Brilliant at Breakfast: Where no one cashes in on unpaid writers

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde

"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25

"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Winged Pigs -- with or without lipstick

Posted by Jill | 12:48 PM

The Naples (Florida) Daily News:

There are different ways to look at the choice for president of the United States.

We can look at the record of Republican John McCain and see there is a long story of duty — from Vietnam through Congress.

We can look at the shorter story of Democrat Barack Obama and see youth’s great potential alongside questions of his early influences and concerns about his approach to spending.

We see the historical contexts, including race and this being the most trying of times — so trying that they may shape the presidency rather than vice versa. We size up the outgoing presidential administration and find both candidates running against it.

In McCain and Obama we have candidates who say they are ready to make a change.

Obama, we believe, is the right candidate for true change, a clean break from the current administration. To be sure, most change has to go through Congress, but the tone is set at the White House.

[snip]

Southwest Florida is accustomed to the role of leader or observer of the American economy. Now we are a part of it and share the pain.

We also share a sense of optimism and a belief in the strength of America’s greatest assets, its people — who now long for something different. It will not be government solving all of our problems and fears through spending and growing and removing liberties. It will be individual Americans making decisions to improve their families and communities and their country, with good government an as ally.

Then we look at the vice presidential nominees. While Senate veteran Joe Biden disappoints those who push Obama for change at every opportunity, McCain chose Sarah Palin to preside a heartbeat away.

A selection made by a maverick?

That, with McCain vowing “a new direction,” was akin to praise for FEMA for a job well done on Hurricane Katrina.

That is our tipping point in this race. Forget what candidates say they will do if elected. The choice for vice president was their first clear indicator of how they will lead.

We can do better.

It is instructive to look back to Sept. 11, 2001. One of our darkest days. But our nation was together and the world was with us.

Now look: Seemingly never-ending wars and energy and health-care policies short of where they need to be. An economy of distrust.

Which brings us back to the various ways of looking at this contest. There are intense, loyal partisans who could never, ever vote for the other party’s candidate. We respect that and thank goodness for presidential elections, this one more so than some others, stirring that passion.

All of them want what’s best for America.

To the undecideds, we say we believe what’s best for America is a president who is bright, can listen, learn from mistakes of the past and lead us toward the change we need to make at home and abroad.

We believe the candidate to do that is Barack Obama.

I don't think I've ever seen the kind of eloquence in newspaper endorsements that I've seen this year, as paper after paper endorses Barack Obama. Sometimes it's grudgingly, as in the Washington Post endorsement. Sometimes it's less an endorsement of Obama than a smackdown of the reprehensible and cynical campaign of John McCain. And sometimes it's a genuine endorsement, sometimes tinged with wonder, as if the editorial board can't quite believe it's actually doing this.

Naples is about as rock-solid Republican a place as you're going to find. It's a moneyed town, with miles of four-lane highways rapidly becoming six-lane higheways, populated by golf course and other gated communities, upscale shopping centers, and luxury car dealerships. Its beachfront is lined with highrise condominiums with 1950's houses being torn down and replaced with McMansions just a few blocks away. The Ritz-Carlton has not one but two properties in Naples. The teachers and municipal workers and the maids, waiters, and pool boys at the luxury hotels can't efford to live there. And the local paper just endorsed the black guy for president.

Awesome.

Labels: Barack Obama, endorsements

1 comments

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I made my partner get out of bed to see if people were ice skating in the back yard when I read this. And this after a week in which someone took my Obama magnet off the back of my car and tried to throw it in a storm drain. And after two weeks of letters to the editor praising the Lee County Sheriff for talking about "Barack Hussein Obama" while in full uniform at a Palin rally. Maybe pigs really can fly...

10/19/08, 3:28 PM