Bipartisanship: Change Obama no longer believes in?

Some gleanings from Joe Klein's column in the Feb. 1 issue of Time magazine (released before President Obama gave his State of the Union address).

-I love the idea of killing partisanship, of everyone getting along, of politics getting tossed out the window...but I've always been concerned with how Obama thinks that's actually going to happen. From early on, his way of making "change" and "hope" happen always went back to people, and as he's seen in his first year of office, people like the way those concepts sound on their ears but don't necessarily know what they'll look like in reality (or like them when they do show up in reality). Or, if they're politicians, this happens:

[Joe Klein writing] "I asked Obama how he thought his Administration was perceived by someone in the Boston suburbs who had supported him a year ago, looking for "change" — and now saw the President making deals with everyone from Joe Lieberman to the labor unions to Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska (whose special Medicaid deal was a public embarrassment) to the pro-life forces, not to mention the drug and insurance companies. 'When I promised change, I didn't promise that somehow members of Congress weren't going to be looking to try to get a project in their district or help a hospital in their neighborhood,' the President said halfheartedly."

-Klein points out that Obama hasn't done much this year to see people in their current plights, experiencing economic hardships. I agree. The ever-present campaigner hasn't been hanging out with everyday Americans very much, and what ever happened to him being like FDR and using the Internet to have fireside chats with the American people all the time?

-The health care agenda Obama so vociferously pursues is "peripheral to most Americans, who have relentlessly told pollsters, by huge majorities, that they are happy with the health care they currently receive and far more worried about other things." Exactly. Why the heck is Obama still letting Pelosi run rabid on this one? It's not like he birthed this bill himself; it's an amalgamation of all he says he hates about Washington, waiting for his signature. And the people don't even want it.

-"His has been a serious and substantive presidency. But the question, a year in, is whether it has been politically tone-deaf — and why the best presidential orator in a generation finds it so hard to explain himself to the American people." For all the things the Republicans are complaining about, has anyone noticed they're not complaining anymore about how he woos people with his words?

-One of Obama's biggest obstacles was that, even if he did want that bipartisanship thing, he wasn't even getting token participation from the elephants in the room:

"Obama came to office attempting bipartisanship. The Republicans weren't buying. 'The classic example being me heading over to meet with the House Republican caucus to discuss the stimulus,' the President said, 'and finding out that [minority leader John] Boehner had already released a statement stating, We're going to vote against the bill before we've even had a chance to exchange ideas.'"

If John McCain was the President, those Republicans would have wanted the Democrats to jump on board, since the economy was in the crapper and needed some kind of fix. But the Republicans were playing us-against-them from day one (and the Dems have been, too).

-And the clincher: Is bipartisanship the kind of change Obama no longer believes in?

"By August, the President was saying privately that he didn't know if bipartisanship was possible when the polls said that a third of the opposition party didn't even think he was an American citizen."

-Obama's comment on a question about the Middle East peace process is telling as to how his perspective has changed:

"...if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations so high."

Whew.

My gut reaction is that Washington is going to stay partisan, and the Republicans are going to remain critical (of his policies, his star power, his speaking) — so why doesn't he just do his best to connect with the people? Because if they want bipartisanship enough, wouldn't they vote for others like him?

(Or did he blow that chance by being, ahem, partisan and pushing a very liberal health care bill through?)

Year two will be interesting.

January book reviews, part 4

The next installment of book reviews for what I've been reading in January.

Today: The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.

I will be brief, because Strunk and White would recommend such: If you ever write a sentence that another person will have to read, write it well and with correct punctuation. Hence, read this book out of consideration for your fellow man.

As a writer/editor, I read it once a year. It's anal, entertaining, and just right.

January book reviews, part 3

A continuation of my book reviews on (mostly sports) books I've been reading lately.

Today: The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl.

When you want a good sports book, get a sportswriter to write it.

Wahl writes for Sports Illustrated and is on the national soccer beat, and you can see that he knows what he's doing in The Beckham Experiment, a comprehensive, well-researched, entertaining take on David Beckham's attempt to change American soccer.

Wahl employs a perfect blend of telling (explaining everything from the basics of the Beckham sports legend all the way to the intricacies of the Major League Soccer system) and showing, with well-detailed examples that clearly paint his points.

