Brad Warthen's Blog

Some things that I 'watch with horror'

First, a warning -- I've posted some disturbing images at the bottom of this post. They are painful to look at. If you wish to avoid them, do not scroll down!

Following up on my Sunday column, it occurs to me that it might be helpful to elaborate a little more on the proper meaning of "watched with horror." If you'll recall, the NYT used that phrase to refer to such practices as scanning telecommunications for terrorists without proper authorization, and imprisoning supposed terrorists at Guantanamo.

In the column, I gave examples from history of things that are more properly "watched with horror," if the words are to mean anything -- the Holocaust, the firebombing of Dresden, and the like. I included some from recent years -- genocide in Darfur and 9/11 -- but perhaps not enough. I can make it much more immediate than that.

The terror attacks in Mumbai are certainly something I "watched with horror," both from a personal and geopolitical perspective. Just days before it happened, my Dad had been reminiscing about having Shore Patrol duty in Bombay during his Navy career. That meant digging sailors out of some pretty sleazy dives, but it also meant staying at the Taj Mahal hotel. It was a shock to have that place suddenly in the news, and for something so horrific.

Two weeks ago, my brother was over there on business -- and of course, he would have been a target had he been there still. As my father would have been, long before. That was underlined for me in a sidebar piece the WSJ ran Friday, accounting for the employees of various international firms in Mumbai.

Stan Dubinsky from over at USC sent me an e-mail that had been sent out by Hesh Epstein, the Chabad rabbi here in Columbia, about the young Chabad rabbi and his wife killed by the terrorists -- presumably for the "crime" of being Jewish. I took a lecture course a couple of years back given by Rabbi Epstein (about Jewish beliefs regarding the Messiah, it was fascinating), and was deeply impressed by his devotion and scholarship. If it had been Hesh over there instead of that young man and his wife... the tragedy would have been far more personal. As it is, it's bad enough.

Too much personal? Then consider the overall death toll, and the geopolitical implications -- India is blaming Pakistan, and both countries have nukes.

I think what got me to thinking about the personal angles was Nicholas Kristof's column yesterday (beware the image if you follow the link!), which I chose this morning to put on tomorrow's op-ed page, and which started like this:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed.

Here in Pakistan, I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region...

This is something I "watch with horror," without even having to see it. Unfortunately, I DID see it, in a photograph with Kristof's column online. And it wasn't the first time I've seen such images. I had run across the ones you see below (with their original captions) a week or two ago when I was looking for something to go with a previous Kristof column, and had searched the AP archive for "Pakistan" and "women." The images all moved on the wire earlier this year.

This is the kind of thing that I believe the phrase "watched with horror" should be reserved for. And that's my point in posting these images. I almost put them in the paper, but I thought Kristof's column communicated the horror fully enough. As you know, one thing I use the blog for is to post things I don't put in the paper. Maybe I was wrong to balk at doing that. But as hardened as newspapermen are supposed to be, I hesitate even now to post them here. And yet, these pictures aren't as bad -- that is, the injuries aren't as recent -- as the cases Kristof wrote about.

Kristof and his wife received the Pulitzer for reporting on the democracy movement in China years ago. He deserves another one for telling these women's stories -- as he has done for the powerless (so often women) in Darfur and elsewhere. By horrifying decent people everywhere, he performs a great service.

Irum Saeed, 30, adjusts her scarf as she poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burnt on her face, back and shoulders with acid thrown in the middle of the street by a boy whom she rejected for marriage 12 years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Irum is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Three years ago three boys threw acid on her. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Shameem is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Attiya Khalil, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. Attiya's face was burnt with acid thrown by relatives of a neighbor boy whom she rejected for marriage around 3 years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery three times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Attiya is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

The failed hyperbole of the past eight years (column version)

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
QUICK, WHO said this?

    “Americans have watched in horror as President Bush has trampled on the Bill of Rights and the balance of power.”

    I’ll give you some hints:

A. Oliver Stone
B. MoveOn.org
C. An overexcited intern at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee
D. The New York Times

    The answer is “D.” Yes, I’m sorry to say that overwrought purple prose was the lead sentence last week in the lead Sunday editorial of the paper I was so recently congratulating for having the good sense to back the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. (And they made so much sense that day.)
    Editorial writers — particularly at one of the best papers in the country — are supposed to use words with care and discrimination. Some say I occasionally fail to do that. For instance, some say I was mean, nasty and ugly to Gov. Mark Sanford in my column last week. Go read the letter to the editor from the governor’s press aide that ran in Wednesday’s paper (as always, you will find links to that, and the NYT piece, and any other linkable item mentioned in this column, in the Web version on my blog — and the address for that is below). An excerpt:

    This editorial page was once respected as a voice for good government. Now, thanks to Brad’s childish screeds, fewer and fewer people are reading.

