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In a matter of just two obnoxiously blurted out words, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina went from an obscure name likely only to be recalled by congressional scholars or South Carolinians to an overnight sensation after President Obama’s health care speech to a joint session of congress on Wednesday night. In fact, he has become the center of Internet culture jokes, a top query for search engines, and was on the front page of all the newspapers. It is all on the basis of two words uttered during President Obama’s speech: “you lie.” Furthermore, these two words also helped an obscure opponent of his raise a half million dollars within 24 hours of the remarks being made.

Not only was the remark both counterproductive and further detrimental to the already marginalized Republican Party, but it was also, ironically, not true. The current legislation on the table specifically states that the health care plan would not cover illegal immigrants. Despite Joe Wilson apologizing for the immaturity and inappropriateness of his outburst, he still had the audacity to make a 1 and half minute political advertisement urging his supporters to help him raise funds in this time of new found notoriety.

The Republican Party that currently has a tempo set by the extreme end of its party that has a rallying cry based on emotion-based fear tactics lacking reason. There cannot be a reasonable debate on issues if the opposition party continues to embrace and foster a brand of fear mongering and anti-intellectualism that is embodied by right wing media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh. and Glenn Beck. It is no coincidence that because the party has become so extreme it has also become regional. It has become nearly impossible to be a viable candidate as a Republican in the northeast United States.

I am not going to pretend that there was not hyper partisanship and anger laden dissent from the Democrats when President Bush was in power but never can I recall disrespect and childishness on the level of Rep. Joe Wilson. For the most part, Americans do not like this kind of disrespect and immaturity in their leaders. This is probably part of the reason why his opponent was able to raise a half of a million dollars. If the Republicans want a chance to ever become a mainstream party again, it must look to real leaders and stop letting the agenda be set by radio personalities. Joe Wilson is almost certainly a result of the radio-run political party and is overall terrible for their party.

Photo source: http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/President-Barack-Obama-Republican-Joe-Wilson/photo//090910/photos_pl_afp/7dd0a7aefc1ae5b1d43488f533448a60//s:/politico/20090910/pl_politico/26970

Jaren Love

Per recommendation of former colleagues in the Senate office where I interned this past spring, I read the book Hardball by popular TV political pundit Chris Matthews. The book shares many anecdotes from his many years of experience working in politics and one such anecdote that stuck with me was one about Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who passed early Wednesday morning. In his first race for United States Senate in 1962, his opponent said that Kennedy “(had) never worked a day in his life” and accused him only being able to be a candidate because of his name. In order to alleviate this fairly accurate assertion, Kennedy would share an anecdote on the campaign trail about a dockworker who approached him during a campaign event and said “Hey, Kennedy, are you the one they said never worked a day in his life?” and followed it up with saying “Well, let me tell you something, young man, you haven’t missed a thing.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy died Tuesday, August 25, at the age of 77

This anecdote is important for understanding the life of Ted Kennedy. Despite having a life laden with some hardship and accusations of scandalous activity, as a legislator Kennedy had great empathy for the working class, and, despite his great financial status and powerful family name, worked hard and aspired for the causes of the less fortunate. He had a life long goal of passing health care legislation and despite not getting there after years of attempts, some have suggested that any legislation that does possibly come to pass should be named after Kennedy himself.

I thought I would also take some time to highlight a few of the things Kennedy did that benefited young people, since this is a college student aimed publication. MTV News did a wonderful piece highlighting some of this and I will take a few of the highlights from it. In 1965, Kennedy created the National Teacher Corps, which created scholarships for aspiring teachers who agreed to teach in economically down trodden areas for two years. He also, in 1968, helped champion the Bilingual Education Act which required public schools to offer programs in bilingual education. In 1970, he drafted the amendment that changed the voting age from 21 to 18. In the 70’s he also worked to provide equal rights for female athletes in colleges and high schools, as well as working to provide free and equal education in every state for the disabled.

