The Pie In The Sky Was Eight Years Ago

The forward to Andrea Marcotte's article (don't call her a blogger!) supporting Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for President reads in part "Salon writers Amanda Marcotte and Andrew O'Hehir are going head-to-head on their picks for the Democratic nomination."

It is not a death match and indeed Marcotte refers to it as a "dialogue." Marcotte actually appears to prefer Sanders' position on the issues while O'Hehir concedes "on many issues the two candidates aren’t as far apart as they appear." He explains

despite the sturm und drang of the moment I’m still inclined to believe Nate Silver’s thesis that the Democratic outcome is virtually foreordained. Another reason is that Amanda’s argument that Hillary Clinton represents a pragmatic option for governing the country in the near term and restoring some semblance of political order and sanity, while progressives build better options for the future, should be taken seriously by Sanders supporters. Because you are likely to hear some version of it coming out of Bernie Sanders’ mouth, sometime between April and July.

O'Hehir  appears to recognize that Marcotte's strongest point probably is

The presidency is an executive office. Clinton’s more pragmatic approach to politics means she’s more suited to that work, which is about executing the existing law in ways that best get you closer to liberal goals. The job isn’t about passing single-payer healthcare. It’s about running the health and human services department. Sanders has failed to persuade me that he really, truly gets the difference, and so I can’t, in good conscience, support nominating him over Clinton.

Both Marcotte and O'Hehir recognize that the objective of the next Democratic presidency is to get closer to progressive goals. However,although he isn't confident "this is that moment," O'Hehir argues- borrowing from a French philosopher-

“if we accept the inevitability of the unbridled capitalist economy and the parliamentary politics that supports it” — and that is precisely the position of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party — and if we do not put an end to the “linguistic terrorism” of the neoliberal age, which has forbidden words and ideas like “socialism,” we cannot imagine such a world, let alone create it.

The fight between Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters has been played out in Salon for months ago, not always as reasonably as between these two exceptional writers. Context is provided in part by checking in on their stances in the presidential race of 2008. Marcotte originally was a supporter of the arguably one progressive, inarguably somewhat populist, candidate among the three initially viable hopefuls. Forced out as a blogger for Edwards in a faux scandal, Marcotte switched  her support to Obama.

Seven-plus years later, as she was transitioning from blogging for Raw Story to writing for Salon, Marcotte would maintain

Bloggers, liberal bloggers anyway, set out to change the way we talk about politics in this country. We wanted a more liberal Democratic Party. We wanted social justice issues at the center of the conversation. We wanted the war to end. Those things happened, 

We "wanted the war to end" but there currently are thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, albeit not directly in combat.  The Taliban have made major advances in Afghanistan, ISIL still controls large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria, and in the latter nation, the USA faces the Hobson's choice of now either trying to destroy ISIL and the Baathist regime or ISIL alone (which Sanders views more realistically than does Clinton).  Admittedly, social justice issues are "at the center of the conversation"- in the Democratic Party- but only because there has been very little "change we can believe in."

That doesn't make Andrea Marcotte a hypocrite, any more than I am for supporting Mrs. Clinton eight years ago, despite her support for making abortion "safe, legal, and rare," a concept Republican-controlled states are embedding in onerous anti-choice legislation (graph below from 2013, but you get the idea), and one Clinton she has not renounced (nor has any reason to, now that reproductive rights organizations such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Emily's List have endorsed her).

But it does raise questions, chief among them being why an individual who (eventually) supported the candidate of hope and change over Hillary Clinton now finds Clinton so eminently befitting the presidency.  Understandably, eight years ago, she supported someone with great promise, who had become a member of Congress not quite four years earlier. Now, she believes a US Senator who has served a quarter of a century in the United States Congress is less suited for the presidency and unrealistic about the chance of achieving policy goals.

"Effecting change is not about making really big promises and posturing about how you're more socialist than thou," Marcotte contends. That is more than a cheap shot coming from someone who supported Barack Obama, the candidate of huge, unfulfiled promises. (it was not so long ago that the Affordable Care Act was touted as reform which would insure 40-45 million more Americans. It has fallen qute short of that.)   She also knows Bernie Sanders is principled, not stupid, and has not "postured" about being "more socialist than thou."