    And yet... I challenge you go find anything that I said in that column that comes anywhere near the unsupported, gross hyperbole of “watched in horror” or “trampled on the Bill of Rights.”
    So does President W. get all excited and whip off a letter to protest to the NYT? I doubt it. Nah, he just spends the week working with Barack Obama as though he were already in office, as though they were co-presidents — which, by the way, is exactly what he should be doing, in this extraordinary economic crisis. (I wonder: If this period of cooperation between the president and president-to-be does not lead to economic miracles, will someone look back on the interregnum in January and denounce “the failed policies of the past eight weeks?”)
    Democrats are thrilled that at long last, Bush will no longer be in office. Me, too. He can’t leave soon enough. But I’m even more thrilled that after January, I won’t have to listen to any more semi-deranged yammering about the guy. You know that I never liked him — he’s the guy who did in my guy (remember John McCain?) in the 2000 S.C. primary. But I have never, ever understood why some hate him so much. The Bush haters can’t simply say, “I disagree with Mr. Bush and here’s why.” They have to go way beyond reason in condemning him absolutely in terms that render him utterly illegitimate.
    Get a grip, people. It’ll be over soon.
    Oh, and for those of you who will say, “But the Times went on to support its statement” — no, it didn’t. Sorry, folks, but his playing fast and loose with federal law regarding wiretapping, to cite one example given, just doesn’t amount to “trampling on the Bill of Rights.” He should have worked from the start to change the law rather than skirting it (as our own Lindsey Graham and others urged), but he did nothing to instill “horror” in a rational person. You “watch in horror” as a gang of thugs rape and murder an old lady — you merely disagree with something so bloodless as monitoring telecommunications without proper authorization.
    Not following me? OK, here are some more things one might “watch with horror:” The My Lai massacre. The butchery in Rwanda in the 1990s. Gang-rape and mutilation of women in Darfur. The Hindenburg disaster. The Twin Towers falling on 9/11. The Japanese reducing Pearl Harbor to a smoking ruin. Men, women and children being herded into the Nazi death camps. The Bataan Death March.
    Get the idea? To apply those words, “watched with horror” to, for example, “the unnecessary invasions of privacy embedded in the Patriot Act” (you know, a law passed by Congress, which Congress can change at any time) as the Times did is to suck all of the meaning out of those words. Once you use those words to describe imprisoning terrorists (real or imagined) at Guantanamo (the main sin listed in the editorial), they no longer have force. If you watch that “with horror,” what words do you use to describe the fire-bombing of Dresden?
    People should not fling words about so carelessly. As a professional flinger of words, I know.
    Now I’ll fling a few more for you Democrats who are watching with horror as I “defend” the outgoing president (when what I’m really doing is defending the language): Folks, settle down. I get it; you don’t like the guy. You like Barack Obama. Well, so do I (he was, after all, my second choice for president). I expect that I, too, will prefer an Obama administration to the past eight years. He’s off to a good start.
    But before we say goodbye to this era, let’s resolve in the future to do what Sen. Obama does so well — speak with sanity and moderation, and mean what we say.

Read the Times piece and more at thestate.com/bradsblog/ .

1st black AG (yawn!)? Is anyone still keeping score?

So we're told Eric Holder would be another historic "first:"

WASHINGTON -- Eric Holder, a former No. 2 Justice Department official, has been told that he can become the nation's first African-American attorney general, a person with firsthand knowledge said Tuesday.

While Obama hasn't formally tapped Holder, one person with direct knowledge said "it's his if he wants it." This individual asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Beyond being a history-making appointment, Holder would be faced with some of the nation's most divisive legal controversies, including the Bush administration policies on torture, electronic eavesdropping, the extent of presidential power and the imprisonment of terror suspects without charges, trials or the right to challenge their detention....

Which makes me wonder: Now that everyone seems agreed that we just elected our first black president (my quibbles about the terminology aside), just how big a deal is it to have a black AG? Or whatever the job.

And at what point to we stop keeping track? When does it no longer excite comment? Or when does it get to be like baseball stats? I can hear my wife's cousin Tim McCarver saying, "Joe, this is the first time we've seen a mustachioed AG nominee chosen by a left-handed president from Hawaii in the post-election season..."

