A moment of levity, by my standards

Now that we've finally been rid of Hillary Clinton and her increasingly poorly managed (and racist) campaign, I can, I hope, safely say that I plan to vote for Barack Obama in this coming election. So, in case he was curious, he gets my oh-so-coveted endorsement.

This is not to say I am a blind partisan (or Obamabot, as they call them) drawn to unrealistic notions of "change." What appealed to me about Obama, and what always confused me with all these criticisms, was that he seemed to lay down in pretty concrete and intelligent terms what he planned to do. Partisanbots tried to paint him as having nothing but a bunch of vague utterances at the core of his campaign, and having seen the man speak a few times I can say that this is a mostly baseless accusation. I could give examples, and I might in a later post. Anyway, I will support the man, but not apologize for him. He seems like a good guy, and I find myself becoming more and more disturbed by McCain's behavior over the last few weeks, and Bob Barr is of course definitely out. Now Nader, I still might vote for him. Still though, Obama is not a perfect man, and in the interest of fair play, I present to you 10 Things I Do Not Like About Barack Obama

1. To start with an obvious one, his recent announcement to reject public financing. Not a bad idea in itself, but it seems the point he is trying to make is that, without big money interests, he can outspend McCain by however much he wants, while McCain is stuck with, at most, $84.1 million. Surely Obama, in the spirit of fair play, could have matched McCain's amount and offered to use the rest of the donations to do something else like, say, help people who are flooded or victims of genocide. As it stands, if Obama wins this thing, people will claim it is because of the money factor. Those of us who care about campaign finance reform, and we are a dying breed, weep.

2. The Obama campaign's response to accusations that he is somehow a secret Muslim. Obama's response was something along the lines of, "Of course I am not, I am a Christian like you." His response should have been, "Who gives a fuck?"

3. In one of the poorest examples of supposed "bipartisanship," Obama supported the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer house bill that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies who collaborate with our administration to spy on people. This is wildly unconstitutional and is unfortunately being supported by Nancy Pelosi as well as the majority of democrats in the house. It's possible Obama thinks that, as president-to-be, he would not use these warrantless wiretapping powers in vain, but come on.

4. He supported Joe Lieberman in his reelection bid after being ousted as the democratic nominee by Ned Lamont. Now I'm not the hugest Ned Lamont fan, but there are few people in the senate or anywhere else that I find so dishonorable and downright disgusting a political creature as Joe Lieberman. That is the subject of another post entirely, but it's worth pointing out that Lieberman did not respond in turn, and has now become a strong McCain backer. That is by far the least of why he is a scumbag.

5. His position on gay marriage. Doesn't support it, but supports "civil unions." Say what you want, but that's discriminatory. For supposedly the most "liberal" person in the senate, this is a glaring problem and offensive to homosexuals and non-bigots like myself.

6. The fact that he used to be an agnostic, which would be a pretty big deal if he still was (and a good thing), but then fell in with that lame church in order to circumvent stupid questions about his "faith." Looks like that didn't work out the way he planned.

7. Supports merit pay. 9 times out of 10, doesn't really work out the way it should, and the NEA wholeheartedly opposes it.

8. Made some generalizations about rap music that are pretty par for the course for ignorant old white politicians, but for someone who claims to have Jay-Z on his iPod, seems kind of an about face.

9. Said he liked Leon Uris. Blech.

10. Support of ethanol, which is troubling given that gas prices nevertheless make me want to cry. What's more, food prices are going up, which is particular bad timing given that vast swaths of the United States have been ravaged by national disasters.

I was thinking maybe I would do 10 things I would like about John McCain, again in the interest of fairness, but I don't know if I can even do that. His good qualities seem to be disappearing, one by one.