.  That would put the Arizona senator in thrall with such other "dangerous liberals" as Ohio's George Voinovich, Alaska's Ted Stevens, New Hampshire's Judd Gregg and Florida's Mel Martinez.  A pretty scary lot, no?

   So what is it about John McCain that drives Post Neo-Conservatives to distraction?  What makes them label him a dangerous liberal?  Could it be that he doesn't think the federal government should cut taxes for the wealthy during a time of war?  How about the fact that he believes that the issue of marriage does not belong in the U.S. Constitution?  Or maybe because he has actually worked harmoniously with the likes of Ted Kennedy and Russell Feingold?

   Your guess is as good as mine.  Truth to tell, the more-or-less liberal Americans for Democratic Action [ADA] gave McCain a "15" [out of 100] rating in the last Congress, while the far more conservative National Chamber of Commerce gave him a perfect "100" score.  The Family Reserach Council, which promotes marriage and family as the bedrocks of society said McCain agreed with their positions 75% of the time.  Compare this to the League of Conservation Voters, which graded McCain at a mere 29%.  Are these the grades of a liberal? 

   It will indeed be fascinating to see what all the Post Neo-Conservatives are going to do from now until November.  Will their visceral hatred for Senator Clinton and/or Obama permit them to support Senator McCain -- despite his "liberal" credentials?  Or, will Coulter campaign for Clinton, O'Reilly find fewer flaws in Obama, and Hannity stay home?

   Only time will tell.  But no matter how you look at things, 'Tis indeed the season to be loony.

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

While I have your attention, will everyone please wish my mother, Alice K. Stone, a very happy birthday?  On Feb. 8 she turns 84, still wears jeans and boots, and is even more passionately progressive than your humble correspondent!