From Hall Monitor:

“In her speech to the Vermont AFL-CIO organization, [Progressive candidate for Auditor Martha] Abbott called on the Governor to support closing the capital gains loophole in state tax policy,” the release said.

Then it quoted Abbott:

“If Governor Douglas truly cares about making Vermont more affordable for the ordinary WORKING person, why has he not proposed doing away with this giant capital gains loophole and using the savings to lower property taxes?”…

…Informed that Douglas did, indeed, once propose to do something about the capital gains exlcusion, Abbott gave us her best “Emily Litella” moment (for those who don’t remember, Emily Litella was a character performed by the late, great comedian Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live who ended her tangent-laden screeds with “Never mind.”)

“I guess I owe him an apology,” she said.

Okay, look – it was a strange decision for Abbott to decide to run so directly against the Governor. And it was bizarre to fire off a press release based on an impulsive impression of what reality must be as opposed to what it actually is. But I wasn’t going to blog on this until I saw her getting beat up for it in the comments on another site. For my part, I don’t want to beat up on her, but want to instead focus on those seven words: “I guess I owe him an apology”.

Try to remember the last time a politician actually apologized for something (and I mean a real apology, not one brought on for a little strategic self-preservation). Now think of how many politicians of all stripes – Dem, Prog, Republican, Green, whatever – have actually done things that merit an apology.

The MO after such a gaffe is usually to scramble to ratchet up your attack in a desperate bid to get the spotlight onto somebody – anybody – else.

I’m a parent, and if there is one lesson I try to impart to my own kids it’s this: the ability to apologize is perhaps the greatest measure of character. Everybody everwhere does or says things they shouldn’t, and I believe good people are to large extent defined as such by their capacity to recognize and take responsibility for their misdeeds, from the smallest offhand slight up.

In our every-person-for-themselves, it’s-all-about-me culture, however, apologies are often treated as signs of weakness. The reality is that they’re an indicator of moral strength. We don’t want to apologize because it’s hard to. It’s no fun. So we give into weakness and rationalize it by casting it as a moral virtue. “It’s a free country.” “That’s just the way I am.” “Who cares what you think?”

This is how we end up electing a president who takes pride in refusing to admit mistakes or act in such a way that suggests he has anything to learn from anybody. And he is applauded for this. It’s “tough.”

Good for you, Martha. Take your lumps and move on. Hopefully my kids will do the same when they screw up the next time. And hopefully I will too.

“Pardon Me”

It’s the new game in town, brought to us by none other than the Deciderer, grand Inquisitor of the new crusade.

See, the President has spent the last 5 years promoting and ordering torture. Torture is immoral. That’s why 194 countries, led by the United States (back in the days when we actually held the moral high ground in the world), cobbled together the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions prevented thousands of our soldiers from torture in the dark days of WWII.

The Geneva Conventions were heralded as a sign of humanity’s commitment to true and lasting civilization. It was a commitment to the belief that as humans, we are better than frightened animals; a commitment to the belief that we are better than petty, cruel, murderous barbarians.

The Father of our country, George Washington, did not allow his troops to torture the British. Washington understood something that the stunted adolescents now occupying office in the city that bears his name don’t: torture is wrong, inhumane, immoral, and counterproductive.

“Always some dark spirits wished to visit the same cruelties on the British and Hessians that had been inflicted on American captives. But Washington’s example carried growing weight, more so than his written orders and prohibitions. He often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies. … Even in the most urgent moments of the war, these men were concerned about ethical questions in the Revolution.”

Now, in the city named after the man who started the uniquely American trend away from petty cruelty and vengence, the current President and his apologists are playing the game of “Pardon Me.”

[More after the jump…]

It goes something like this:

1. Do something so deeply immoral that all of the civilized world signed a treaty agreeing never to do it again.
2. Keep making excuses for this immoral behavior until it looks like you’re actually about to get caught red-handed, because some of your victims are about to be interviewed by a neutral international humanitarian organization.
3. Then, as the fan starts to spin and the manure pile starts to stink … grant yourself a pre-emptive pardon!

It’s easy: Just submit a bill (a kind of back-door Presidential Pardon – for yourself) that “clarifies” the wording of the treaty – wording that has saved countless numbers of our soldiers from inhumane treatment over the decades, through at least 4 wars and 8 presidents. Rewrite it to make it “clear” that you’re excusing yourself for your own immoral acts. It’s just like excusing yourself from going AWOL, or excusing yourself from illegal drug use, or heck, even from skipping school.

What’s one more excuse? So what if it hands our children over to cruel abusers beyond imagining? So what if it turns America from a shining beacon of morality into just another petty bully on the world stage? So what if it means lower-quality information from our prisoners, leading us to waste millions on wild goose chases and causing us to kill, maim, and torture innocents on the way?

So what?

Well, Pardon me, but I know we’re better than that.

For hundreds of years, from George Washington all the way through to Bill Clinton, we have been better than that. We must not let this petty President excuse himself for his behavior. He doesn’t get a “pass” just because he’s not used to taking responsibility for his actions. If anything, it’s high time someone taught him about the importance of personal responsibility – that there are consequences when you do something wrong.  It’s something most kids learn from an early age.