Readers are treated to a thought-out narrative that weaves well-told stories with all their background information to show why each step of this "experiment" is so interesting after all. From the pomp surrounding Beckham's first day stateside to his sullen quietness as the Los Angeles Galaxy sunk deeper and deeper, Wahl captures what MLS soccer is today, and how Beckham and the mighty machinery behind one of the most popular men on earth planned to take over the minor league of soccer...only to slink away at the end.

(It should be noted that Wahl does no such editorializing; his story speaks for itself. But the extent of his interviews, with everyone from management to the lowest paid players on the team, shows that he researched the entire situation. He was at it for two years, too, meaning he was able to study it from the first glaring light to the last shanked goal.)

Wahl offers revealing insights on the difference in journalism practices between the United States and Great Britain, brought to a head by Beckham's handlers; the mighty AEG and 19 Entertainment, two huge promotional companies pulling strings behind Beckham; the Galaxy's divergent team, from $12,900-a-year guys to the frustrated Landon Donovan; and Beckham, of course, the English juggernaut who has mastered fashion and football, fit the L.A. celebrity mold the best anyone could, been seen as a savior to the world, and ultimately became a decent soccer player frustrated with the bush league that is MLS.

Wahl details the horrible hotels, the immense celebrity and power, the constant injuries with which Beckham played. He details the painful interviews, and shows how nice and decent Beckham is, yet how uncapable he seemed to be of leading a team in a country where everything was so different.

Wahl is a great storyteller: You don't just read a sentence saying Beckham was bigger than life to the soccer players he played with; you see scenes where you can imagine them standing with their jaws down, and you read quotes from a slew of teammates explaining just what it was like to play with the man.

Beckham is the epicenter of the story, of course, but Wahl's well-done work also does a really good job of encapsulating MLS for those of us who don't really know what the league is all about. His effortless pictures of the league's dysfunctionality, the plight of its players, and the epic highs and lows of a basic season show why the Beckham experiment was such an experiment...and whether MLS will ever go anywhere. (You decide.)

Altogether, the book was a fabulous read on many levels, and I highly recommend it for any soccer or Beckham (or American sports or journalism) fan. Wahl makes it all interesting, and it's only more compelling after the most recent twists (with Donovan getting the captaincy back yet missing a penalty kick in what could have been the Galaxy's first championship with Beckham). (Wahl's take is at the end of the 2008 season, which leaves you scrambling for the Internet once you flip the last page.)

I never want to read a book by a non-sportswriter again; this was close to flawless. Even if the topic isn't of utmost interest, the storytelling takes you inside the world and lets you glimpse it all for a moment. And that's all you want in a book.



Some related links:
An interview with Grant Wahl after the book came out
The Sports Illustrated article after the book came out
The original Sports Illustrated article
Beckham in wax, and with Posh in wax

January book reviews, part 2

The second in a series of book reviews on some of my January sports reading.

Today: Shooting Stars by Buzz Bissinger and LeBron James.

I should have known better than to jump for a book with LeBron James listed as the author, but I knew James had come from a rough background in his rise to king of the NBA, and I thought he'd have a good story to tell. Plus, Buzz Bissinger just wrote an excellent Vanity Fair cover story on the Tiger Woods situation, and he's the author of the acclaimed Friday Night Lights.

I still believe Bissinger is a good writer, but I think Bron-Bron wrote most of this book.

Completely missing are any details about the journey that was James' rise to greatness, supplanted instead by basic information about his childhood and a continuous telling...not showing...of his high school basketball experience.

The book doesn't promise to be about James, of course, but seeing as James was the heart of the five guys who won the state titles in Akron and called themselves the Shooting Stars, you'd think he would show up a little more in his own book. Instead, James tries to tell us about his friends, but he does it in a clunky, over-repetitive, this-is-how-it-is way rather than giving us a compelling narrative.

Shooting Stars has flashes of brilliance: A description of Akron, a sneak peek inside AAU and high school athletics, a glimpse at the craziness surrounding the kid who was destined to be the next great one. But these fleeting sentences and paragraphs do not save a book that is altogether lacking in good storytelling, leapfrogging in its treatment of years of these boys' lives, and loathsome in its repetition of details we've heard told before but now want to see.

