After casting her ballot for Barack Obama, Amanda Jones said simply, "I feel good about voting for him." Ms. Jones, of Cedar Creek, Texas (a town just south of Austin), is African-American, and what gives her vote some historic punch is that she's 109 years old. Her father was a slave. Her mother was born right after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. She's been through it all--Jim Crow segregation, women's suffrage, the Great Depression, the poll tax, FDR, the civil-rights movement, desegregation, 13 years of George W (five as guv, eight as prez), and now: Barack Obama. This last change fills her with joy, she says.
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bill bennett’s bilious b.s
Our nation’s supercilious scold and pious patriot, William Bennett, has climbed out of his hole and is seeking the spotlight once again.
William the Pure is now heading up a right-wing, corporate-funded front group he calls AVOT—Americans for Victory Over Terrorism. Bennett seems to believe that there are millions of Americans who don’t want victory over terrorism, and he has appointed himself to lead a crusade to root out any and all who dissent from a single syllable of Bush’s military, budgetary, economic, and homeland-surveillance policies.
In full-page newspaper ads, Bennett proclaims that we must “maintain our focus and support for this war” no matter where it goes, how long it lasts, or what it costs. He deems it unpatriotic to question the president, the Pentagon, and other federal authorities. Protest is verboten. He says (with no apparent ironic intent) AVOT will target Americans “who do not understand—or who are unwilling to defend—our fundamental principles.”
We’ll probably land on AVOT’s secret list of un-American agitators for saying this, but we think the American people have a firmer grasp on democratic principles than Bennett ever will. Thanks for your little lecture, Bill—now go away.