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Romney, Bully

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Ted Rall

A few random thoughts about the Romney bullying story:

First, this story probably has legs. It frames an unpleasant narrative about Mitt Romney’s personality: Not only do his politics suck, he’s an asshole. Personally. The kind of asshole who abuses his pets. Who takes over profitable companies and bleeds them dry, leaving people jobless for no good reason. Who mutilates someone because he’s different. Faggy. In the same way that the story about George H.W. Bush being surprised about a supermarket scanner made him seem out-of-touch during a recession, the Romney bullying story has the potential to make him seem unlikeable in a way that he will have a very hard counteracting.

And we’re not just talking about bullying: shoving, punching, etc. This sounds almost rape-y: a long-haired boy held down to the ground by several boys as one hacks off his hair. Primal.

It doesn’t matter whether the story is even true: the image fits. It works. That’s the problem. And Romney didn’t help with his response: calling the victim a “fellow.” Who uses the word “fellow” in 2012? A “homosexual”? Who uses that word, either? He should have either denied the story entirely, or said something like this:

I did lots of stupid shit when I was a kid. I was kind of wild. Man, I sure wish I could take most of it back. If I could go back in time, I would catch myself being an asshole and beat the shit out of myself. All I can say now is, I am a fervent defender of the oppressed, including gays, and even though I don’t think marriage is a good idea for gays and lesbians, I view them as absolute equals in all ways and will always fight for them and every other American.

Obama has got to be laughing his ass off.

On another note, it’s very cool that bullying has become so uncool. When I was a kid, often victimized by bullies, no one gave a shit. This is progress.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Leading From the Back

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Ted Rall

Obama Accepts 21st Century View of Gay Marriage

In the BDSM world the phrase “topping from the bottom” means conditional submission: when the sub questions or disobeys the instructions of his or her dom. Subverting the submissive role defeats the whole purpose of a BDSM relationship; it is thus frowned upon.

President Obama frequently engages in the political equivalent: leading from the back.

True leaders lead. They declare what society needs and tells it what it should want. Leaders anticipate what is possible. They open the space where long-held dreams intersect with current reality, allowing progress. “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail,” Emerson advised.

The role of a leader has been clearly defined since the first time a member of a clan convinced his tribe they should follow him if they wanted to find more food. So why has it been so long since we Americans had real one?

In recent decades we have had two kinds of political leaders, bullies and followers. Beginning with Nixon but more so with Reagan and George W. Bush, Republican presidents have been bullies. Unwilling or unable to achieve the consensus of the majority for their radical agendas, they got what they wanted by any means necessary—corrupting the electoral process, lying, smearing opponents, and fear-mongering.

The Democrats—Carter, Clinton, and Obama—have been followers, and thus far less effectual. Leaders from the back.

Carter was the proto-triangulator, tacking right as a hawk on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis, while ignoring his liberal supporters. Clinton famously relied on toe-sucking Machiavellian pollster Dick Morris to develop stances and market memes that synced up exactly with public opinion on micro mini wedge issues. Both men left office without any major accomplishments—unless you count their sellouts to the Right (beginning “Reagan”‘s defense build-up, NAFTA, welfare reform).

Obama’s decision to come out in favor of gay marriage is classic Morris-style “leading from the back.”

“Public support for same-sex marriage is growing at a pace that surprises even professional pollsters as older generations of voters who tend to be strongly opposed are supplanted by younger ones who are just as strongly in favor,” notes The New York Times. “Same-sex couples are featured in some of the most popular shows on television, without controversy.”

No wonder: the latest Pew Research poll shows that 47 percent of voters support gay marriage, versus 43 percent against. (Among swing voters—of more interest to the Obama campaign—support is 47-to-39 percent in favor.)

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” Obama said days before the 2008 election. At that time, Americans were running 40-to-56 percent against allowing same-sex couples to wed.

