Obama Hits Wrong Note with National Anthem

Of all the presidential candidates to make their feelings known about symbolic expressions of patriotism like flag lapel pins and the National Anthem, none has been more candid than Sen. Barack Obama -- hands down.

In early October, Obama told a TV reporter in Iowa that he had made a conscious decision to stop wearing a flag pin on his lapel, a standard fashion accessory for American politicians since 9/11.

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Obama's explanation impressed people who are sick of empty patriotic gestures like leaving a "These Colors Don't Run" bumper sticker on your SUV for so long that it fades. But his decision to make this reasoning public doesn't make sense at all.

Nothing good can come from being a presidential candidate who explicitly refuses to wear an American flag. It's a discussion you lose just by having, like holding a press conference to declare that you are so not gay.

Yesterday, Obama chose to defend a photo where he's shown with his hand down during the singing of the national anthem at a campaign event in Iowa. (Some reports incorrectly claimed it was during the Pledge of Allegiance.)

"My grandfather taught me how to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was 2," Obama told a reporter, expressing his annoyance. "During the Pledge of Allegiance you put your hand over your heart. During the national anthem you sing."

For starters, Obama's granddad was wrong. There are four rules you're expected to follow during the anthem, as anyone who attends a sports event knows: Remove your gimme cap, move your beer to your left hand, place your right hand over your heart and mumble the words. (There's one extra rule in Dallas: Yell the word "Stars!")

But with this issue, Obama has once again fed a discussion that gains him nothing and throws a bone to the Lee Atwater memorial wing of the GOP, which can't wait to define this guy in the minds of a public that hasn't formed a strong sense of him yet. While Americans are still getting to know Obama, they're being told that he won't wear a flag pin and doesn't cross his heart during the national anthem. And it's true!

Are there any other symbolic gestures that represent love of country that Obama can go on the record against? "God Bless America" is kind of egotistical! Mom's apple pie is loaded with carbs! The insertion of "Under God" in the pledge was a misunderstanding of what Abraham Lincoln meant! The wings on Captain America's head look stupid and do not confer the power of flight!

Politics · 2007/11/08 · 17 COMMENTS · Link

Ron Paul: The $4.2 Million Dollar Man

I gave $25 to Ron Paul Monday because I couldn't resist being part of the largest grass-roots fundraising day in the history of American politics. The libertarian Republican raised $4.2 million from 37,000 contributors, according to a final tally provided to USA Today, from an effort that wasn't even organized by the campaign.

The idea to raise his profile with a "money bomb" on Nov. 5 was the brainchild of Trevor Lyman, the publisher of ThisNovember5th.Com. Lyman adopted the incendiary metaphor of Guy Fawkes, using a literal anti-government revolutionary to attract attention to a rhetorical bomb thrower.

In an email Paul sent contributors, the straight-laced doctor sounded more like a child of the '60s than any of the Democratic candidates:

I have to admit being floored by the $4.2 million dollars you raised yesterday for this campaign. And unlike the fatcat operations of the opposition, the average contribution from our 36,672 donors was $103.

I say "you raised," because this historic event was created, organized, and run by volunteers. This is the spirit that has protected American freedom in our past; this is the spirit that is doing so again.

Some of the mainstream media have sat up and taken notice. Others have pooh-poohed our record online fundraising. But the day is coming -- far faster than they know -- when they will not be able to ignore our freedom revolution.

I like Paul, in spite of the fact that I believe in most of the government programs he'd like to see abolished. Liberals can find common cause with Paul on issues like opposition to the Patriot Act, an end to the war in Iraq and preservation of constitutional liberties. (On Social Security, Medicare and the Department of Education not so much.) Paul's one of the most ideologically consistent presidential candidates, voting his beliefs reliably during 29 years in politics, and he's a throwback to the days when Republicans had an uneasy relationship with government. Today's borrow-and-spend Republicans are just as likely to break the bank as the tax-and-spend Democrats of old, but they spend the money on military adventures and corporate welfare instead of social programs, and they lay the bill on our grandkids and great-grandkids.

