Same-Sex Marriage: Obama’s Lincoln Moment

On Wednesday night, Governor John Baldacci of Maine signed legislation that he struggled to support. While governors are often pressed by their legislatures and constituents to support laws that they do not necessarily agree with, this bill—one that legalizes same-sex marriages—was a personal dilemma for the first-term governor. After weeks of agonizing over the decision, the Governor released a statement to the press that outlined the reasoning behind his eventual approval:

In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.

The first governor to sign a same-sex marriage bill, Baldacci touches on the heart of the same-sex marriage debate: The arguments for or against same-sex unions based on morality, religion, tradition, or any other logic is irrelevant. What matters is the law. And the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution that he refers to clearly states “[no] State [shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Which means that, like it or not, from Baldacci’s perspective, gays and lesbians should be entitled to the right to marry if straight people are allowed to marry.

Over the course of the past several months, four states have legalized same-sex marriage in their states: Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire (Massachusetts legalized gay marriage back in 2004). Recently, both New York and Washington D.C. have decided to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. And now there is talk that New Jersey may become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage in the coming months.

Throughout this civil rights upheaval,  President Obama and his administration have remained conspicuously mum. According to the New York Times, Obama has said that as a Christian he opposes gay marriage but remains a “fierce advocate of equality” for gay men and lesbians. And so far, he has remained true to that statement by pledging to sign a U.N. declaration, which Bush refused to sign before he left office, that calls for a worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality (the United States was the only western nation not to support the measure). Moreover, Obama has continually recognized qualified persons with same-sex sexual orientations for top level jobs: In his short time in office, he has appointed numerous openly gay officials for executive administrative positions and may be considering two prominent lesbian lawyers to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court.

Although the saying goes that “actions speak louder than words,” his silence is an action that may indicate his political discomfort with gay rights advocacy. During the election, he reiterated that same-sex marriage is an issue that should be decided by the states. And, to a certain extent, he’s constitutionally correct: There is currently no federal marriage license that any straight couple can apply for but, then again, opposite-sex couples who marry in their home state trust that their marriage will be honored no matter which state they travel to or live in. And while there is no federal law regulating straight marriages, the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress regulates same-sex unions. The Act explicitly outlines that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions performed in other states. That is a gross discrepancy.

While Obama has said that he supports a repeal of that legislation and of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy, he has remained virtually silent on the gay marriage issue since he took office and has chosen to not comment on the landslide of same-sex marriage laws in recent months. Although this issue may not seem like a priority for the administration when they have an economic crisis and two wars to contend with, it should be a priority for the president since Obama has repeatedly stated that he wants America to rebuild and renew its reputation in the world. In a 2007 article he wrote for Foreign Affairs, he stated:

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world — that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders. […] They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.

Yet, how can those freedoms be realized if America does not follow its own laws and ensure that all of its own citizens receive the same “protection” under the law? If President Obama is going to continue to reiterate that marriage laws should be left to the states, then he should actively pursue a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act since it is a federal measure. So too, if he wants America to “lead by deed and example” then he must show support for states that have passed inclusive marriage legislation and encourage others to do the same. It sets a very bad “example” to have some areas of the country have more “freedoms” for its citizens than others.

Or, Obama could take a cue from his favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln took office in 1861, he viewed slavery as a states’ issue and expressly stated that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.” However, two years later, he delivered his Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves because it was “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution.” Certainly, it is thorny comparison between slavery and gay rights and America is not in a civil war where gay marriage is, like slavery was, the catalyst for domestic combat; nevertheless the United States is at a civil rights crossroads that needs to be addressed by the President. Had Lincoln chosen to never take that stand on slavery, decided to put it off until later, or thought he could leave the responsibility on to the next administration, Obama may have never even had a chance to be our president. Obama should take a page from the book of his presidential idol and realize that, regardless of the political risk, he is obligated as America’s national leader to stand up for the rights of all Americans.

Obama has continually said that he wants his presidency to speak to and for all Americans. In his famous Democratic nomination acceptance speech, Obama evoked Martin Luther King and reiterated that “now is the time” for the United States to rebuild and renew:

[I]n America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one. “We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

Indeed, we cannot turn back and now is certainly the time.