I can’t read his mind, but I bet Obama was OK with gay marriage in 2008. Like most other educated people. Cynically and wrongly, he sided with anti-gay bigots because he thought it would help him win.

The president’s change of ideological heart was painfully awkward. “I have hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” he told ABC. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.”

But now that’s changed, he said. “It is important for me personally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

If Obama was a real leader, he wouldn’t care about offending “a lot of people”—i.e., right-wing homophobes. He would have gotten out front of the issue four years ago, when it mattered. The truth is, Vice President Joe Biden’s unscripted remarks a few days ago forced the issue.

Maybe Biden has the makings of a leader.

Six states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay weddings. True, the president’s statement may hasten the demise of the vile Defense of Marriage Act, which blocks federal recognition of gay marriage (and which Obama’s Justice Department defended in June 2009). But it comes too late to be meaningful.

Gay marriage was a historical inevitability before Obama spoke.

That hasn’t changed.

“For thousands of supporters who donated, canvassed and phone-banked to help elect Barack Obama, this is a powerful reminder of why we felt so passionately about this president in the first place,” said Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, a pro-Democratic Party interest group.

Maybe so. I don’t see it that way. I see a nation that led itself on this issue. The public debated and thought and finally, at long last, concluded that gays and lesbians deserve equal treatment before the law.

Obama didn’t lead us. We led him.

So tell me—what good is he, exactly?

(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)

Kickstarter Update: $9000 Pledged, $31000 to Go

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Ted Rall

It’s nail biting time.

With 10 days to go, $9,028 has been pledged out of $40,000 needed. I’m torn between tremendous gratitude for the support that’s already out there, and angst that it might not work out unless the pace picks up even faster.

Thanks to all who have pledged so far!

Sherwood Anderson’s “Hands”

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Ted Rall

Here’s a sneak peek at a comix adaptation I’ve been commissioned to do for an upcoming anthology by Seven Stories Press. “The Graphic Canon” has cartoonists doing comic versions of literature. I chose “Hands,” one of the iconic stories in “Winesburg, Ohio,” the collection of interrelated short stories that defined modern short story-telling by Sherwood Anderson, one of my favorite authors.

There are eight pages in total. Subscribers to the Ted Rall Subscription Service have already seen them. Everyone else waits until the book comes out.

Kickstarter Update

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Ted Rall

Only 11 days left to go on my Kickstarter project, a comics and prose book gaming out revolution in the United States.

Raised so far: $8,080
Needed: $31,920

I get nothing unless the full amount is raised. Which would mean I wouldn’t be able to do this book.

Maybe I Should Do Gamer Cartoons Instead

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Ted Rall

Warning: whine ahead!

My Kickstarter campaign is stalled at $6842. Which is awesome! Thanks to more than 100 backers, that’s a lot of money. Still. I need $40,000 and it’s obvious I’m not going to get it.

That gamer strip got $1,200,000.

Lefties always complain that no one is daring enough, that no one is fighting for the Left, but they don’t support their writers and artists. When Rush and Hannity and Coulter put out books, right-wingers support them. At times like this, I wish I was like them and didn’t give a shit about the poor and oppressed.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: A Harsh Lesson

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Ted Rall

Obama Snubs Hard-Working College Students

Shortly after becoming president, Barack Obama said that he strongly supports continuing education. “If we want to come out of this recession stronger than before, we need to make sure that our workforce is better prepared than ever before,” he said in 2009. “Right now, someone who doesn’t have a college degree is more than twice as likely to be unemployed as someone who does. And so many of the Americans who have lost their jobs can’t find new ones because they simply don’t have the skills and the training they need for the jobs they want.”

Things change.

Now it’s an election year. The president’s reelection team is making a play for the youth vote that was key to winning his first term. He’s visiting colleges and universities, trying to attract support from the 18-to-21 demographic by accusing Republicans of wanting to double the Stafford student loan interest rate from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. (Not really true.)