Similarly, Marcotte would be more forthright were she- as a 2016 supporter of HRC- to acknowledge that she was wrong four years ago to favor a relatively inexperienced candidate rather than a woman who, unlike Obama, had gained the respect of colleagues while serving in the U.S. Senate.

Admittedly, Bernard Sanders is not Barack Obama, though both have inferred that their election ultimately would bring about dynamic reform. However, it is disquieting that the commitment to principle which separates Sanders from Obama would be used as more of a disqualifying, than qualifying, criteria for the presidency.









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Backing Down

Perhaps Senator Marco Rubio believes Chris Christie is Norwegian-American.

At the Republican debate Thursday night in Des Moines, we heard the abridged version of Marco Rubio's joke: "And let me tell you what the answer better not be. It better not be Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is a socialist. I think Bernie Sanders is good candidate for president of Sweden."   Campaigning in Iowa earlier in the week, however, the Senator had added to the end of the joke "I was saying Norway, but I got a little bit of heat from the Norwegians."

That came in response to a question about the candidate's electability. Later in the debate, though, the Floridian was asked

...  during the last debate, you said Governor Christie had changed his position and his mind on gun control, on common core, and backing President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. He said you’re wrong on the facts and you can’t, quote, “slime your way to the White House.” I assume in the last two weeks, you’ve done some fact-checking. Do you want to take anything back?

Rubio's reply pertained to faith, Judeo-Christian values, and living "in eternity with my Creator." Unless Rubio was confusing his Creator with Sheldon Adelson (their religion being the same), he wasn't in the same zip code as Justice Sotomayor, gun control, education, or Chris Christie.

Nor does he want to be in the  same zip code, or arena, with the New Jersey governor.

The Florida senator appears to regret criticizing Christie (video below) at the previous debate, in South Carolina, for endorsing "many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether  it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood."

Christie had come back with

I stood on the stage and watched Marco in rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco's ear too.

Following approving laughter, Christie continued

So the indignation that you carry on, some of the stuff, you have to also own then. So let's set the facts straight. First of all, I didn't support Sonia Sotomayor. Secondly, I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood.

Third, if you look at my record as governor of New Jersey, I have vetoed a 50-caliber rifle ban. I have vetoed a reduction this clip size. I vetoed a statewide I.D. system for gun owners and I pardoned, six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state so they never have to face charges.

And on Common Core, Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey. So listen, this is the difference between being a governor and a senator. See when you're a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with what you're saying is accurate or not.

When you're a governor, you're held accountable for everything you do. And the people of New Jersey, I've seen it.








As a Washington Post fact checker explained in its annotated transcript of the debate, Christie has a "mixed" record on gun control and New Jersey has some of  the strongest gun safety measures in the nation.   Further, though Christie's claim about Common Core is technically accurate, he has maintained the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness  for College and Careers (PARCC) exams, described as "aligned to Common Core standards." "You keep the car. You just change the color of the paint," one New Jersey associate professor of education noted.

The term "Common Core" itself is a lightning rod for many conservatives. Therefore, eliminating the "common" while merely shifting standards has given Christie some immunity from attack. But Rubio must have known the governor has received a rating of "C" from the National Rifle Association while Rubio has in the past received an "A."  

Further, Chris Christie is on record as having remarked "President Obama has used his opportunity to fill a seat on the Supreme Court by choosing a nominee who has more than proven her capability, competence and ability." While Planned Parenthood has no record that Christie gave it a check- as a nonprofit, it doesn't disclose private donations- Christie at one time did give to Planned Parenthood, and also stated "It's no secret that I'm pro-choice."

"Your secret is safe with me," Rubio might have quipped at the earlier debate, in South Carolina, while quoting Christie from the 1994 autobiography which featured the statement (or perhaps "Chris Christie was for Planned Parenthood before he was against it"). And when asked by Chris Wallace in Iowa if he "want(s) to take anything back," he could have said "I'm true to my word. If I say something, I own up to it." He could then have drawn a contrast to Christie or, if he wanted to avoid a confrontation, immediately lapse into his discourse about the centrality of religious faith to governing.