One war, two wars: But who's counting?

This morning we ran an editorial calling upon the nation to unite after the election, and quoting something S.C. Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex had said:

“What’s important for our students to know is that after elections, Americans come together,” Dr. Rex wrote. “We have enormous challenges ahead of us — a war on two fronts, an economy in crisis, a broken health care system, and so much more. We cannot stand to be divided one more day. Regardless of who wins, it’s time for us to work together to move this country forward and create a better, more stable America for our children and grandchildren."

Did you catch the little grace note there that made his message truly bipartisan -- his reference to "a war on two fronts?" In case you missed it, that is decidedly not the official Democratic Party version.

We were reminded of that last night in Barack Obama's otherwise gracious, affirming victory speech, in which he sincerely called on the nation to come together, but nevertheless repeated the official Democratic Party version of reality:

we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril...

And so we continue with the refusal to acknowledge either a) the global war on terror, or b) that Iraq is part of it. It makes me wonder: When we act against al Qaida in Somalia, or Yemen or Pakistan or Indonesia, are those third and fourth and fifth and sixth wars, etc.?

Sorry to be such a nitpicker. I truly thought Obama's speech was good, and appreciated its attempts to reach beyond party.

Likewise, I appreciated the graciousness of John McCain's acceptance speech, even though one could detect partisan difference in that even when he was trying the hardest to reach out:

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

Did you catch it? Yes, it's a very Republican thing to say those Americans "WRONGLY  believed that they had little at stake or little influence." Democrats would likely leave out the "wrongly."

Bottom line, I appreciated both speeches, for what they did, and more, for what they meant to do. I can think of no recent election in which both victor and defeated were so gracious at the critical moment.

But I'm an editor; I pick at words. And even while I'm applauding, these little flaws jump out at me. File them under the heading of "how far we have yet to go," even on agreeing about the nature of reality.

South of the Border

Some of y'all really hated it that I mentioned the Colombian Free Trade Agreement in the McCain endorsement -- which to me illustrates the no-win situation I saw myself in with all those loyal and devoted Obamaphiles out there. Nice people, many of them, but hard to please if you don't agree with them.

If I had just cited the usual reasons -- being right on Iraq, taking a stand on doing the right thing on immigration, being a war hero, etc. -- I would have been castigated for lack of original thought. So I decided to include something you might not have thought of -- and something that actually helped confirm my preference for McCain -- as a way of broadening the discussion. Perhaps predictably, I got the obvious response from those determined to find fault: Obviously you don't have any good reasons, since you drag this out of left field.

No win situation.

Doug mentions back on this post that The Economist has endorsed Obama. Well, a couple of days ago I was reading something in The Economist that reminded me of why the Colombian FTA is important to me, but also why y'all might have trouble understanding that.

Blame it on my upbringing -- or part of it, anyway. I spent two years, four-and-a-half months -- easily the longest I lived in one place growing up -- living in Guayaquil, Ecuador. From late 1962 through spring 1965. Like Obama in Indonesia, I saw a lot during that time that most nine-to-11 year olds growing up in the States don't see. For instance, I was not only there during a military coup, but I was in the house at the time during when the plot was being hatched, at least in part. Our landlord was a captain in the Ecuadorean Navy, and my parents had left me at the landlord's house while they went out one day. While I was there, a man came to visit the captain; they went into a room and closed the door. The next day, the president had been put on a plane to Panama, the man who had come to visit was a member of the new military junta, and our landlord had a big post in the new government. Minister of Agriculture, I think.

My guitar teacher, who had a little shop down by the waterfront where he made his own guitars by hand, was an agent for U.S. Naval Intelligence, I would later learn. And the missionary who preached at the nondenominational English-language services we attended on Sunday was working for the CIA. But not everyone was running things or plotting to run things. I remember the men who squatted in a circle in the dust of the vacant lot near our duplex as they bet on the cockfight in the center of their circle. I remember the smell of REAL poverty, the Third World kind, that arose from the poorest barrios of the city. It was different, very different, from living in this country.

I also remember people who were there working for JFK's Alliance for Progress program. And ever since I came back in 1965, I've been acutely conscious of the fact that most of my fellow Americans just don't give a damn one way or the other about these countries in their own backyards. JFK was the last.

