Change You Can Believe In

Anyone with an ounce of political curiosity has probably seen Barack Obama's Iowa victory speech by now, but if you haven't, you really should. This one's going to go down in history along with LBJ's 1965 We Shall Overcome speech, and Ted Kennedy's 1980 primary concession to Jimmy Carter (a speech that I regard as the last gasp of the true Democratic Party). It's inspired, inspiring, and calculated to create the wave of organizing that it will take to turn this disaster-ridden nation around.

I appreciate that Edwards is talking economic populism, but Obama is an organizer at heart, and his appeal is far more broad. Maybe it's easy to look smart next to George Bush, but this guy really is. His memoir Dreams Of My Father is beautifully written and shows a fine mind at work. He has a deep grasp of the complexities of race in America, and is well-positioned to begin addressing the greatest fault line dividing this country. He masterfully moves beyond the divisive rhetoric of the right even as he calls it out. I believe him when he says he'll pull us out of this horrible war. And his smile is real.

Hillary, on the other hand, would be a political disaster. My friend Paul Loeb writes about this brilliantly. She's Lucy to our Charlie Brown, pulling the football away to leave us flat on our asses and deflated. She'll run on hope and change, and revert to mainline Democratic Leadership Council business as usual about three seconds after the Inaugural Ball. She's better than Bush, yeah, but so is McCain. We need Obama.

Well! Isn't That Special?

"It is that massive effort by people of concern and people of love to save lives which will change our nation for the better. In the midst of our plenty, there's darkness, but there's always hope. In the midst of plenty, there is sadness and loneliness, but there's always a soul to put your arm around and say, 'I love you.'"

- President George W. Bush
Remarks at the 11th Regional
White House Conference on Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives
Los Angeles, CA, March 3, 2004

Ever since I heard that a Fannie Mae-financed Seattle conference is in the works to link up churches with the largess that flows from Bush's Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, I've been abnormally curious about who these people are and what they're up to.

The most surprising thing I've learned is that there isn't simply one Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In 2003, Bush issued an Executive Order instructing each of his cabinets to create their own version of said office.

Therefore, the Department of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education all have their own Centers for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, and are all encouraging churches and other non-profits to assume the work of caring for the needy, since the feds sure as hell aren't going to.

The genius of this only becomes apparent when one considers the political issues involved for any Democratic administration that would dismantle this apparatus. Say what you will about the Bush administration, they understand the meaning of structural change.

Insiders such as David Kuo have criticised the program as ineffective and highly politicized. Jimmy Carter, as part of his recent George Bush is the "worst President ever" remarks, drew special attention to the OFBCI, which disbursed $2.15 billion in 2005 alone.

“The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things in my opinion are quite disturbing,” Carter said. “As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”