Something, though. But he ignored the entire question because Marco Rubio is scared of Chris Christie, as have some Democratic, and many Republican, politicians in New Jersey have been so for a few years now. Yet, in a campaign in which fear of frontrunner Donald Trump has become a significant theme, no notice is taken that there is one major,viable candidate who has demonstrated that he wants to steer clear of the New Jersey governor.









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The Christian Right, By Any Other Name

Of  all the Republican presidential candidates, Ted Cruz has been most assiduously courting evangelical voters, and with considerable success.  But Senator Rubio is not willing to concede that portion of the electorate to the Texas senator, nor to anyone else. And it was less than two weeks ago that The Atlantic's outspoken and unqualifiedly atheistic Jeffrey Tayler turned his sights on Marco Rubio.

Tayler quotes, in a new campaign ad, Rubio  remarking “Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ.”   He responds

Our goal? Assuming Rubio is not using the “royal we” reserved for monarchs and other heads of state, he is, by speaking for the rest of us, insulting the growing atheist constituency in his electorate. We rationalists do not take lightly implicit charges of faith-derangement, which impute to our character and intellect multifarious defects (e.g., wishful thinking, a willingness to accept propositions without substantiation, the need to fear divine retribution to behave decently toward our fellows) from which we do not suffer.

Rubio maintains "Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Chris.  "The struggle,” he adds, “on a daily basis as a Christian is to remind ourselves of this.”   The ad (below) is entitled "Marco Rubio on His Christian Faith" and includes the Senator asserting "the purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan” and "to those who much has been given, much is expected and we will be asked to account for that, were your treasures stored up on earth or in Heaven."

Tayler, who considers himself a  "rationalist" who does not believe "in fairy tales," concludes

You have, Senator, a constitutional right to profess belief in whatever you want. But you have no right to do so unchallenged by those tasked with ferreting out the truth and conveying it to the public. Unfortunately, though, you can broadcast such views throughout the land with little fear of being called out by journalists, who will shy away from religion as too sensitive and personal a topic.

Tayler thus far appears quite prescient, for in Thursday night's debate in Des Moines, Rubio wasn't questioned about his Christian faith, and didn't need to be.  So committed he is that when asked about Chris Christie's shift of position on gun control, Common Core, and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Rubio said nothing about gun control, education, the Supreme Court, or Planned Parenthood (another issue Christie has conveniently flipped on), instead replying

Yeah, I would encourage people to go on my website, marcorubio.com, and we’ll put all the facts up there so people can see it for themselves. But you’ve just asked a very fundamental question about the role of faith in our country. And I think this is an important question. I think if you do not understand that our Judeo-Christian values are one of the reasons why America is such a special country, you don’t understand our history. You see, why are we one of the most generous people in the world — no, the most generous people in the world? Why do Americans contribute millions of dollars to charity?

It is not because of the tax writeoff. It is because in this nation, we are influenced by Judeo-Christian values that teach us to care for the less fortunate, to reach out to the needy, to love our neighbor. This is what’s made our nation so special.

And you should hope that our next president is someone that is influence by their faith. Because if your faith causes you to care for the less fortunate, it is something you want to see in your public figures. And when I’m president, I can tell you this, my faith will not just influence the way I’ll govern as president, it will influence the way I live my life. Because in the end, my goal is not simply to live on this earth for 80 years, but to live an eternity with my creator. And I will always allow my faith to influence everything I do.

There was no explanation from the Florida senator of the impact of those Judeo-Christian values upon slavery, the violent displacement of  native American tribes, or of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Most of the individuals responsible for those policies also considered themselves Christian.

Asked about his electability, Rubio began his response "Well, let me be clear about one thing, there’s only one savior and it’s not me. It’s Jesus Christ who came down to earth and died for our sins." In his closing statement, Rubio was determined that potential caucus-goers recognize the appeal he was making and so stated "the bible commands us to let our light shine on the world. For over 200 years, America's light has been shining on the world and the world has never been the same again...."

