Rep. Carol Shea-Porter Sums Up The Day: "Joy Has Replaced Despair"

I just got back from getting tomorrow morning's blueberries at NatureMart on Hillhurst Avenue. Their giant billboard wasn't advertising any of their products today. It just says: "Changes Comes To America-- President Obama." When I got home I found a note from Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). "We have a new president and a renewal of hope. I was so honored to watch, less than fifty feet away, as President Obama took his oath of office and shared his vision of America with all of us. Exuberance and celebration and hope and relief were on the people's faces. Joy has replaced despair."

Most Americans are trying to keep it positive and just celebrate Obama. I'm betting about half the feelings of joy and relief are that Bush is gone. Oh, the wingnuts and the dupes of the Bush Legacy Project are talking about how wonderful he is. But that sentiment is shared by very few Americans. He went out with a 22% approval rating-- a lot better than Cheney's 13%-- but still... what a disgrace!

And it isn't just Americans who are overflowing with joy to see Bush go. In today's Guardian Jeremy Lott discounts the far right extremists to declare We Are All Bush-Haters Now. "Even those conservatives who defended him while in office," he writes, "will now face a stark choice: repudiate much of Bush's legacy or be rendered ridiculous.

For example, unpaid Bush shill Fred Barnes recently wrote "for the editors" of the Weekly Standard that "Bush had 10 great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight years in the White House." Among his undisputed successes on the foreign policy front were "enhanced interrogation of terrorists," "the rebuilding of presidential authority" and "the surge."

That an organ of conservative opinion would tout Bush's moves toward torture and autocracy should be shocking. Notably absent from Barnes's list was Bush's decision to launch the invasion of Iraq in the first place, so the best that one of Bush's most ardent defenders can say is that Bush managed to partially ameliorate one of his worst calls. That should change hearts and minds all right.

Bush leaves behind a Republican party that is reduced in numbers and respect and too militaristic for the hawkish American people, an obese government that is substantially larger than the overweight one he inherited, a busted budget and a bleeding economy. History shouldn't forget that, and it isn't going to.

The right wing blogs and talk show hosts from Limbaugh to Hannity are overflowing like sewers right now but instead of ending this hopeful and historic day dwelling on thethe predictable negativity from the far right, I'd like to recall the most uplifting speech I heard during the festivities. It was delivered by Rev. Joseph Lowery, a close colleague of Martin Luther King's, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, and a man bitterly loathed by Republican stalwarts for his fight against the apartheid government of South Africa that was once the ultimate call to arms for American wingnuts.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand-- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed-- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around--- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow-- (laughter)-- when the red man can get ahead, man-- (laughter)-- and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Rep. John Lewis says, "Today I think more than ever before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation"

"It’s not the business of the federal government, it’s not the business of the state government, to tell two individuals that they cannot fall in love and get married."

-- Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air

by Ken

I confess. I played hooky from work today to watch the inauguration.

Okay, it was "grownup" hooky. I used a personal day. But you have to understand how ferociously protective I tend to be of my modest cache of PTO days in January. Every year I assume I need to hoard them for either some on-the-horizon personal crisis or -- really reaching -- the possibility of actually doing something for pleasure. Then off course every December I'm left with using up those carefully hoarded days. But in January that one-two punch of dread and hope is normally all-powerful.

With all my reservations about the (no longer incoming) administration, I'm glad I watched. I suspect I'm not alone in having gotten the most pleasure out of the rousing benediction offered by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a key associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s.

At the end of his life, Dr. King was of course challenged within his own movement for his insistence that opposition to the Vietnam War was inseparable from his mission for racial equality in the U.S. Yesterday another veteran of the movement, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, made an eloquent plea for universal tolerance which I like to think would have given Dr. King great pleasure.

My Box Turtle Bulletin colleague Jim Burroway thought Representative Lewis's remarks important enough to transcribe, and I want to share at least part of his transcript. In his post yesterday, Jim set the stage thusly:

In observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday today, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) appeared on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air to talk about his experiences during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. From 1963 to 1966, he chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, during which he became a close associate of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As he talked about the struggles to achieve basic voting rights for African-Americans, he also reflected on the importance of fighting for civil rights for everyone, including LGBT people.

Terry Gross poses this question: "I’ve heard some African-American leaders say that it’s wrong to make a connection between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement because discrimination against African-Americans and discrimination against gays are completely different things. And being gay and being black are completely different things. What’s your take on that?"

And Representative Lewis replies:

Well, I do not buy that argument. I do not buy that argument. And today I think more than ever before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Dr. King used to say when people talked about blacks and whites falling in love and getting married -- you know, one time in the state of Virginia, in my native state of Alabama, in Georgia, and other parts of the South, blacks and whites could not fall in love and get married. -- and Dr. King took a simple argument and said races don’t fall in love and get married, individuals fall in love and get married. It’s not the business of the federal government, it’s not the business of the state government, to tell two individuals that they cannot fall in love and get married.

And so I go back to what I said and wrote those lines a few years ago, that I fought too long and too hard against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up and fight and speak out against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

And you hear people “defending marriage.” Gay marriage is not a threat to heterosexual marriage. It is time for us to put that argument behind us.