This cultural indifference is definitely reflected in the mass media. So it is that I have to turn to such publications as The Economist to find out what's going on in the realm of the Monroe Doctrine. It's weird. Anyway, I got to thinking about that when I read this piece in The Economist the other day. It was about the irony that folks in Latin America seem to prefer Obama, even though it's McCain who cares about the region enough to learn about it:

OF THE two candidates in the American presidential election, it is John McCain who knows something about Latin America. Not only was he born in Panama, he also visited Colombia and Mexico in July. He thinks the United States should ratify a free-trade agreement with Colombia and, at least until it became politically toxic, wanted to reform immigration policy. Ask him who the United States’ most important friends around the word are and he pretty quickly mentions Brazil.

And yet if they had a vote, Latin Americans, like Europeans, would cast it for Barack Obama—though without much enthusiasm. Preliminary data from the latest Latinobarómetro poll, taken in 18 countries over the past month and published exclusively by The Economist, show that 29% of respondents think an Obama victory would be better for their country, against only 8% favouring Mr McCain. Perhaps surprisingly, 30% say that it makes no difference who wins, while 31% claim ignorance. Enthusiasm for Mr Obama is particularly high in the Dominican Republic (52%), Costa Rica, Uruguay and Brazil (41%). In Brazil, six candidates in this month’s municipal elections changed their names to include “Barack Obama” in them.

In the third presidential debate, I noticed two things (well, I noticed a lot of things, but two things related to this post): That McCain had cared enough to understand what it meant to support a trade agreement with a key ally in the region -- an agreement that could only be good for this country in terms of trade and jobs, and which affirmed a country that had undertaken huge sacrifices to ally itself with U.S. interests. That was the first thing. The second was that Obama seemed not even to have scratched the surface of the issue. His answer was such Big Labor boilerplate, it seemed plain that he had not looked into the issue or thought about it beyond his party's talking points.

To me, that spoke to things that were true about the two candidates in a broader sense -- experience, and the ability to differentiate between our friends in the world and those who wish us, and their own people, ill. I had been deeply impressed by the recent piece Nicholas Kristof -- a guy who almost certainly will vote for Obama -- had done on this issue, and the degree that Obama's answer utterly failed to look at the issue as knowledgeably and thoughtfully as Kristof had. And as McCain had.

I sat and talked to Ted Sorensen about Obama as the heir to Camelot, and was deeply impressed. But I've gathered since then that aura aside, Obama seems actually less likely to take the kind of interest in Latin America that Kennedy did. McCain is more likely to do so. Ironic, huh?

So to me it was more than, here's a little esoteric fact I know and you don't. To me, it mattered. But to me, South America has always mattered.

More movie, fewer grammar

Yow. I was just flipping channels, and stopped briefly on TNT, just long enough to see this promotional material down in the left-hand corner of the screen:

MORE MOVIE...
LESS COMMERCIALS

Not "fewer" commercials -- "less." I'm perfectly serious. The message comes through loud and clear: "More movie... less grammar."

Fortunately, Google tells me I'm not the first to notice this, so the country has not gone completely to pot. Except ... what does it say that this has been pointed out, apparently more than once, and nothing's been done about it? Folks, this is way, WAY worse than "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should."

Broder just won't go out on a limb

One of the reasons I had to quit the whole news gig back in the early '90s and turn to editorializing is that I got sick and tired of all the dodges, all the going out of your way NOT to say what you think. I'd rather just be straight-up with people, and opinion writing and editing lets you do that.

Still, I continue to have enormous respect for David Broder, even though (or perhaps because) he never fully made the transition. He's still a newsman to the core.

Take his column that I put on today's op-ed page. It's premise is that those pesky Pennsylvanians who went for Hillary just a few months ago are "part of a mass movement to Obama." You see, being at heart a reporter, David Broder does this thing where goes out and talks to regular folks and finds out what they're thinking. (And being an old-fashioned guy, he thinks of them as "voters" rather than "stakeholders".)

He backs up his premise reasonably well, to the extent that such a haphazard anecdotal approach is helpful. But apparently he doesn't trust his own observations. Here's how the piece started:

UPPER DUBLIN, Pa. — Last April, on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, voters in this Philadelphia suburb were finding plenty of fault with both Barack Obama and John McCain. Many were preparing to — and soon did — vote for Hillary Clinton, helping her to a decisive victory in Pennsylvania.

This week, those voters are part of a mass movement to Obama, driven by much greater familiarity with the Illinois senator’s views, and a pronounced distaste for McCain and running mate Sarah Palin.