Metrics, Mistakes, and Opportunities for Growth

Overall, I am a big fan of metrics. I truly believe that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Presidents are often measured on a 100-day metric, “The First 100 Days” as a phrase often chirped by the media. Questions have persisted recently about how realistic a metric this is. With President Obama, many believe that this amount of time will not be sufficient to even begin to make a dent in the serious deficits (both moral and economic) that were left behind by the previous President. Some have proposed that the end of 2009 might be a better metric. With most economists speculating that the current deep recession will not turn around under a best-case scenario until late 2009, this seems a bit fairer.

However, after less than 20 days, for many on the far left and far right, Obama’s honeymoon has already ended. No one expected his honeymoon with those on the far right to last long. However, the fact that the far left have in many cases already turned on Obama is disconcerting.  For example, check out some of the comments on this thread from OpenLeft.

Yes, Obama has made some blunders, but I do not believe that these mishaps have been anywhere near fatal errors. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, let’s take a look at two areas where I believe Obama actually has made a mistake, and more importantly, how I believe he can use this mistake as a learning experience. As a human being, everyone makes mistakes, even presidents. The question is not whether a mistake was made during the beginning days of a presidency, but rather whether action was taken to learn from that mistake. In general, this includes a root-cause analysis with corrective action going forward. For example, President Kennedy took the Bay of Pigs failure and used it as the impetus to change the decision-making process in his inner circle. This fundamental change helped get rid of the previous group think and helped avert a disaster in the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred the next year. Yes, the Bay of Pigs was unfortunate. However, if the Bay of Pigs mistake had not happened, the same disaster, at a billion times the magnitude (i.e., nuclear holocaust) could have occurred the following year. Working with the subject of patient safety in health care, I am exposed to this type of analysis all the time. Most errors are not the fault of one person, but rather the result of a misaligned organizational structure that does not catch errors or raise the proper questions.

Let’s take a look at two examples of what I believe have been mistakes and how the Obama administration could possibly learn from them going forward:

1. Tom Daschle Appointment

As a health care policy wonk, I found the developments with Tom Daschle the most disappointing developments to date. As I wrote here, I believed Tom Daschle would have been a perfect fit to get real health care reform through Congress. Granted, I write this before it is clear who Obama’s replacement choice may be, and this choice may surprise us all. However, when it came to the pure Washington knowledge needed to get something through, Daschle was the man. However, this greatest strength also came to be Mr. Daschle’s greatest weakness.  To me, the tax issue was an aside. The biggest problem was that Daschle became emblematic of the Washington insider’s sense of entitlement or the lobbyist rotating door cycle of greed that Obama campaigned against. When taking office, Obama seems to have caved on some of this campaign rhetoric in favor of practicality, with the reality that you must work within the system in order to get anything done.  Overall, this is unfortunate, but largely correct. However, there is a line to be passed; there is a needed sense of accountability and most importantly transparency in government. Tom Daschle crossed this line, and more importantly, did not disclose these transgressions. The fact that no one in the Obama transition raised questions about Daschle’s past lobbying or tax issues is very troubling. The dilemma is that in order to get anything accomplished, you must work within the system (even if you are independently working to change it). However, at the same time, if the system is broken, you cannot try to make lasting change with those who have become one with the system. Finding a cabinet secretary who can meet this requirement is easier said than done.

The solution here is perhaps to create two positions, one for a “health care czar” to handle the political issues and another for Secretary of HHS to handle the technical aspects and realities of health care reform. Ideally, there would also be an independent board appointed outside of the political realm to handle tough decisions related to such issues as cost effectiveness and reimbursement. Such tough decisions must be brought outside of the direct influence of lobbyists. Outside of being a health care expert, President Obama must make sure that he finds individual(s) with the complex mix of insider knowledge and outsider credibility, and most importantly, that any such person is properly vetted.