Such soaring rhetoric is mostly what Rubio believes, or wants voters in Iowa to believe. But it is at least disquieting after two months ago he declared

We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules. When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win. In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.

This is theocracy, defined by Merriam-Webster as "government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as  divinely guided."  Nobody is ordering anyone to "stop preaching the gospel" or even discouraging anyone from preaching the gospel.  But when Marco Rubio decides that when civil law and what he interprets as God law conflict, "God's law" is to prevail, he is advocating a  theocracy.  And there already is too much theocracy, mostly Islamic, in the world.

John Adams argued that government should be of laws, not of men, a concept foreign to Marco Rubio, one of the media's favorite Republican "moderates."  When one claims immunity from the civil law because of alleged religious belief,  privilege has smashed a hole in the wall of separation between church and state.











Note: The initial version of this post omitted the sentence "asked about his electability...." 


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A Group Of Moderates, Obama Supposes

President Obama made in his recent interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush an amazing remark which has gone largely, if not completely, unnoticed.  He stated

Well, my hope — not just for me or the Democratic Party but for the Republican Party and for America – is that this is an expression of frustration, anger that folks like Trump and, to some degree, Cruz are exploiting. It’s real within the Republican Party and the Republican base, but that after this venting, Republican voters will settle down and say, “Who do we want actually sitting behind the desk, making decisions that are critical to our future?”

Hopefully, he argues, Republican voters will settle down and say "Who do we want actually sitting behind the desk, making decisions that are critical to our future?"

The answer, for most of us Democrats- though not for President Obama- is "none of the above."

On the matters of Muslims and immigration, Donald Trump has laid down a marker, expressing views more intolerant than even his rivals hold. Of course, no GOP presidential  hopeful has advocated a path to citizenship, whether opposing or supporting legalization, the latter option useful to having Mexican immigrants work cheaply with no opportunity for public benefits or voting privileges. There is no GOP candidate who supports the Iran deal, with only John Kasich signaling he might not as President immediately terminate it.

No Republican dare say he (or she) holds anything other than an absolutist view of the Second Amendment.  Chris Christie, once the favorite "moderate" in the media and with President Obama, believes prohibiting carjackers or gangbangers from owning or purchasing a firearm is "stupid."

No GOP presidential contender prefers a more equitable tax system, one which do anything other than exacerbate income inequality. None.

Nor has anyone suggested that one of the nation's leading providers of health care services to women, Planned Parenthood, continue to receive government funding. None.  "Folks like Trump and, to some degree, Cruz," the President argues, are uniquely dangerous, a remark which probably (and justifiably) has disappointed the other leading Republican candidate, Marco Rubio.

Obviously, no one has outdone Carly Fiorina on Planned Parenthood, who insists she saw on videos, found by independent analysis to be thoroughly manipulated, what isn't there. (This at one time was called "delusional.")  Now that several state investigations have cleared the organization and a grand jury in Houston, Texas has refused to indict it

“I think it’s pretty clear that we now know what goes on in Planned Parenthood clinics,” Carly Fiorina said, reacting to the indictments on Monday. Fiorina, an outspoken promoter of deceptively edited videos by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) — whose two leaders the Houston jury incited on charges of “tampering with a governmental record” and “the purchase and sale of human organs” — has staked her campaign on the lie she told a September debate audience: The videos showed “a fully formed fetus on the table its heart beating its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”

Despite the grand jury’s two month investigation finding no evidence of such a scene, Fiorina stuck to the script. “Here’s what I know: Planned Parenthood has been trafficking in body parts. Planned Parenthood has been altering late-term abortion techniques to this specific purpose of harvesting body parts,” she told CNN

Have I mentioned how loathsome Carly Fiorina is? In all fairness, however, none of her rivals has admitted being wrong about the videos, Planned Parenthood, or contraception. She is merely the worst in a truly appalling group of individuals.  Yet, when President Obama surveys a field of candidates united in trying to instill fear among Americans, he says there is nothing to fear except a Donald Trump (or perhaps a Ted Cruz) presidency. That's Democratic President Obama, lest we forget, or pay attention to the last seven years.