Kennedy also was crucial in creating opportunities for Americans to get low interest government loans for college. In fact, according to the same MTV article, just in 2007 alone Kennedy helped work on the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that made the greatest addition to student aid since the landmark G.I. Bill in 1944! And, of course, many of us have had to work minimum wage jobs throughout our college and high school careers. Kennedy helped those of us who have to do those jobs by tirelessly fighting to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in 2007 a,s well.

Despite Kennedy not being able to survive to realize his lifelong dream of providing affordable health care to all Americans, so that they too could receive the treatment he was able to receive to fight his brain cancer, let us hope that the passing of Senator Kennedy will help inspire the other 99 Senators to continue the fight for universal health care that Americans deserve. With his uncanny ability to work with conservative Republicans on important legislation and yet remain an optimistic beacon of hope for the unapologetically ideological liberal cause, Kennedy will be an iconic and unforgeable lawmaker that will be greatly missed.

Image Source: http://freshopinion.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/ted-kennedy-shall-return/

By Jaren Love

Right now the New York Times top selling non-fiction paperback is a book entitled Common Sense, and no, it is not an ever so aesthetically pleasing newly released Penguin Classics edition of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary book, but rather a title borrowed by contemporary conservative commentator Glenn Beck. Blend that best selling book in the blender with the tea party protesters along with the rhetoric used at recent town hall meetings (see Senator Arlen Specter/Senator Claire McCaskill on youtube) by constituents angrily confronting their elected legislators coming home from Washington and one would think we are on the brink of a second American revolution. The question is, what exactly would this revolution stand for and what exactly do these dissenters of the Obama administration want and what are they arguing for?

Many commentators on television shows I have watched this week have said this is the angriest they have seen Americans in recent history. But I can not help but think that the situation in the United States with this growing niche of Obama dissenters is like beating up the firefighter instead of the arson. After all, the economic collapse, the two wars that put us trillions of dollars in debt, a lack of response to a natural disaster that devastated an American city and left many to die all took place under the previous administration’s watch. Now when a President steps in to fix all of those problems and also tries to give health care to uninsured Americans, the voices reach an unprecedented level of anger.

However, tonight when I was brainstorming to write commentary for this whole angry town hall and health care situation, I decided to watch Fox News, largely considered the more right wing friendly news outlet in this country. I could not help but notice that most of the reporting on the health care debate all covered hypothetical facets of health care reform rather than what has actually been debated in congress. There was coverage on the Sarah Palin “death panel” conspiracies, a conservative British legislator commentating on single payer health care which currently has about as much of a chance of becoming a political reality as a draft for the Iraq War, and other things that seem to be meant to scare people rather than to help create a productive debate in this country.

Not only that, all of this talk about the constitution and the revolution is nonsensical. How is trying to provide more health care any more unconstitutional than Medicare, Social Security, or any other kind of government bureaucracy? Watch some of those town hall dissenters on youtube videos. I would be willing to bet that any one of them knows somebody who enjoys their Social Security or Medicare benefits and would not want them taken away and would be very angry to have them taken away, probably someone near and dear.

I do not know what it is the dissenters want and I do not think anybody knows. The argument seems to be against big government but that little thing called the Industrial Revolution or the Great Depression or the New Deal has kind of given us an irreversibly big government that makes all of this “revolution” talk laughable. We tried electing a guy who wanted to do nothing about an economic collapse. His name was Herbert Hoover; remember what happened to him? The point is Senator Obama became President Obama a little over 200 days ago and inherited one of the worst transitional messes in Presidential history. What is it these people are so upset about that they were not upset about when Bush was President? I wish the media would stop giving so much attention to these town hall protesters because the argument is all bone and no meat and should be irrelevant. I have no problem with freedom of speech, I just have problem with speech that is a product of misinformed, regurgitated AM talk radio and Fox News talking points. If the public as depicted in these town halls was debating what was actually proposed in legislation, maybe we could have a civil and productive debate. Or maybe, if Fox News told them the truth, we could have a real debate, but, until then, I guess we just have to sit back and watch the madness.

Image Source: http://www.fogcityjournal.com/images/photos2008/lt_hr676_sb840_rally_080619/mw2w9555_std.jpg