2. Stimulus Bill Negotiations

Although successful in the end, President Obama severely underestimated his opponents in the negotiations over this package. In a gesture of bipartisanship, Obama offered a large percentage of the bill as tax cuts in his first proposal to Congress, thinking that this would lead to widespread Republican support and easy passage of the bill. This was naïve at best, possibly political malpractice if repeated in the future. One of the big lessons out of this is that outside of a few Republican Senators, the Republican party is not a moderate party. The last two election cycles have defeated most Republican moderates in swing districts and turned the once great party of Abraham Lincoln into nothing but a regional party controlled by the Deep South. There is no incentive for most of these members, outside of people like Arlen Specter who are up for reelection in blue states, to be for a stimulus package. If the stimulus is a success, it doesn’t matter how they voted because the Democrats will get the credit. If the stimulus package fails, there will be a real opportunity for Republicans who voted against it to claim they were in the right. Therefore, a simple logic tree would have shown Obama and his political team that there was no incentive for the Republicans to compromise on this bill.

Hopefully, Obama’s political team will learn from this mistake in the same way that Kennedy’s team learned from the Bay of Pigs disaster. From now on they must give nothing without getting something in return. Bipartisanship only works if someone is willing to meet you in the middle.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the far right needs to be ignored, the far left needs to chill out, and the Obama administration needs to methodologically look at and learn from their early mistakes. If the Obama administration is to be successful, odds are that these early mistakes will be looked back at not as blunders, but rather as invaluable learning opportunities for a young presidency.

Obama’s Progressive Street Cred

The selection of Rick Warren for the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration is troubling, to say the least. Many progressives are rightly outraged at the selection of a man who is virulently anti-choice and homophobic. Yet, this is only the latest in a series of Obama decisions that has left many progressives wondering who it was, exactly, they voted for. Apparently, “change” looks a lot like the Clinton administration. Rahm Emanuel is back. So is Eric Holder, formerly Deputy Attorney General. Most conspicuous of all, Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State. A bevy of liberal-but-not-quite-progressive apologists have tried to explain away all of Obama’s decisions. Here is a list of some of their justifications:

• Obama is pursuing Abraham Lincoln’s “team of rivals” approach. Authors of this justification also cite Lyndon Johnson’s phrase: it’s better to keep one’s enemies “on the inside, pissing out” rather than “on the outside, pissing in.” By keeping his enemies in the White House, those enemies are not in Congress or on K Street trying to defeat his plans.
• Remember how we all said for six months that Obama’s qualifications don’t matter? Not so much. As such, he’s surrounding himself with a group of people who have experience working in a presidential administration, and the last Democratic presidency was Bill Clinton’s, so it only makes sense that he would choose people from there.
• Obama is sneakier than he seems (think I, Claudius, I suppose). He’s putting a lot of center-left (and, in some cases, center-right) Washington establishment politicians in key positions to pay lip service to that establishment. Don’t worry, it’s only a front. The real reforms are going to happen, but from behind a veil of mainstream non-reform. That’s the only way he can get things done down there.
• Obama does not want to continue the divisive politics of George W. Bush. Even though it might anger those on the hard left, Obama would rather heal and reconcile than punish.  Turn that cheek!

Some of these justifications are disturbing. The last one, that Obama should be conciliatory instead of punitive, is put forth by people who believe that the crimes of the George W. Bush administration should not be investigated. The country needs to heal, they say. It’s time to get on with the business of the United States, where “business” is defined so as to exclude investigations of the previous administration. Of course, this logic ignores the fact that the law has been broken. As Glenn Greenwald has observed, politicians are more than ready to throw the full force of the law at marijuana dealers, but when it comes to prosecuting their own, politicians are equally ready to be lenient, even though the marijuana dealer harmed no one and the politician may have, oh, I don’t know, been responsible for torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretapping at the least. When crimes are committed, they should be investigated and prosecuted – not just for poor people, but for everyone, including politicians. For Barack Obama to suggest that Bush administration criminals should go free is to suggest that politicians live in a special class above the reach of the law. It also encourages more illegal activity in the future, once it is known that the government won’t prosecute those activities.