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Now He Tells Us

What he says about the incumbent is true in two different ways.  President Obama recently was interviewed (photo, Glenn Baker/Redux) for podcast by Politico's Glenn Thrush and Charlie Pierce advises we "listen to the whole thing. It is going to be a very long time before we have as interesting a mind in that Oval Office as the one that's in there now."

"I think Hillary," the President stated disingenuously, "came in with the- both privilege and burden of being perceived as the frontrunner."    The advantage her campaign and her SuperPac have had, along with the oh, 70 to 1 advantage in endorsements (some actually valuable), speak to how much more of an advantage than a disadvantage frontrunner status is.

But then, Obama understandably prefers Clinton, who served him loyally as Secretary of State, and  "repeatedly praised Clinton without reservation while offering more tempered praise to the surging Sanders."

It is understandable, too, that Obama would state- without hint of irony-" you know, you're always looking at the bright, shiny object that people don't, haven't seen before. That's a disadvantage to her."  Peters realizes

You don't come from as far back as Sanders has—or, it must be said, from as far back as Senator Barack Obama did in 2008—merely as a bright, shiny object. And it's more than a little condescending to the people who are wandering through Ottumwa these days, knocking on the frigid panes of a thousand front doors, and trying to hold the line against a torrent of corporate money, a strange new line of attack that has taken on his record as a civil-rights worker back in the day with a kind of Rovian swift-boat focus, and the wrath of just about every member of the Democratic Party elite. People don't do that because they want to be in on the next new thing. They do it because they believe what the candidate is selling.

Lest we think Obama was acknowledging that he was an, oh, empty suit in 2008, the President put that wild notion to rest. Thrush asked "do you see any elements of what you were able to accomplish in what Sanders is doing" (on the campaign trail)?  After a clevely meandering response, Obama was asked "But it sounds like you're not buying the- you're not buying the sort of, the easy popular dicthotomy people are talking about,where he's an alog for you and she is herself?"  (That's a tough question, Glenn- "the easy popular dicthotomy.")

The response: "no. no" was followed by "you don't buy that, right" and "no, I don't think- I don't think that's true."

That Obama is not lying here only underscores how truly brilliant, as Peters recognizes, the President is.  "A political revolution is coming" does not even begin to compare with "change we can believe in." (And did you even know what Bernie Sanders' campaign slogan is?) People know what Bernie Sanders stands for.  What Senator Obama  stood for in 2008- given his actions as President- can only be speculated upon.

"Change we can believe in" may have included anything, and probably meant something a little different to each 2008 Obama supporter.  We know what Sanders means by a  political revolution- ending the corporate control of the political system.  This is no small matter.

Nor is it one issue, spanning a broad specturm of more specific policies. Yet, Obama argues "I don't think that Democrats are going to votefor Hillary just because she's a woman any more than they're going to vote for Bernie just because they agree wth him on one particular issue." 

Suggesting that control of the economy is "one particular issue" that Sanders is concentrating on, one no more important than than the inherited characteristic of gender, is either condescending or a disturbing case of misplaced priorities. There are still some of us who believe that presidential candidates, like people, should not be judged on the basis of race or gender. 

Peters is  right, also, that  we will not soon have "as interesting a mind in the White House." It is a mind possessed by someone sufficiently adept that, without directly endorsing a successor, he would say

I think that what Hillary presents is a recognition that translating values into governance and delivering the goods is ultimately the job of politics, making a real-life difference to people in their day-to-day lives. I don't want to exaggerate those differences, though, because Hillary is really idealistic and progressive. You'd have to be to be in, you know, the position she's in now, having fought all the battles she's fought and, you know, taken so many, you know, slings and arrows from the other side.