It’s time for those who are required to provide 2/3 of the Checks and Balances built into the Constitution to take their obligation seriously. Do not pass ANY of the laws that seek to change or reinterpret the wording of the Geneva Conventions – the treaty that brought a new level of hope and security to the civilized world.

Compromising our integrity and our morality is inexcusable.

Call or write your Representatives and Senators and tell them you won’t accept any more excuses. Tell them that you will accept neither the President’s Detainee Bill, nor any proposed compromise bill.

[cross-posted on my blog]

With the Religious Right a factor in each of my last three diaries, it seemed apropos to mention an interesting new blog set up by left-wing evangelical preacher (yes, you read that right) Jim Wallis that examines religion in politics. As part of the blog’s kickoff, Wallis (the author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It) has engaged in a civil back-and-forth with former Christian Coalition Golden Boy (and failed political candidate) Ralph Reed on the value and viability of the Religious Right today. Wallis and Reed are engaging in a fascinating exchange, a few choice bits of which I’ll excerpt below the fold.

A long overdue conversation, and an excellent use of the medium. I personally don’t agree with Wallis’s view of the world, but this is compelling stuff – and many of the blog comments are worth reading as well. Warning: there is plenty of material to make you really angry here, but it’s often very refreshing and politically encouraging. Wallis is a clear, no-nonsense advocate for evangelicals to look beyond the twin issues of abortion and gay rights which the GOP has manipulated into an exclusive political primacy in the eyes of Christian activists, to the intentionally excluded issues of poverty and environmentalism (to name only a couple).

And even on the hot button issues of gay rights and abortion, Wallis challenges Reed and other Religious Right activists to look beyond the politics of division and reach out to liberals to build proactive strategies to advance their beliefs, such as ways to make abortions less common, or means to address real threats to family stability by supporting married couples and families instead of mindlessly scapegoating gays and lesbians.

From Wallis’s first post:

I believe a debate on moral values should be central in American politics. The question is, of course, which values? Whose values? And how should we define moral values? The problem is when one side of the political spectrum (your side) tries to define values as meaning only two things – opposition to same-sex marriage and criminalizing abortion. And while those two have become “wedge issues” that your side has effectively used for quite partisan purposes, many of the pressing problems our society confronts have an essential moral character. Issues regarding the sacredness of life and family values are indeed very important, and need a much deeper moral discussion; but there is also a broader moral agenda that reflects all the values Americans care about.

Reed returned with:

Religious conservatives did not create this issue and did not seek it out to benefit the Republican Party; indeed, most of them were Democrats until the 1980’s. But the nation’s conscience is unsettled by one out of every three pregnancies ending in the death of an unborn child, and people of faith should address it persistently and prominently. And when the courts began to impose a redefinition of marriage, people of faith were right to speak out consistent with their beliefs and values.

In the end, what separates religious conservatives from their liberal coreligionists is not a broad versus a narrow agenda, but rather a liberal versus a conservative agenda.

Wallis again, in his next post:

The Religious Right has now lost control of the evangelical political agenda and here’s why.

One year after the television images of Katrina were seared into our minds, thirty-seven million Americans still live in poverty, left out and left behind. Globally, thirty-thousand children die needlessly every day from hunger and disease. Certainly poverty is a moral value, and it clearly is for a new generation of evangelicals.

Despite official indifference and denial, the future of our fragile environment is in jeopardy as global warming continues unchecked. Caring for the earth that sustains us is also a moral value which young evangelicals now call “creation care.”

Insisting on full humanity and dignity for all people by opposing discrimination and oppression for ethnic or racial reasons, whether intentionally or due to systemic structures, is a moral imperative. Racism, human rights, sex trafficking, and genocide in places like Darfur are all now clearly on the Christian agenda.

Twenty-six hundred Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are now dead. Daily violence continues to spiral out of control. The cost and consequences of a disastrous war, that many now believe is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism, is a moral issue. And attacking the war’s opponents as appeasers does not answer the hard questions.

But you still don’t see many of the issues above on the political agenda of the Religious Right. In fact, some leaders of the Religious Right have tried to keep issues like the environment and poverty off the evangelical agenda for fear they would distract from same-sex marriage and abortion.

And the comments run the gamut, from the truly disturbing:

One more thing… Mr. Reed, you stated “In the end, what separates religious conservatives from their liberal coreligionists is not a broad versus a narrow agenda, but rather a liberal versus a conservative agenda.”

I disagree, and will offer this in support: “Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less…
Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.”

This is from George Grant’s book, The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action.

To the truly clarifying:

If people believe they are cared about by ‘God’s’ alleged servants, then there would have been less abortions. To show ‘God’s love and care’ as servants of God are suppose to, the Christian Right should have been pro every government program that would aid single mothers. Or women, who would have been willing to leave the hardhearted husband who was forcing them to ‘abort.’

Instead, the Christian right’s version of so-called “Christianity” is to condemn those who do have babies while simultaneously mouthing off about being against ‘abortion’ of babies.

This is there “straw-man” deceit before God and humanity. It was the political football to promote right wing politics.

Fascinating, informative stuff, and definitely worth a serious look.