The striking shift in Montgomery County, often a bellwether, makes McCain’s task of recapturing Pennsylvania from the Democrats look almost like Mission Impossible...

Say what? "Look almost like..."?!?!? Mr. Broder, either it LOOKS like it or it doesn't. We fully understand that if you go ahead and say it LOOKS like it to you, that's your opinion. And you're entitled to it; you're the Dean of American political writers. I think you can go ahead and say what you think. If not now, when? You're retiring at the end of the year. Take the plunge.

If it only "almost" looks like it, why bother us with it? What factor prevents it from looking entirely like it...

Anyway, stuff like this probably doesn't bother anyone but an editor. I'll go away now.

The problem with 'stakeholders'

No, not you, if that's what you call yourself. I've got nothing against you. I just don't like the word. Aside from it being bureaucratese, there's something ... presumptuous about it. As though one can accurately identify certain people as "stakeholders" which implies (but does not necessarily mean, I suppose) that some people are not.

I have this thing about the interconnectedness of all things that bridles at the notion that one can readily identify "stakeholders."

Then again, I suppose there's a small-R republican part of me that objects to the context in which I usually find the term. I believe in representative democracy, not the direct kind. Barack Obama and other community organizer types are probably a lot more comfortable with the word, and with the concept of including all "stakeholders" (which in a community organizer sense I suppose means everybody who shows up at your meeting) in the decision-making process. Me, I'm all for listening to folks, but at some point a decision has to be made by the folks elected to do so. And often, very often, the correct decision is going to anger "stakeholders." And far, far too often, elected officials nowadays lack the cojones to go ahead and make that decision, because they're so terrified of the "stakeholders."

Take, for instance, the issue of establishing a comprehensive center to deal with homelessness in metro Columbia. The city proper's government has repeatedly bollixed up efforts to make this happen, out of fear of a certain sort of "stakeholder" -- neighboring residents and business people motivated by the NIMBY principle. Here's the thing about that: This center would be good for the community as a whole, and would in fact pull homeless people OFF the streets in its immediate area and start dealing with their problems. It needs to go SOMEWHERE, and that somewhere needs to be a place that homeless people can get to.

You may recall that several sites have been rejected over the last couple of years, from the State Hospital property on Bull St. (which would have been perfect for the temporary site that was under consideration), to one right down the road from us (which was fine with us at the newspaper, but OTHER "stakeholders" objected, so it fell apart).

In recent days, the group of citizens that has been busting its collective hump to make this thing happen in SPITE of the city has been moving toward establishing the center at the current Salvation Army site on Main St. Some on city council have been pushing a site down by the canal that you and I can't actually see from the road (at least I haven't). Maybe that's a good site, but there are a couple of problems: The first is that the people who've actually been WORKING on the issue have a lot invested in the Main St./Elmwood site. The second is that, while the city council folks pushing the canal site say theirs is better because residential neighbors object to the Main/Elmwood one (true), now that word of it has gotten out, neighbors of the canal site are ready to sue as well (specifically, one big neighbor, the Canalside development). So it's a wash.

The other day I remarked to Warren and Cindi that what's needed is for the "stakeholders" OTHER than the neighbors need to get their act together and unite behind a site -- something that's supposed to happen in a meeting at 2:30 p.m. today, in fact -- and then deal with the objections of neighbors. Because the objection of neighbors is a constant. It's a wash. You have to deal with it either way. And the fact that some "stakeholders" are always going to be opposed cannot be allowed to prevent anything from happening.

Too many people who say "stakeholders" a lot think everybody has to be happy with a decision. As long as you're willing to face the fact that some "stakeholders" will be unhappy even when you do the right thing (and some of them especially if you do the right thing), then by all means, go ahead and use the word.

What, you ask, set me off on this topic? Oh, I was cleaning out my e-mail from recent days, and ran across this, which is really unrelated to my rant about the word:

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct. 8, 2008

DHEC announces water stakeholder meetings

COLUMBIA – As part of an evaluation of the uses and quality of South Carolina's freshwater, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control will be holding stakeholders meetings across the state, the agency announced today.

"Stakeholders will have an opportunity to share their thoughts on freshwater quality standards, classifications, and uses, as they relate to recreation," said David Wilson, chief of DHEC's Bureau of Water. "We'll be sharing information and also will be available to answer questions and concerns....

I'm guessing that since this was a public announcement, "stakeholder" means anybody who shows up, although maybe I'm misunderstanding. Used to be we were "citizens," or "the public." But now we're "stakeholders," and are we any better off for it? I don't think so.