Furthermore, it’s not even up to Barack Obama to decide what is or is not investigated. The cult of personality surrounding him is great (in fact, it contributed to getting him elected), but even though we like him we must not forget that, as the president, he has constitutional limitations. It was irresponsible for the media to even ask what Barack Obama thought about Joe Lieberman being kicked out of the Democratic caucus. On November 5, Obama’s life as a senator ended, even though he didn’t officially resign the position until three weeks later. The president has absolutely no say – none! – in the operation of Congress. It would be different if Obama were acting in his capacity as a senator, but after winning the presidential election, especially in a nation eager for a new leader, any notion of Obama acting solely in his capacity as a senator would be extremely naïve. Obama must repudiate the unconstitutional powers that George W. Bush has claimed for himself, either through complete fabrication or malicious misreading of constitutional law.

Given his opinion of things like same-sex marriage (he tactfully says that same-sex couples should not be allowed to “marry” as such, but then says that they should have the same rights as heterosexual couples), NAFTA/CAFTA, and Israel, no one could confuse him for a true progressive. Obama’s apologists rationalize his decisions by pointing out that Obama never claimed to be a progressive at all!

Or could they? George W. Bush’s method of saying-without-saying is well-documented. While he never explicitly said that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11 attacks, there is definitely a reason why, in 2001, virtually no Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible, but in 2003, one third of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible.

Could it be that Barack Obama, whose campaign P.R. was spectacular, performed the same saying-but-not-saying function? Yes, it is entirely possible that Obama clothed himself in the cloak of progressivism while still wearing the mainstream Democrat’s clothes underneath. He has suggested massive new spending on entitlement programs, but he wants to increase the size of the military. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire, but he voted in favor of retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that assisted the administration in warrantless wiretapping. His foreign policy goals consist of using real diplomacy instead of threats, but he voted in favor of NAFTA. He wants to provide government health care for people who have no health care, but he stops short of suggesting a universal-payer system like Canada’s or Great Britain’s. Obama’s positions are a wash: for every progressive-sounding idea, there is another conservative-sounding one to balance it out.

Or, on the other hand, it could be that Obama never suggested anything, but that he was forthcoming about his non-progressive credentials. It could be that we, the progressive Americans, were so thirsty for a change that we latched onto the only candidate (outside of Dennis Kucinich) who even brought up the issue of health care reform (at those early Republican primary debates, not a single candidate brought up the issue of health care), social reform, and getting out of Iraq (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards failed on at least one of these). We projected onto him the candidate we wanted him to be, ignoring the fact that he was not that candidate. Did we set ourselves up for disappointment? Yes, that is possible, too.

And then there’s the argument that all this complaining is pointless, that Obama isn’t even the president yet, and we should all just wait and see what happens on Jan. 20. Well, Rick Warren will happen Jan. 20, and that gives me even less optimism that, at noon on that day, Obama will suddenly throw aside his centrist mask and shout, “You fools! You thought I was just like Bill Clinton! But you were wrong! Free health care for everybody!” Agreeing to take part in Warren’s Saddleback (which sounds dangerously like “bareback”) debate with John McCain, Obama could conceivably have been seen as paying lip service to evangelical Protestantism, just like every president since Nixon has had to do. But putting Warren on the bill for Inauguration Day? Imagine if George W. Bush had hired Hillary Clinton to give a speech at his second inauguration. Yeah, it’s like.

Most troubling in my opinion, though, is Obama’s own insistence, ever since March of 2007, when he announced his candidacy, that he is not an ordinary politician. His grassroots, fifty-state strategy was unparalleled in its success. His speech about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was intelligent and it treated the American people as though they, too, could understand long speeches that contained nuanced thoughts, as opposed to the Manichean sound bites of George W. Bush. His political maturity happened after the Vietnam War era, and, as Andrew Sullivan has suggested, the very core of his being is not instilled with a reflexive fear of Republicans and conservatism.