The chord Paul's striking with disenchanted Americans is impressive, even as they drive right-wing sites like RedState to hysteria with their online activism. The stuff that disciples of Paul are creating on their own has been the most effective campaigning I've seen thus far, like the iconic Ron Paul Revolution banner:

This astounding fund-raising achievement should compel the media to take Paul more seriously, even though he's yet to show enough polling success to be a realistic threat to win the nomination. He's raising money at a faster clip than the other Republican candidates and can carry his effort all the way to Election Day as a third-party candidate, which is where he ran in 1988 as the Libertarian nominee.

Politics · 2007/11/07 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Steve Burns Goes From Blues to Rock

Question: Why did you shave your head? are you making a statement?

Answer: Yes. the statement is, "we have male pattern baldness."

This QNA comes from the web site of Steve Burns, the original Blue's Clues host and star of one of the greatest episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street. After leaving the green-striped shirt, salt and pepper shakers, and floppy-eared blue dog behind in 2002, Burns became an indie rocker who pals around with the Flaming Lips and does They Might Be Giants tribute covers.

File this weblog entry under Money, People Who Know What to Do With.

Television · Music · 2007/11/02 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Clinton Skirted Questions in Philly Debate

I caught the last 90 minutes of the Democratic presidential debate at Drexel University Tuesday night, which told me that Hillary Clinton thinks she can win the nomination without telling anyone what she'll do if elected.

Clinton had a commanding demeanor throughout the night, despite taking shots from every other candidate except for Bill Richardson, who appeared to be running for vice president with one of his answers. "I'm hearing this holier than thou attitude towards Senator Clinton, and it's bothering me because it's pretty close to personal attacks," he said, referring to comments portraying her as untrustworthy. "We need to be positive in this campaign. ... it's important that we save the ammunition for the Republicans."

The format treated Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama as the only candidates worthy of attention, which is a crying shame. Richardson, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd bring impressive credentials to the race and deserve equal time. (Dennis Kucinich's answer to the UFO question would have ended his political career if he had one.)

I'm trying to like Clinton, but all night long her answers were studiously vague. When asked whether she supports New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to issue driver's licenses to people here illegally, she supported it -- saying the plan "makes a lot of sense" -- before she opposed it -- saying "I did not say that it should be done." When asked whether she supports Rep. Charles Rangel's tax plan to replace the alternative minimum tax, Clinton had to be pressed by moderator Tim Russert before acknowledging that she didn't support it. Even then, she fell back on the hoariest excuse in politics -- claiming more information is needed before she can decide the right approach. Telling people you're going to have a solution is not a solution.

Obama didn't do anything last night to show he's capable of defeating Clinton or will ever aggressively make the case against her. His kinder, gentler approach to politics and soft platitudes about turning the page won't fly in the general election. The Republicans have a formidable spin machine ready to take down the Democratic nominee. Nothing I've seen thus far suggests that Obama can handle it.

In what little time they were given, Biden and Dodd impressed me the most. I'd vote for Biden if the Florida primary was held today, because he's intelligent, mindful of what government can and can't accomplish after 35 years of public life, and is a foreign-policy realist who could get us out of Iraq. He's also engaging as hell and loves the process of bringing the public to your side, a quality sorely lacking in the Decider. Peggy Noonan lamented earlier this month that Democrats don't seem to be taking Biden's campaign seriously. I second that emotion.

Politics · 2007/10/31 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Adding Atom:Link to Your RSS Feed

The RSS Profile includes a recommendation to add an atom:link element to an RSS feed to identify its URL, as in this example from my own blog:

<atom:link href="http://feeds.cadenhead.org/workbench" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />

To make this work, all I had to do was declare the atom namespace in the feed's rss element:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">

The addition of atom:link, by letting an RSS feed reveal its own address, makes the feed easier to cache, send as an email attachment and deliver over file-sharing networks. It's an extremely useful capability that can't be accomplished using a core RSS element.