Perhaps my high expectations for the book changed my perception beforehand. If I read it as a story a high school senior would write about the guys he was hanging out with, I can swallow it a lot better. In that setting, it makes sense that James would allude to smoking pot in high school for just a sentence without any connection to his current status as the hoops ambassador, or that he could talk about growing up with a single mom and moving from house to house without ever telling us how he got out of that mess. He treats his material like a high school essay-writer: Today I did this, people got mad about my mom's Hummer, Dru was my best friend! And it's easy to take it that way if you consider James hasn't had time to polish up his authoring skills.

But after reading Andre Agassi's Open, where all the mundane details of his life were swept into an orchestrated story that informed and inspired, I wanted an above-high-school performance from James. (Or at least Bissinger could have taken over.)

I know you could score 30 for St. V's, LeBron. Show me how you can get 60 now. Write it like a man.

January book reviews, part 1

I've been able to do some reading lately, and although I won't offer my take on Strunk and White's Elements of Style (aside from saying it's one of the best books ever for writers), I am going to give my opinion on some other books I've recently read. Most of them have been in the sports genre.

Today: Then Belichick Said to Brady by Jim Donaldson.

Then Belichick Said to Brady is cast as an insider's take (Donaldson worked for the Providence Journal covering the Pats for years) of New England Patriots history, with dust cover advertisements promising scoops about the stories all New England fans know.

Unfortunately, the book does exactly opposite of that: It tells, in the most bland form, the stories everyone already knows, just in a more boring way.

Rambling at best, this poor retelling of basics Patriots history is mundane, repetitive, and dull.

The long-winded accounts, which are placed in no particular order and are often revisited several times within the book (just in different chapters), are bolstered only by the occasional verbatim quotes that the dustcover promised would power the book. And these quotes are so dull that they could have easily been pulled from the Patriots' Monday press conferences throughout the years.

Now, I understand that a sportswriter moves at his own peril when he tries to cover the tight-lipped Pats, but this isn't sparse...it's shoddy. It was one of those books that makes you wonder how this sportswriter ever got paid to do what he did. There are stories here, but he doesn't find them, much less tell them, and he lacks even basic writing skills at points.

His lack of excellence is even seen on the back cover, where he runs one of the great Belichick quotes, but it's misattributed to when Belichick took over the Patriots, not the Browns (which is the actual circumstance, once you suffer through the book). If Donaldson can get even that right, don't count on good storytelling or inspiring quotes.

Furthermore, nowhere in the book does it ever recount an instance where Belichick actually said something to Brady.

For someone with no clue about the history of the Patriots, this book may help, but read it with a knowledgeable friend at your side, for you will have more questions than answers after going through it.

Questions such as, "What was this guy thinking?"

A couple good New York Times reads

Here's a couple New York Times editorials I especially liked:

1. Charles Blow talks about how President Barack Obama has lost control of the mob.

2. David Brooks explains how populism, when divorced from pragmatism, doesn't solve anything. (It is good for making people feel like victims, though.)

Shades of Brown

When I first moved to Boston, I wondered if would ever understand the area: How these people thought, where their convictions lay, and why they supported what they did.

Sixteen months later, I think I can say I do understand quite a bit, and that's why I want to comment on the Scott Brown election.

The election of a Republican to "the seat of Ted Kennedy," in "the bluest of blue states," has jolted the nation, and many are saying it's the end of the Democrat's upswing and a new surge of support for Republicans.

But, as with most political issue, this is not red or blue. There are shades of purple, or in this case, Brown, here.

A proper understanding of the state will help with realizing what really happened when Brown won, and it will aid anyone looking to make definition assertions for elections in the future.

First of all, understand that Massachusetts is still as Democratic as ever, and this vote does not mean that Bay Staters don't want health care or don't support Democratic ideals. That's the last thing you can draw from this election. Instead, consider this: Democrats outnumber Republicans in Massachusetts three to one, meaning that you can count on a 75% blue vote to 25% red. So, in order to even that up, all you need is one-third of Democrats to jump ship (not the entire state) to even up an election...and that's not even counting independents.

Furthermore, Democrats and Republicans in New England run in varying stripes. Yes, Massachusetts has been electing Republican governors like crazy in the last half-century (as duly noted by all the fast-breathing media voices). But those are extremely moderate Republicans, and it's because even Massholes know that they need some kind of balance in government (or so my Democratic friends tell me).