Barack Obama concedes "translating values into governance and delivering the goods is ultimately the job of politics," a recognition which came eight years too late.  He now criticizes the Sanders effort as "a bright, shiny object," a truly revelatory remark from someone whose own campaign eight years ago was identified by Paul Krugman as something which "seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." 

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Establishment HRC Supporting Establishment HRC

"No more sulfurous epithet has been sounded in our current presidential campaign," writes Jack Shafer for Politico Magazine, "than the charge that a candidate, media outlet, or party represents the 'Establishment.'"

The issue recently has been especially brought into focus, Shafer explains, on both the Democratic side and the Republican side. In the latter, he notes Donald Trump wrote off the current "Against Trump' issue of the National Review as representing the establishment, after which editor Rich Lowry pointed out "The genuine Republican establishment is currently negotiating the terms of their surrender to Trump."  (Once a year or so, Lowry is right about something.)  

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders (photo below by Andrew Burton/Getty) labeled Hillary Clinton the "candidate of the Democratic establishment" and the front-runner responded by telling Wolf Blitzer her opponent has "been in Congress, he's been elected to office a lot longer than I  have."

"I'll let your viewers make their own judgement," Clinton concluded. Here is one means of determining who represents the Democratic establishment: among current Democratic governors, U.S. Representatives, and Senators, Clinton has received 202 endorsements; among the same group, Sanders has received only two, the co-chairpersons of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of whom was the first Muslim member of the U.S. House of Representatives.   That is in (small) part because he was until only recently not even a Democrat but an Independent, and acknowledges being a "democratic socialist," which would be a heck of a way of endearing yourself to the Establishment.

"So possessed with antiestablishmentarianist instincts is Sanders that  for a short while," Shafer recalls, " he  was even including Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign as part of an Establishment that is aligned against him." Sanders had in fact responded to endorsements of Clinton by the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood  by charging "So, I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund and Planned Parenthood. But, you know what? Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time. Some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment."

Let's be honest: as a politician, Senator Sanders labeled the groups as part of the establishment mostly because they had endorsed his primary rival.  Still, to be accurate: he was right about at least one of the two groups.

Shafer argues "the Establishment is not a monolith, but cleaved into at least two opposed organizations, the Democratic Establishment and the Republican Establishment." Republicans would readily charge Planned Parenthood with being part of the Democratic Establishment, a claim which would be debatable, but reasonable, unlike anything else they've said about the organization, It is, however, clearly not part of the Establishment.

Not so, however, the Human Rights Campaign, as revealed when in July, 2014 Buzzfeed reported

Some of the largest national LGBT rights groups — unified on the marriage equality fight in recent years — have begun a very public debate over a piece of another key goal: religious exemptions in employment protections.

The fight, which broke out into the open on Tuesday, is about scope of religious exemptions in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was passed by the Senate this past fall. Notably, it comes as an executive order about employment protections is being drafted at the White House and in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby.

While the debate isn’t new, the method of raising the stakes of the debate on Tuesday was stark: Seven national organizations — including the ACLU and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force — announced in three separate statements that they were withdrawing their support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act due to its current, broad religious exemption....

In addition to the Task Force and ACLU, Lambda Legal, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Transgender Law Center, and Pride at Work all withdrew their support for ENDA on Tuesday because of that religious exemption.

Supportive lawmakers see that that ground is shifting, although they were not going so far as to oppose the legislation itself. “I am very concerned about the religious exemption in the ENDA bill that passed the Senate,” Nadler told the Blade. “I think it is overbroad and I will of course work hard with my colleagues to narrow it appropriately.” He added that his concerns were amplified by the Hobby Lobbyruling.

Merkley, in a statement to BuzzFeed, echoed Nadler’s concerns, saying, “I share concerns about the Supreme Court’s overly broad reading of religious exemptions. I will keep working with advocates and Members on both sides of the aisle to address this issue. Workplace discrimination against the LGBT community is wrong and must end.”