Conservatism demands the acknowledgment of a false dualism in every aspect of life, with the promise that conservatism will lead people to the correct side of this duality. Democrats buy into this framework and then try to argue the opposite side. The true progressive would never let the Republicans frame the debate and then proceed to work within their ill-conceived framework. To the progressive, there is no debate about whether or not health care should be free, or if there should be a premium for minimum services, or if the government should control it. The answer is: the current system of privatized health care doesn’t work and it should not be repaired, it must be rebuilt from the ground up. Obama appeared unafraid to work outside the existing framework and create a new framework that works in the interests of everyone. “Should it be a public solution or a private solution?” is not the correct question. “What solution is best for the country?” Now that’s the right question. It’s a question that Obama appeared to be asking during the campaign, but one that is being substituted by justifications for increasingly conservative behavior.

Team of Dysfunctional Rivals

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, has been all the rage lately, as President-elect Obama constantly cites it as a book from which he has learned a lot. For the sake of our country, I hope that he means that he has learned a lot about the general historical context and how to tell a good story. Because, if he is drawing on this book for factual accuracy, we are in for some problems. There is nothing wrong with Goodwin’s book, in the same sense that there is nothing wrong with historical fiction. Dr. Goodwin is a wonderful writer and an even better cult of personality. She takes history to the mainstream in a way for which every serious historian should be thankful.  Her eulogy at Tim Russert’s memorial service was graceful and poignant. However, her work should not be taken for God’s word. It isn’t the past plagiarism allegations or the fact that Dr. Goodwin does relatively little of her own research (a team of countless research assistants are said to do the bulk of the work for Dr. Goodwin) that particularly bothers me. In fact, the latter probably explains the former. What bothers me is that her work, like that of other historians-lite such as Michael Beschloss are taken as historical fact by the mainstream media and many of our politicians.

In an excellent op-ed piece in the November 19 issue of the New York Times, historian and Lincoln expert James Oakes wrote about how dysfunctional Lincoln’s cabinet was. This is an excellent read. (I also recommend Oakes book on the relationship between Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass.)

In this light, let’s go through some popular myths about Lincoln’s team of rivals that Oakes dismisses.  Not all these myths are portrayed in Team of Rivals, but each has become part of the conventional wisdom in recent weeks.  As such, many of the quasi-facts in Goodwin’s book have taken on a life of their own in the meme of the talking heads.

Myth 1: Lincoln selected rivals from other political parties.

This is not fact. Lincoln selected other Republican rivals, but not Democratic ones.

Myth 2: This practice was unique and unprecedented.

Far from it, this was common practice in that day. Many horribly unsuccessful Presidents, such as Lincoln’s predecessor James Buchanan also followed this practice. Oakes does a good job of giving us the history here. Does anyone remember stories of the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr? Hate to tell you, but those rivals were both part of Thomas Jefferson’s cabinet.

Myth 3: The cabinet worked well together.

Oakes dismisses this and seems to say that Lincoln succeeded not because of his cabinet, but in spite of it.

You may ask, why all this matters. It matters in the current context because if Obama is going to use Goodwin’s book for historical guidance in selecting his cabinet, it is important to know what really happened back in the 1860s. With this knowledge, perhaps one can better judge whether someone like Hillary Clinton is the best choice.

Now let me be clear–no matter how intriguing it might be–I’m not expecting any duels between Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano. However, we can expect some friction and not all of it will be healthy. Is this proposed “team of rivals” model better than classic JFK-LBJ cabinet groupthink that got us into the Bay of Pigs, and arugably led to the disaster in Vietnam? Of course.  Is it better than the one-man fiat of the last eight years (by the way, that one man is not George W. Bush)? Of course. However, we should be careful to draw historical parallels from half-truths and a good story.  Also, we should try to back up a step and determine whether one Republican and one Hillary Clinton truly make a team of rivals. Finally, even if we assume that Obama is aiming for a team of rivals, that he is drawing lessons from Kearns Goodwin, and that Kearns Goodwin’s outline of this history was completely accurate (huge ifs), we would still need to consider the differences in the context of those times that make extending such broad lessons next to impossible in the different world of today. As divided and red and blue states may seem, this not 1860, and we are much more united as a country than many partisans would like to admit.