So, it's not like this attention was once-in-a-lifetime. Statistically, it could happen. And the main reasons it did, and the ones that should be scrutinized going into future elections where Republicans hope to pull upsets, are two-fold:

1. Bay Staters are liberal, but they're not blind.

Massachusetts-dwellers have seen the mess that's been happening in Washington as the Democrats try to push health care through, and they're not happy. The senator from Nebraska got free Medicare for his state, and the Maine senators have been courted more in a week in Washington than they were in all of high school (reference Google images). It's corruption, and although Boston love corruption as much as the next sin city, this corruption hasn't resulted in much good for anyone. The bill that has been produced is a mess; it's not very likely to help people; most people oppose it; it's super-expensive.

Forget Ted Kennedy's legacy; I think most Bay Staters were happy they had a chance to shoot
down this albatross. This isn't what Ted wanted, some think.

On top of that, NEWS FLASH: Massachusetts already has universal health care. So, this is not a vote against liberal ideology; it's a message that this form of liberal ideology isn't sufficient.

If the current health bill passes, Massachusetts residents would see their health care costs increase, and, worse yet, they'd have to start shelling out money to welfare-ize the tobacco-chewing, french fry-eating other (read: Southern) states whose governments are so conservative that it's going to take serious money to get health care plans going.

It's simple math, and Massachusetts voters didn't see why they should have to pay for having the foresight to do this idea a few years ago.

[Side note: The Massachusetts plan has yet to be financially profitable, much less balance out. That's a bit of a harbinger.]

[Another side note for red-staters: You know who the governor of Massachusetts was when his administration pushed health care through? Mitt Romney. That's right, as in I'm-running-in-2012-and-likely-speaking-against-ObamaCare-as-the-crux-of-my-campaign Mitt Romney. I'm telling you, Massachusetts politics isn't as clear-cut as you think.]

2. Martha Coakley blew it.

Now, my red-state friends have been saying, "It doesn't matter if Massachusetts was voting against Coakley; they were still voting for someone!"

Well, yeah, but let me explain the concept of "the lesser of two evils" here.

Martha Coakley led by 30 points in the polls one month before the election. Martha Coakley blew three other decent senatorial candidates away in the Democratic primary months before the special election and had the majority of observers wondering why she was still campaigning at all. Martha Coakley was to Ted Kennedy what Cape Cod is to...well, cod. Martha Coakley was endorsed by Ted Kennedy's widow, a blemishless figure in the Massachusetts lexicon whose last public appearances before the endorsement included her standing outside all day thanking the thousands who came to Ted's wake.

They're not calling her "Chokely" around here for nothing.

How could she blow it so bad? Just think of the worst possible things you could do in a campaign, and she probably did them.

Falsely accuse your opponent of not helping rape victims? Check. Suggest that Curt Schilling, the man who bled through his sock to lead the Red Sox back from a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees and break an 86-year curse, was a Yankees fan? Check. Go Beacon Street on everyone, looking down your nose at your hard-campaigning opponent and ask, "What am I supposed to do? Stand outside Fenway Park? Shake hands? In the cold?"

Yes, Martha, that's what you were supposed to do.

Completely out of touch. She also suggested that there are no terrorists left in Afghanistan.

I don't care if you hate George W. Bush, if you think the wars over there are a mistake, if you're anti-Cheney, anti-Palin, anti-involvement. You're still scared about America being threatened by terrorists, especially after somebody tries to bomb the country on Christmas and the woman who's running for your Senate seat is taking the day off (and assuming Afghanistan is full of poor, lovely, peaceful poppie farmers).

In summary: Massachusetts is more purple than you think; Bay Staters are still liberal but want sane liberalism; and Martha's campaign is now the biggest choke job in New England's history, supplanting even that game against the Giants in 2007 (I won't utter the words).

The lesson I take from all this, though, is that as much as I want to explain this race and say what effect it will have on future voting, we can't really know until those races come up. There's a lot of time until then. Sure, the Democrats have ticked off enough people to get a backswing.

But isn't that what always happens?