As Obama brings his rock-the-youth-vote campaign to the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City, he wants to be photographed in a sea of adoring youthful faces. And yet, through incompetence or cynical calculus, he’s throwing some of the most inspiring, hard-working students in America under the bus.

Maybe the president still likes the idea of adults going back to school. But apparently he doesn’t want to speak to students over age 21—or be seen with them.

On May 14th Obama will deliver the commencement address at Barnard College, a women’s-only institution across the street from Columbia University in upper Manhattan. Unfortunately no one noticed—or didn’t care—that the elaborate security checks for the president’s visit would bork the long-scheduled Class Day for Columbia’s School of General Studies.

Columbia has four undergraduate colleges: Columbia College, for young (18-to-21) liberal arts students; the School of Engineering and Applied Science, also for traditional students; Barnard College (ditto on ages); and the School of General Studies, which mostly serves older students who are either beginning or completing their bachelor degrees. There’s a big Columbia commencement ceremony where the entire university gathers to receive their diplomas; in addition, each school has a separate event called Class Day.

If President Obama is looking for an example of continuing education that works, he need look no further than Columbia General Studies. It’s a special place, representing the pinnacle of continuing education in the United States. GS offers adult students from age 19 to 79 the chance to study at and graduate not just from college, but from an Ivy League school. Notable GS alumni include Isaac Asimov, Sandy Koufax, Hunter S. Thompson, Ira Gershwin, and Amelia Earhart.

Most importantly, GS has heart. It takes chances on people whom lesser institutions wouldn’t consider. Six years after I was expelled from Columbia’s engineering program, GS let me in.

Like most GS students, I held several jobs at the same time I attended classes, studied, and wrote papers. Also like most GSers, I paid my own way. GSers don’t get much financial aid. Given my history, however, I was grateful for the second chance.

After I graduated—with honors—I got a job in the GS admissions office. One applicant, originally from China, said that she had no college transcripts. She couldn’t even prove that she had attended high school. The records, she said, had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. “Let’s bring her in,” the dean of admissions said. “Let’s hear her story.” To my astonishment, they admitted her. GS’s bet paid off. She worked hard and graduated near the top of her class.

If she were graduating this year, however, she and her parents might not be able to attend her Class Day.

Dean Peter J. Awn wrote in an e-mail to General Studies students: “We were informed last Friday that, if we were to continue with our original plan to have Class Day at 9 a.m. on Monday, May 14, your families would have to arrive at least three hours before the event (5:30 a.m.) to undergo a lengthy security check to attend a ceremony that is not associated with the President’s visit. In fact, neither you nor your families would be able to remain on campus to hear President Obama speak.”

Despite featuring tough admission and graduation requirements, General Studies students are accustomed to being treated like the ugly stepsister of the Columbia bureaucracy. Even so, the Obama snub was over the top. If the initial insult wasn’t bad enough, the president’s inconsideration would have subjected GS graduates and their families to Guantánamo Lite conditions, detained for hours. “We would also be confined to the Butler lawn with no ability to roam around the campus. Frankly, I find that unacceptable,” wrote Dean Awn.

Unwanted, uninvited and evicted from their own space, GS has been forced to move its Class Day to Sunday, May 13th. Which happens to be Mother’s Day. “I realize that, by this point, your families have made their plans and that, not only will this be an inconvenience, but that it also will force you and your families to incur additional expenses,” said Dean Awn.

Jennifer Wisdom, a GS junior, told the Columbia Daily Spectator, “I can’t help but question…if this was happening to Columbia College or the School of Engineering, would it be allowed to occur?”

“It’s the president of the f—-ing United States,” said Reina deBeer, a senior. “The Obama security would have had to know about the measures. It just seems odd.”

They wouldn’t have had to look far. Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s political director from 2009 to 2011, now executive director of the Democratic National Committee, is a General Studies graduate.

The GS Class of 2012 is learning an important lesson: Courtesy and respect are for the little people. One percenters like Obama do whatever the hell they feel like. And if you get in their way, they’ll squash you like a bug.

(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL

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