But there was one prominent, ostensibly pro-gay organization which did not withdraw its support, lest such civil rights stalwarts as Orrin Hatch and John McCain- who had come to favor  the legislation- be made uncomforable.  We read

Making no specific comments about the religious exemption, the Human Rights Campaign is standing by ENDA — with a spokesman telling BuzzFeed on Tuesday, “HRC supports ENDA because it will provide essential workplace protections to millions of LGBT people.”

That is one of the definitions of "Establishment."  It is an organization that is in favor of human rights but accedes to religious exemptions, a notion that discrimination is fine as long as God is for it.

There are other definitions of establishmentarian, such as, Shafer points out, a Republican serving in a Democratic Administration (Bob Gates, anyone?) Among them are supporting changes in a bill to allow some people, those claiming God is on their side, to treat some people different than others; and garnering the support of something like 97% of all prominent Americans in your run for the presidency. Bernie Sanders has a point.

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Look No Further Than Philadelphia

There are many reasons Donald Trump is leading the Republican presidential race. Among them is attitude. Trump isn't any more conservative than the other guys and gal, but he has attitude.

Conservative attiutde includes periodic reference to "political correctness."  At one debate, Trump stated "I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either."

There are innumerable examples of political correctness- liberal, conservative, centrist, or non-ideological, though it's only the liberal sort which sets Republican voters on edge. That would include a recent event at one of the two Philadelphia, Pa. FM sports talk show stations. Well-known Philadelphia sports blog "Crossing Broad" described the response on the afternoon show on WIP to a news conference featuring the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles after he had fired the team's head coach:

Josh Innes, talking to Hollis Thomas, who is black, about Jason Kelce, who was in attendance at the press conference:

Innes: “Jason Kelce’s already there, huh? That’s … uh … I’ll give Jason Kelce this, he’s always in character. He never breaks character. His character is: lapdog for whoever the hell the coach is. And he is always … He’s at the press conference, huh? Good for him, bless his heart.”

Thomas: “Actually I don’t really blame him because he’s a guy who wants a job.”

Innes: “Here’s the thing though, right, it’s like this. Let me find a good comparison here. I was watching Malcolm X yesterday, I was in the airport in Memphis watching Malcolm X, and there was a scene where Denzel’s doing the whole thing about the slave and the house negro? Right? And like, the house negro is the guy who’s gonna tell you like, oh he gets to live in the big house with the boss and every time he refers to something that happens in the house it’s ‘our house’ and ‘we’ and everything like that. And then there’s the actual slave that isn’t the house negro that’s just trying to run away. Essentially what you’re getting here is Jason Kelce is the house negro is what I’m trying to convey to you.”

Thomas: *laughter*

Innes: “That’s essentially Jason Kelce’s job: ‘Yessir. Yes boss. Absolutely boss. Yes, sir boss.’ That is Jason Kelce, he is, whoever the head coach is gonna be, he’s gonna be all over that head coach. There’s no arguing, there’s no fussing, there’s no fighting, he’s in with that guy,"

Later in the show, Innes apologized, not only referring to himself as stupid, a moron, and an idiot, but also seemingly criticizing the analogy.  And then he was suspended for three days with the station contending "comments made by Josh Innes during his WIP-FM program yesterday in regards to Eagles center Jason Kelce were inappropriate and unacceptable,. We do not condone or approve of those comments.”

Crossing Broad informs us “'House Negro' (also “House N*gger”) is a pejorative term for a black person, used to compare someone to a house slave of a slave owner from the historic period of legal slavery in the United States."   It originated with the late Malcolm X, who never, as far as I can remembe,r was criticized for use of the word "n_ _ _ _ _," nor for his explanation.

Innes, as the transcript indicates, never even used the "n-word."  Nor does he suggest inferiority of African-Americans.  Nor does WIP indicate that anything Innes said was invalid, perhaps because defending then-head coach Andy Reid was one of Jason Kelce's roles.

But that's how it is with political correctness. The right, which has cornered the term, finds it advantageous to refer to only those things it dislikes as "politically correct." Consider the phrase carefully, however, and the conclusion may be reached that a defining characteristic is that accuracy or truth is irrelevant. And that, sports fans, is one of the reasons Donald Trump's candidacy has caught fire.

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