Here's my point: Instead of Karl Rove saying there's going to be a Republican majority forever (2000ish) or pundits saying the Democrats are in charge for a while (uh, 12 months ago?), why aren't people focusing on what the people are actually saying?

The election of Scott Brown was not a mandate for right-wing Republican policies. The guy is an environmentalist and supports Roe v. Wade. Yeah, that's right.

(Although his quickness to shout about the availability of his young daughters does make me think of several Christian college campuses where I have lived.)

The election of Scott Brown was a message from a liberal state that the Democrats had gone too far, overplayed their hands a little bit.

I think it was the same with the 2008 election: People were sick of the Republicans doing whatever they wanted and forcing their way on people.

What do people really want? It's in the middle, of course...a shade of purple. And instead of declaring Republican mandates and Democratic mandates, let's back away from swinging from one side to the other and let the balance stick sit for a minute, waiting to see where the bubble slides to. On some issues, the American people may prefer a more liberal approach. On others, it will be conservative issues.

(It's safe to say most Americans are not happy about health care, but many Americans also want a liberal-like equality when it comes to controlling the financial sector. Purple.)

Finally, I want to take a shot at the national psychos who have been trying to pigeonhole the Massachusetts election: Get your facts straight.

I think the Boston Globe did a great job of covering its home turf well, and much of what it reported lined up with what I was hearing from my friends (a mix of conservatives, Republicans, and "I vote for whomever has the less annoying adds").

But the national media (here's pointing at you, Fox News and MSNBC) once again played partisan and blew it out of proportion. And unfortunately, many people I consider level-headed took the bait.

It's not red state versus blue. There are layers here, and it's worth the time to look at the layers.

[I will note the Time magazine article especially, which was mostly correct and had a great headline ("Mass Mutiny") but incorrectly reported that Brown's daughter was a four-year starter on the Boston College basketball team (she still is, not was) and engaged in hyperbole when talking about some voters drawing Brown's nickname in a snowbank in a photo caption. Oh, and they acted as if Brown's early advertisements comparing himself to John F. Kennedy were a good idea when anyone within a 200-mile radius of Boston will tell you they most certainly were not taken well, and were stopped a month before election day.]

Scott Brown's win was a big one, and it had big implications. But in a world of Roves, Palins, Pelosis, and Reids, the sane people cannot lose sight of the other 300 million people who don't necessarily want to dump their lives into the farce that is politics, of all its manipulation and bargaining and half-accomplishments. They just want their actual concerns to be heard among those with the power and the money.

Brown kept saying it was the "people's seat," not Kennedy's. What I'm interested in is how this new senator will help the Bay Stater I have recently become.

We're a state, and a nation, not of red and blue. What will Brown do for the purple?

Fantastic reading

I think I can say this is my best sports article yet.

Riveting Newton North track results

Check out this article for a riveting take on the Newton North girls and boys track results.

The depressing world of celebri-blech

I've never been one to follow that herd labeled "celebrities" (I will take the occasional articles on my favorite actor, actress, comedian, and sports figures, thank you very much), and many of the reasons why are summed up in this article by New York Post Page 6 writer Paula Froelich (appears in New York magazine). This morally devoid batch of people (whether it's scandals, arrogance, or just not having the common sense to be a normal, private person) have nothing to offer...except lessons of what not to do, that is.

Integrating Church

Time magazine has gone and run a piece about Pastor Bill Hybels, who runs Willow Creek church and is best known in Christian circles for being an innovative youth pastor. Hybels' most recent concern has been in changing the demographics of his church; that is, making his sanctuary welcome to all ethnicities and the styles of worship these people are used to.

The article does a pretty good job of what an article should do: It tells us about the situation and ties it in with what the Bible says. (No one comes across as crazy or bigoted, either, which is always a good thing when Christians end up in the spotlight.) It's an interesting story about what big churches are dealing with, in a world where integration has always been seen as political, and when belief systems aren't just a plaque saying to love everybody but actually a practice where everyone, skin color aside, is in this together.

Time magazine on airplane security

This article in Time magazine about airplane security hits on several important points, the biggest being that government cannot keep everyone safe at all times, nor should it be called to. Part of what is great about living in free America is that you are truly free, which would not necessarily be true if extraordinary measures were taken to try to ensure safety.

