Author: Michael O. Allen

Wright again . . .

I posted yesterday a video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s post 9/11 sermon that some are trying to hang Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), for. Andrew Sullivan posted this text of the sermon a week ago. I offer it here again. As Mr. Sullivan said, Read it and make your own mind up:

“Every public service of worship I have heard about so far in the wake of the American tragedy has had in its prayers and in its preachments, sympathy and compassion for those who were killed and for their families, and God’s guidance upon the selected Presidents and upon our war machine, as they do what they do and what they gotta do — paybacks.

There’s a move in Psalm 137 from thoughts of paying tithes to thoughts of paying back, A move, if you will from worship to war, a move in other words from the worship of th God of creation to war against those whom God Created. And I want you to notice very carefully this next move. One of the reasons this Psalm is rarely read, in its entirety, because it is a move that spotlights the insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred.

Look at the verse; Look at the verse; Look at verse nine: [rising voice] “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rocks.”[lower voice] The people of faith are the rivers of Babylon. How shall we sing the Lord’s song? If I forget the order … The people of faith, have moved from the hatred of armed enemies [rising voice]–these soldiers who captured the king; those soldiers who slaughtered his son, that put his eyes out; those Continue reading “Wright again . . .” →

Donna . . .

Chief Judge Judith Kaye administers the oath of office to Gov. David Paterson at right is Paterson’s son, Alexander (Newsday, J. Conrad Williams Jr. / March 17, 2008)

. . . asked me a question in a comment to my last post. My response:

I have not written much on Eliot Spitzer (I’ve left that to others) and I’ve said even less about David Paterson’s incredible ascension to the governorship. I have been working on a redesign of the website (everyone, keep an eye out for that!) and I’ve been working on a very long post (I am sorry to say that it is very, very boring).

My take on the drip, drip, drip of revelations about Gov. Paterson since he took office is that the media in New York City is probably the most racist in the nation. When the media in the South and other parts of the nation came to terms with their own role in this nation’s history, newspapers and other media outlets in the Northeast never had to.

It was good enough for them to condemn the South without any self-examination.

Continue reading “Donna . . .” →

A headache . . .

. . . is what I got after reading this convoluted article by Professor Akhil Reed Amar on how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), and Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), could serve a co-presidents, or something like that.

But which should it be: Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton? In fact, voters in November could actually endorse both versions of the ticket—truly, two presidents for the price of one. How? The Constitution’s 25th Amendment allows for a new paradigm of political teamwork: The two Democratic candidates could publicly agree to take turns in the top slot.

Then, at some agreed upon point, the President would cede power to the vice-president and, with Congressional approval, become the vice-president. The same team would then run for re-election four years later and four years after that, after which one of them would have to drop out because they would have been elected president twice. The remaining person could then run for president on his her own power.

Akhil Reed Amar teaches constitutional law at Yale University and he wrote “America’s Constitution: A Biography.” He is also a winner of the American Bar Association’s 2006 Silver Gavel Award. He is, in other words, a very smart guy and he said this could be done.

Whether it should done is, of course, another matter entirely.

. . . when we talk about . . .

Obama addressing a crowd the day after his race speech (Davis Turner/European Pressphoto Agency)

A not-too-bad round-up on the history that led to the Speech Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), gave in Philadelphia last week. The article shows, in some ways, how far we still have to go in our society to get to that bridge called fairness. I mean the place where we could actually be honest and fair and true with each other.