What Today Means

Today is not just about voting Barack Obama into office. It’s like a national colon cleansing. Today, hopefully, we will vote to restore the rule of law and the Constitution to their rightful places. Today, we will vote to end the doctrine of preemptive war, dial down the militarism, and begin focusing on fixing the problems we have in this country rather than starting new problems in other countries. John McCain would indeed continue the failed policies of George W. Bush, but voting for Obama is not merely about making sure McCain doesn’t become president. It’s about removing the Republican Party from power and in so doing, sending its operatives a clear message that we will no longer stand idly by as our nation engages in war, terror, and torture in our names, under the moniker of protecting the “homeland.” We will no longer watch as we are told that the government is not here to help us, that we should not help each other, but that we should fend for ourselves, and if we lack the wealth or imagination to do so, then so be it.

For eight years I have not been proud of the United States. It has engaged in atrocities that I had never thought a country as grand as ours could engage in. Most cynically, the president, vice president, and the Republican Party used the spirit of cooperation that existed after September 11 (Karl Rove’s imagined memories to the contrary) as their ticket to pure, unbridled power. In attempting to analyze why things have happened the way they have, this is the conclusion I come to: power. Though we often want to ignore the more animalistic parts of our brains, the limbic systems of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and others are alive and well and thirsty for control. I can think of no other explanation.

The machinery that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton designed to prevent the concentration of power is failing us as the executive asserts ever more “powers” that are not to be found in statues or the Constitution. As long as the Republican Party remains in control of the country, that machinery will continue to deteriorate.

This is not to say that the Republican Party has always been bad. It was once the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. It was once the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who helped create the America we know today. Even Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency; but Nixon’s contempt for the law was his own, not the party’s.

But the Republican Party has mutated into something that none of the above people would recognize today. Even Ronald Reagan, the venerable godfather of modern conservatism, would not recognize the Republican Party. Its sleaze knows no bounds: like a feral dog, it resorts to its most primal responses when threatened. As it has sensed, over the past few weeks, that its time is up, it has tried to associate Barack Obama with terrorists, socialists, Marxists, Muslims, and anyone else it thinks are evil. When that has failed, experience has shown us that it will resort to trying to forcibly stop people from voting, by placing “observers” at polling places to question legitimate voters’ registrations (in swing states only), intentionally delivering too few voting machines to Democratic precincts, or attempting to cut Democrats from voter lists altogether.

Karl Rove’s attempts to create a “permanent majority” have led to an undeniable fact: the Republican Party of 2008 does not care about anyone but itself. It seeks to enrich itself, to place its operatives in positions of power so that those operatives can amass wealth, and most of all, power. The party that clothes itself in patriotism is, underneath the bloody flags it wears, virulently unpatriotic. “Patriotism” involves respect for the nation and its people. The modern Republican Party has nothing but contempt for the nation and its laws, especially when those laws get in the way of its quest for power. And the people? The modern Republican Party doesn’t care about anyone who is not an elite member of the party. George W. Bush would be perfectly happy to throw Joe the Plumber to the sharks — if, that is, he didn’t need Joe’s vote.

And then we come to soldiers. Time and time again, President Bush has shown that he doesn’t care about soldiers. He wants meat that can absorb bullets in his ill-begotten, ill-fated War on Terrorism. Once the meat comes home to its family, brimming with trauma — both physical and mental — from the experience of war, President Bush has fought as hard as he can against paying for that meat, which it turns out, is a living, breathing human being that must now be taken care of.

Today is probably the nation’s most important day in many, many years. A vote for Obama is a tourniquet to stop eight years’ worth of hemorrhaging caused by a party that couldn’t care less about anyone but itself. A vote for McCain is a vote to continue things as they have been, despite his protestations to the contrary. McCain has demonstrated — not the least through the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate — that the modern Republican Party will continue to play an intimate role in the operation of the United States, as it has for eight years. Four more years of that will run our country’s veins dry.

Barack Obama does represent change. He represents hope. He represents a return to the Constitution, a return to the values of equal protection under the law, a return to a nation that defends itself when actually threatened and not a nation that attacks other countries due to perceived threats. A President Obama will lead a nation that we can be proud of again.