The key sentences, after President Obama promised more safety: "He forgets that Americans have never really wanted the government to do 'everything in its power' to keep us safe. That would make this a terrible place to live."

The article also notes that terrorism, with more of a goal of scaring everyone (a psychological threat) has already triumphed. The way to fight back is to stop that scaring, not try to stop it altogether (a hard, if not impossible, goal).

Read the whole article here.

Giving voice to the crazies

No matter how many good debates exist, with both sides having serious positions to present, there's always somebody completely out of touch with reality who has to poke into the real world and make us all laugh. The latest: a letter to the editor, printed in its complete ludicrousness, in the MetroWest Daily News.

Interesting.

An interesting column about why Oprah connected so well.

Roasted Lieberman

Gail Collins is just funny.

Oh, Tiger.

Vanity Fair is digging into the archives for the newest slam on Tiger Woods, using old Annie Lebowitz photos and more-candid material from a 1997 GQ interview to fuel this article, by well-known sportswriter Buzz Bissinger.

I've withheld my view on Tiger mostly because I haven't learned enough/thought enough to give it complete treatment, but off of what this article purports, these are the questions I now have:

For all his "mental toughness," and superb control of his golf game, couldn't he control his desires?

For all his decency, his seeming ability torise about humanity, why was it so difficult for him to find the genuine love that would fuel a choice to commit to his family? (And not even choosing to commit to them in rough times...he had the best of opportunities.)

Is this why he wouldn't let anyone close, why he didn't want anyone to know him?

His golf game slid a bit this year, and his fellow golfers played looser with knowledge of his fallibility. What will they do now that they know he is seriously flawed? Will they prey on his weaknesses? Or will his knowing that they know be enough to take down that big Tiger mental edge?

What matters to him? Does he even care about the public disgrace? What does he want? Money? Fulfillment? With so much gone, does he even care about golf anymore? And if he does, what does that mean?

If he never really loved his wife or wanted to make his marriage work, what can he do now? Does he even want to patch up his family life? What is the motive there?

Will he want real help? (And I'm not talking about his indiscretion...I'm pointing at the whole package. Arrogance. Aloofness. Fraudness. The deceit and avoidance of moral behavior is the main problem here.) Will he ask for help? Will he accept help?

Is this the beginning of the end for him? Many predict the endorsements are irretrievably gone, yet I wonder more about this game he's been stalking for the past decade. What will smashing the records do for him now?

People now know he is a flawed human. If he embraces this and builds on it, will they not love him more? But if he keeps pushing away....

"Woods" will always rank above "Michelson" in the record books, but all those fans who clung to Phil, especially as his wife fell ill, now look like they know how to weed out the phonies.

Those sticking with Tiger ask why it is a big deal that his morals are a mess since they admire the player. But consider this: As fans, we can no longer see him as the epitome of the perfection that results from a character-driven, well-lived life of hard work. He's a trickster that plays his cards, and plays them well. He's figured out how to give superhuman performances on the golf course and weasel up a nice-enough image to pull in endorsement dollars. And he's the ultimate finagler when it comes to keeping the carousel of women going around while hurting his family. That's why you can't root for Tiger the player without thinking of Tiger the person. The Tiger that has been so amazing is rooted in the Tiger that is a fraud.

I wonder what kind of character his father had. First of all, the elder Woods had extremely misplaced priorities in the way he raised his son toward an addiction to golf, winning, and power. You have to wonder what kind of advice he gave his son as Tiger became good enough to get whatever he wanted (his father certainly knew about the women at some level). What kind of husband was Tiger's father? Did he know how to advise his son toward finding true fulfillment, finding a good wife, being a good father to his own kids? Finally, Tiger's dad told everyone his son was the "chosen one," with huge expectations for what one human could do. Did Tiger ever have alternatives? Did he ever think he could just be a person?

Tiger played in a sport that has a very rigid way of doing everything, demanding conformity. Tiger conformed, and was respected and made advances because he did. But at what point in conformity do you lose yourself?

The real problem in this whole situation was never that he "cheated on his wife"; it's that this life he had never was. The loss he is dealing with now is realizing how he really is, and people now wanting him to be treated for who he really is. The arrogance and fraudulence are realities he'll deal with every day, so while people say, "Hey, Kobe recovered from that scandal!", they're forgetting that this isn't Tiger making a mistake with some random woman. This is Tiger being an entirely different person.