There's been some controversy over this recommendation, due presumably to the fact that it uses an element from Atom. When you submit an RSS feed to the Feed Validator that doesn't contain the element, you get the warning message "Missing atom:link with rel='self'." This doesn't prevent the feed from being valid, but it has irked some people who expected their feed to pass with no warnings.

Dave Winer wrote on RSS-Public this weekend that he can no longer endorse the validator because it checks for this element:

Okay, I'm not going to argue with you, and I fully expect you to trash me on your blog (which I do read).

But I should say this -- that after a few years of relative peace, I had started recommending and using the validator.

I can't recommend it now, because I can see what's coming next.

And I think you ought to tell the members of your board how you're using their names and company's names. I don't think they understand what you're doing, Rogers.

And that closes this as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not clear on the nefarious plot I am supposedly undertaking, but the profile's just following the lead of RSS publishers who have been adding atom:link in growing numbers. It's the second most popular namespace element in an RSS channel, appearing in 15 percent of all feeds in a survey I conducted in June. Every FeedBurner feed includes one, and on Saturday, WordPress added support.

From my perspective, this is exactly how RSS namespaces are supposed to work. Publishers need to identify a feed's URL, so they have adopted the most popular namespace element that provides this capability. It might throw people a little that the element comes from Atom, since there's a syndication war going on and we takes no prisoners, but it's no different than adding an OPML element to RSS when you want an ownerId for your feed.

But thanks for reading my blog, Dave!

Rss · Atom · Opml · 2007/10/22 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Exclusive: Techbloggers Have Sold Their Souls

On WebProNews, Robert Scoble demonstrates why the leading techblogs are becoming less critical and more susceptible to hype -- they're bargaining with PR flacks for exclusives:

I've noticed that PR types are getting very astute with dealing with bloggers lately and getting their wares discussed on TechMeme.

First they'll call Mike Arrington of TechCrunch. Make sure he's briefed first (Mike doesn't like to talk about news that someone else broke first, so they'll make sure he is always in the first group to get to share something with you all). Then they'll brief "second-tier" bloggers like me, Om, Dan Farber, Read/Write Web, and a variety of others. Embargo us all so we can't publish before Mike does.

One of the reasons mainstream tech magazines like PC Magazine are so boring is because they're completely dependent on early access to new hardware and software, so companies like Microsoft and Apple use this carrot to keep them from being too critical. They've become product catalogs, which is one reason people look to blogs for a more candid and free-wheeling assessment of new products. While magazines were running cover after cover singing the praises of Windows Vista earlier this year, bloggers were putting up danger signs about upgrading to the new OS on existing PCs.

Now, according to Scoble, A-list techbloggers have become just as desperate for inside access, even to the point of honoring an embargo intended to benefit another blog. What are the odds that TechCrunch will break the exclusive that a new product sucks rocks?

Tech · Journalism · 2007/10/18 · 18 COMMENTS · Link

Running for President, One Spam at a Time

I don't know who I'm going to vote for in the 2008 presidential election, but I've given small donations to both John Edwards and Barack Obama in response to specific initiatives I thought worthy of support, so I'm on their mailing lists. They both send personalized emails frequently, like the one I just got from Obama:

Rogers,

I'm leaving the Tonight Show studio and I wanted to share something.

Jay Leno just asked if it bothers me that some of the Washington pundits are declaring Hillary Clinton the winner of this election before a single vote has been cast.

I'll tell you what I told him: Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare "Mission Accomplished" a little too soon.

We started this week $2.1 million behind the Clinton campaign -- a lead they built in large part with contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.

We don't accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs. But we've already cut that advantage in half with small donations from people like you.

Let's close the rest of that gap now. Please make a donation of $25:

https://donate.barackobama.com/closethegap

Thank you,

Barack

I know that a candidate has to chase dollars all the time to win, but I hear from Obama a 3-5 times a month, and it's always money money money. He never just wants to talk about how his day's going. I'm beginning to wish he took money from lobbyists.

Politics · 2007/10/18 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

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