You cannot separate the issue of civil rights. It is one of those absolute, immutable principles. You’ve got to have not just civil rights for some, but civil rights for all of us.

It's hard to put it much better than that. Thanks, congressman.

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It seems safe to say that President-elect Obama doesn't give a damn what we think of the choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation

"Rick Warren gets plenty of attention through his books and media appearances. He doesn't need or deserve this position of honor. There is no shortage of religious leaders who reflect the values on which President-elect Obama campaigned and who are working to advance the common good.''

-- Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way, on the announcement that Pastor Rick Warren will give the inaugural invocation

by Ken

By now I imagine everyone has heard the news. Certainly from the time it oozed out this afternoon, it has spread like wildfire over the blogosphere, and in particular over the liberal blogosphere. Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddlebrook megachurch will give the invocation at the presidential inauguration.

There's plenty of time, and plenty of reason, for fulminating, but first I think it's important to keep in mind that the announcement of the selection of the celebrated right-wing evangelical power broker and die-hard homophobe was bracketed with the announcement that the benediction will be given by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the hugely admired civil rights leader. (There will also be performances by Aretha Franklin, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, among others.)

Here is Michael Paulson's post from early this evening on the Boston Globe website:

EVANGELICALISM, POLITICS
Obama taps evangelical for inauguration

Posted by Michael Paulson

President-elect Barack Obama (right) has tapped Rick Warren (left), the most prominent evangelical preacher of the post-Billy Graham generation, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. The decision was announced today by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Warren pastors the Saddleback Church, a megachurch in Orange County, California, but he is best know as the author of the best-selling "Purpose Driven Life" and its many spinoffs. And Warren has been a forceful advocate for reordering evangelical priorities -- he does not support abortion or same-sex marriage, but his public priority has been combatting AIDS in Africa, and he has criticized the politicization of evangelical Protestantism.

Warren has hosted Obama several times; in 2006, he invited Obama to speak at his church on World AIDS Day (an invitation that drew some criticism of Warren from the right); in August of this year Obama and the GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain, were interviewed on live television by Warren in an election forum; and earlier this month, on World AIDS Day, Obama offered taped remarks praising President Bush's work on AIDS, which was being recognized by Warren at Saddleback.

The choice is winning praise by anti-abortion groups that have been concerned about the Obama administration. The Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody blogs, "Pro-life pastor Rick Warren will give the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration. It makes a whole lot of sense. Even though Warren and Obama disagree on the life issue, they do see eye to eye on many social justice issues. This move is also classic Obama because it is a signal to religious conservatives that he’s willing to bring in both sides to the faith discussion in this country. Obama has never shied away from that."

But advocates for abortion rights and same-sex marriage are furious. People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert called the choice "a grave disappointment,'' citing Warren's opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion, and writing, "Rick Warren gets plenty of attention through his books and media appearances. He doesn't need or deserve this position of honor. There is no shortage of religious leaders who reflect the values on which President-elect Obama campaigned and who are working to advance the common good.'' And blogger Andrew Sullivan, under the headline "Ugh" wrote: "Shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now. He won't be as bad as the Clintons (who, among leading Democrats, could?), but pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen."

(Photo taken at Saddeback Aug. 16 by Mark Avery/Reuters.)

There was apparently some effort to spin the news by fobbing it off on the inauguration committee, chaired by Senator Feinstein. But that's so silly as to be insulting. Does anyone believe that the committee would do anything, anything at all, against the wishes of the president-elect? I'll go further: Does anyone believe that any decision by the committee has been or will be made without clearance from the president-elect's people? Not a chance.

I'm going to assume that the objections to Pastor Rick are too obvious, and audible around us, to be worth enumerating here. If his selection for the invocation was not intended as a kick in the teeth for those who believe in women's reproductive choice and those who believe in equal rights for LGBT Americans, that was accomplished nevertheless.

I don't think the thinking here is mysterious. It's not just a matter of "inclusiveness." It's surely an attempt to bring more people into President Obama's planned Really Big Tent -- to recruit and perhaps even coopt people who aren't already part of the Obama coalition.

Since the president-elect truly doesn't seem to care what progressives think, I guess all we can do -- beyond making our share of nasty noise -- is to hope that he's right about the possibility of bringing people with such contrasting views together to find shared solutions. Me? I'm more persuaded by the argument Digby made for us the other day about Republicans. (I think she would agree that it's even more true of the Christian Right.)

[Republicans] really do believe that bipartisanship is date rape -- they have done for the past 30 years. And there aren't any Republican political professionals who didn't come up in that school. To them, this is what politics are all about. Since they have paid no price for this beyond a fairly even ebb and flow of electoral politics there's been no reassessment of their methods. Dems don't play the blame game. Republicans do.

Dealing with a ruthless obstructionist opposition party that always operates in bad faith and never misses an opportunity to weaken the president was always going to be part of Obama's challenge. (And it doesn't matter if the public hates it -- the whole point is to wear them down until it's just too exhausting to resist.)

Clearly, President-elect Obama believes otherwise. I hope he's right. I hope we aren't looking at an administration whose policies are going to be tailored to acceptability by Pastor Rick.

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