Whether it was conformity to his sport, or constructing an image he could live behind, it's safe to guess that everyone is asking who Tiger really is, including Tiger himself. The Vanity Fair article labeled his deceitful actions as him living "a life without meaning."

The question now is whether (A) Tiger realizes the extent of what he has done, (B) whether he wants it to change or just wants to continue as much as he can, cutting his losses, and (C) if he does work toward change, toward a genuine life where he tries to live as person of character, who the people will be who stand beside him.

There's four sides to every debate

I didn't read this column for the New York Times beyond its lead, but what I did read reminded me that most issues we debate today are not one side against the other, no matter who wants to pitch them as such.

Today's news media, and the piles of bloggers and pundits surrounding it, loves to act as if the way of Congress is the same way the nation is: red vs. blue, Republicans vs. Democrats, partisanship.

But I think there's a lot more variety of views out there, and something needs to be done to recognize them rather than having two very different sides alternate declaring victory over each other, even as the actual people they serve (who have mixed views) don't necessarily get what they want.

Here's an example of how a variety of different views can be approached not for their two poles but rather for the many different views within them.

In Christian realms, one of the hottest debates is that of determinism: Calvinism vs. Arminianism, predestination vs. free will. It's as high-powered a debate as, say, abortion or health care is to the American political divide.

The interesting thing about the determinism debate, however, is that it's usually not one side against the other. Yes, you have your extreme Calvinists and Arminianists, but most people draw a position somewhere in the middle. Going in line with the helpful acronymn that strict Calvinists hold to, "TULIP" (each letter standing for one of the five main tenets of Calvinism), people declare themselves four-point Calvinists, two-pointers, ULIPs, LITs, or TULPs...whichever fits the points with which they agree.

I have a feeling that many of the harsh debates filling American politics are the same. As the Times column suggests, climate change is not one side against the other. Most involved see right and wrong in both sides. (And many are sick of seeing the issue covered by media sources who act as if one side is right, ignoring that there are financial movers behind the two main views.)

Abortion is another tricky issue, where people say you have to be one or the other. But with the variety of people out there in different situations, and 50 different states and all kinds of health care plans, can you really say one way is right all the time without providing concessions for people coming from a different place than you? (I'm ignoring the morality of the issue here, which I believe is conclusive, and instead talking about the practicality of getting a nation of 300 million people to get somewhere on a topic.)

It's easiest to divide the country into red and blue, to polarize people and options through hyperbole and limited portrayal of views, but I think it may be best to apply a TULIP approach to the weightiest issues of our times.

I'd like to see the news media find a way to flesh out the varying shades of the many debates, rather than following the political leaders that try to create a me-versus-them divide. Chances are, there are a lot of people trapped in the middle with a combination of views whose voices aren't being heard.

Discussing large issues may be a hard place to start doing this, but an easy place to start would be the idea of "mandates." For example, when George W. Bush became President in 2000, Karl Rove declared that the nation had a conservative mandate. He used Bush's narrow election (in which he actually lost the popular vote) to say conservative issues should be railroaded through. Eight years later, Barack Obama's election had liberals declaring he had a mandate of his own (although his win was still by a relatively slim margin).

In fact, a little flare-up occurred when conservative (psycho) Ann Coulter dared to say this year that America was a mostly conservative nation. Democrats pointed to election results to say the country was mostly liberal. But with the vote so close, why is either side declaring ownership? A mandate comes from a wide majority, and too many factors went into this election to be able to declare much of a mandate for anything. This is especially true when you look at public opinion now toward a lot of Obama's principles; people like some of what he supports, but that doesn't mean they want him to do whatever he likes.

Throughout the election season, it was revealed again and again that there are a heck of a lot of independents out there, and it's less about political divides than individual principles. Hence, TULIP.

Mandates? No. A definite answer what to do about climate change? No. Health care? Well, that one you can label a win for the Dems, since they had to basically use their party majority to override since they didn't want to be the group that didn't close the deal on such a controversial domestic issue once they got the numeric advantage.

Let's challenge those discussing our nation and its issues to get rid of red and blue, instead finding out a way to figure out what all this purple is saying.