The opus is done; you'll see it Sunday

Well, I just finished writing what I consider to be my most provocative column of this long presidential election. At least, it's the most provocative to me. You have to consider that I didn't expect the John Edwards column to cause such a fuss. So maybe this one will be a dud; I don't know.

But I do know it's longer than any other column that I can ever remember publishing in the paper -- twice as long as usual. It will jump from the Sunday editorial page to the op-ed page. But then, I've thought about it a lot longer than I do most columns -- months, in fact. That's something it does have in common with the Edwards piece, although this one is much more complicated. Even at this length, it requires the reader to understand more than I have space to say. And maybe, because of that, it will be unintelligible. But a lot of my columns attempt to say more than I can denote in a limited space. This one just has more than usual to say.

Anyway, I look forward to your reactions to it. I think.

Obama and the 'bitter' remark

Cindi got on my case this morning, accusing me of being "obsessive" because I warned her and Warren that I might not have my "Barack Like Me" column ready for Sunday because I've got another 150 pages to read in his book, and I don't want to rush this one. (What that means is that I'll probably write something else, something less complex, for Sunday.)

Cindi's worried because there's only two Sundays left before we have tentatively planned to do our presidential endorsement, and I had planned sort of similar columns on both Obama and McCain. My response: We don't have to run them on Sundays. Yeah, it's a lame comeback, but it's all I had.

Both columns would be reflections on the candidates' formative experiences. I also want to read McCain's book about his background. But I don't know if I need to read all of that one, mainly because what I know about McCain's background is so familiar. Another Navy brat. I even met his father once at Pearl Harbor (he threw me off the tennis courts there near the O Club), during the time McCain was a POW. Maybe I'll find out different when I start reading, but I doubt I'll find many surprises.

But with Obama, I feel like there's so much to learn, so much to figure out. And he and I are alike in that respect, because he was motivated to write about his struggles to figure himself out. And I keep thinking that if I don't read the whole book, I'll miss something that is key, and get the whole thing wrong. So I'm still reading, at my own snail's pace.

Of course, there is so much in the book that I'll never have room to reflect in one column, even a longer column than usual. So let me share one thing I've noticed: You know that comment Obama made about white working-class types being "bitter" and clinging to their guns and religion, the one that got him into so much trouble with voters in Pennsylvania? (OK, I went and looked it up for you: "So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.")

Well, the Deer-Hunter demographic need not have been so offended. Obama talks that way about everybody. I know I have a tendency to be insensitive because I try to analyze people and issues dispassionately, and don't give nearly as much thought to how my words make people feel as I should. (Sorry about the "Deer-Hunter" thing; I meant it in a good way.) But Obama makes me look like Mr. Touchy-Feely. It's that "professor" thing. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing; maybe it's the key to his unflappability, which is important in a leader, and which has helped him get this far.

But sometimes, reading his book, I just have to go, "Whoa" as he coolly dissects another person or set of people. The cadences and concepts expressed are eerily like the "bitter" comment. For instance:

• About his maternal grandparents, who raised him: "Their principal excitement now came from new drapes or a stand-alone freezer. It was as if they had bypassed the satisfactions that should come with the middle years, the convergence of maturity with time left, energy with means, a recognition of accomplishment that frees the spirit. At some point in my absence, they had decided to cut their losses and settle for hanging on. They saw no more destinations to hope for."
• About black Americans in a white man's world: "Following this maddening logic, the only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage, until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness, of your own defeat."
• About dwellers of poor, black parts of Chicago: "For a people already stripped of their history, a people often ill-equipped to retrieve that history in any form other than what fluttered across the television screen..."
• About a waiter he encountered in Kenya: "He can't escape the grip of his memories. And so he straddles two worlds, uncertain in each, always off balance, playing whichever game staves off the bottomless poverty, careful to let his anger vent itself only on those in the same condition."

He has an unnerving lack of inhibition about putting himself in other people's heads and then presuming to explain them in uncompromising terms. And while there is a certain caring, something related to pity, in all such passages, it's hard to imagine the objects of such analysis being happy to be thus characterized. Sort of like being taken up into the spaceship and probed -- it's not a process likely to enhance your dignity.

So, like I said, the Pennsylvanian bowlers and Yuengling drinkers shouldn't feel special. Obama talks like that a lot.

Anyway, back to reading. Obama is in Kenya now...