An interesting twist in the privacy debate

This opinion piece in the New York Times reveals an interesting twist in the privacy debate: That the Internet often supersedes the laws made by certain governments to protect their people.

Basically, what happened is that a couple German men were convicted of murder but let out under parole under a law that said German media organizations couldn't reveal their identity, in an attempt to help these men start new, normal lives. Since Germany is a democracy, we can assume that this law is some form of voted-by-the-people-for-the-people system. The catch is that, with the Internet, people outside of Germany can still know who these men are, and when they write about the men, English-speaking Germans can know, too. Thus, the law is circumvented by Internet freedom.

I'm all for people's free speech on the Internet, but this issue is one that will surely come up again as the world becomes more of a globally entwined system and less of a country-by-country place. While sometimes the Internet can be a great voice for reason, to go around the restrictions of a government that doesn't mean well (think Iran), in this case it appears the Internet is just harming a government that is looking to protect its citizens.

What will be interesting is how this debate plays out in the future, with so much information out there amid the wide range of governments and freedoms they allow.

France, and freedom of speech

Anyone who thinks Americans politicians have it too easy should check out this piece by the New York Times, which reports that French politicans are essentially able to keep French citizens from saying critical things about them.

The Times reports that not only can French leaders fine people for "public insult toward a member of the ministry," they can also infringe on people's privacy by preying into their Internet comments and tracking down the people who post them.

"The Internet is a danger for democracy," one leader says, which I guess means that people being able to speak their minds is a danger to the politicans who connive their way into office.

It's one thing to make rude and unnecessary comments about politicians and leaders, but it's another when those politicans, who seem to think they're a member of some elite class that puts them above criticism, act in hideous ways then lash out at those who expose them. (If you're elite, act elite.)

The real problem with this whole case, however, is not that people can't speak their minds. Europe actually has very lax rules about covering politicians, as the Times reports:

"The French news media, like others in Europe, have long granted the political elite a number of journalistic accommodations, including the right to make prepublication revisions to interviews."

For all the cries of partisan reporting in the United States, as least the American press doesn't do that. Even if coverage sometimes gets slanted, American journalists report what people say and don't coddle political leaders. Of all people who could be granted "journalistic accommodations," politicans should be the last, due to their seat of power and overall sleaziness.

Stilted accountability is better than somewhat totalitarianism, and God bless America.

Theism!? In the New York Times?!

Ross Douthat's New York Times column hits it right on the head: Humanity's attraction to pantheism, and how Hollywood has tapped into that yearning and promoted it. An excellent read, and in the New York Times, no less.

A voice of reason

In a world where the Republicans are always denouncing the Democrats, the liberals always taking pot-shots at the conservatives, the my-view-is-bests kicking around the your-view-is-stupids, Christians can take the higher road and know the following:

1. Not all things in this world can be known
2. Not all problems can be solved
3. This life is not the endgame; it's actually just the path to real life.

But despite having these advantages over their fellow, bickering humans, Christians still seem to think that if they elect certain people or implement certain ideologies, this world can be saved. (Their marching in lockstep with the latest swirls of Republicanism, including Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, especially scares me.) While Christians have the most assurance and hope in life, with the peace that comes from (God's) intended ignorance of life's idiosyncrasies, they still try to fix, control, and tweak.

This New York Times column from today, however, reminded me that this surge in Christians trying to make political advances is really just a sign that Christians are humans, too. And humans today increasingly think this world can be fixed, or some systems can be run perfectly. Although David Brooks takes a different route, his message is good for Christians to heed as well. In our technology-obsessed world, as advancements have been made to correct certain problems, we increasingly think this world can be steered toward perfection, and we react immaturely when it is not.

Work hard, influence well, do your best; but never think that there is no room for error or mishap. Tragedy will come. Yet Christians have the hope of not only knowing that this life is meant for tragedy, but also knowing that they have a better life around the corner.

Christians shouldn't be blown around by the winds of current events (another bomber, the socialization of health care, the stupidity of sinful people). They can make their voice heard in a country where they've been given the right to vote and speak, and they can look to love their fellow men. But their aim should not be the correction of the current life; it should be toward helping people see past this life.

The better life spoken about by Jesus Christ (Whose kingdom was not of this earth) is what Christians should be preaching.