Ruairi O'Murchu's Blog

John the De-Regelator -- You Tube Request

Ruairi O'Murchu — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:55:07 EDT

The lyrics below, with apologies to both Depeche Mode and the Y2K version of the Blues Brothers, come from Blind Willie Johnson's version of "John the Revelator". They have been changed to fit the current times

[call] Well who's that a-wailin'? [response] John the De-Regelator / Who's that a-wailin'? John the De-Regelator / Who's that a-wailin'? John the De-Regelator / Wailin' bout the Wall Street Woes //
Tell me what's John a-claimin'? / Ask the De-Regelator / What's John a-sayin'? Ask the De-Regelator / What's John a-tellin'? Ask the De-Regelator / Says now he sees a need for regulation

Now who art worthy, thousands cried holy / Bound for some, Son of Bush / Daughter of Wasilla, Sarah's not ready / He decieveth us, and gonna cost blood / Well what's John a-writin'? Ask the De-Regulator / What's John a-writin'? Ask the De-Regulator / What's John a-writin'? Ask the De-Regulator / A book about the Keating Five / John the De-Regulator, great advocator / Listens to all the lobbyists / And the fundamentals, Lord, the fundamentals / of the economy are strong

You all get the idea... Surely some blues band out there can record a take on this and get it up and running on You Tube before the weekend's over, right??If it wasn't all so tragic, it would be funny.Get fired up, get ready to go. We can't afford any more Republican deregulation.

Is fear rith maith ná drochsheasamh. / Judging the Two Campaigns

Ruairi O'Murchu — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:15:32 EDT

Is fear rith maith ná drochsheasamh. The Irish proverb translates roughly as "A good run is better than a bad stand." One way of judging the two main contenders in this presidential contest is by comparinghow they have conducted their campaigns. Who is on track? Whose ship is showing signs of leaking? The conservative daily paper in Ireland, The Irish Times, summed things up today:http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0918/breaking57.htm Here's an excerpt that will leave little doubt who's running strong and who's straining to stand:

American voters’ main concern, despite protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the economy. And as the stock market plummets and American financial giants go out of business or find themselves struggling to survive, Mr McCain’s post-convention bounce - mainly driven by his surprise pick of Sarah Palin as the Republican Party’s first female vice presidential nominee - has vanished.

Mr McCain found himself in a particularly difficult spot yesterday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 450 points - slightly more than 4 per cent and the second huge loss this week - after an $85 billion government bailout of the world’s largest insurance companies, American International Group.

Mr McCain had vigorously opposed the bailout just hours before it was announced.

The move by the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, forced Mr McCain to quickly reshape his message from one of opposition to a grudging acceptance and acknowledgement that the government had acted to protect millions of Americans from further financial hardship.

Mr McCain said during the primary campaign that he was not as well versed on economic issues as he would like. The 72-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war has also been closely tied to President George Bush, whose popularity is at near record lows and will probably fall further under the weight of the economic slide.

Mr Obama, who appears to have regained his focus in the White House contest, was hitting Mr McCain hard as a product of a Republican drive over recent decades to deregulate the financial markets, moves that the first-term Illinois senator blamed for the mounting damage to the US economy.

In Elko, Nevada, a rural mining community, Mr Obama mocked Mr McCain’s response to Wall Street’s meltdown.

“Yesterday, John Mr McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on - and I quote — ‘the old boys’ network in Washington.‘ I’m not making this up,” Mr Obama said. “This is somebody who’s been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign.

“And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s going to take on the old boys’ network,” Mr Obama said. “The old boys’ network. In the Mr McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting. Come on.”

What it Will Come Down to November 4

Ruairi O'Murchu — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:53:33 EDT

Sure it's been a difficult season in which to tackle any reading projects, but there must be some in Obama nation who have spent the nights poring over Jane Mayer's The Dark Side or Barton Gellman's just released Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. Scary, scary stuff.

When she was interviewed on the Charlie Rose program, author Mayer discussed torture as a terribly misguided moral failure in the Bush administration, but then came back around to what does, in fact, work when looking for information: "money, flattery, and sex." (This comment occurs just after the 24 minute mark.)

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/08/13/1/a-conversation-with-author-jane-mayer

Now if that's intriguing to think about in regard to the mess we've slogged through since Bush brought us into Iraq on the back of a lie boldly and repeatedly told, then it's just as intriguing to think about what will likely be working in the forty-nine days that remain in this campaign.

If people truly are moved off the mark by money, flattery, and sex---what can we offer them as fellow citizens and potential voters? Let's say this: two out of three.

Let's flatter the American public by giving them enough credit, by assuming they can see through the lies and misdirections of the other side.

And then let's talk straight to the family checkbook. PLEASE download this flyer, print it off over and over again, and then do the ONE thing that has the best chance of working: go door to door in your own neighborhood first, and then go door to door in a circle that spirals outward from there,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/giveupdefunk/tax_leaflet_back.png

Should we fail to do our part, we'll be left on the dark side November 5th.

McCain and Palin as Commanders of our Nuclear Arsenal?

Ruairi O'Murchu — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:40:43 EDT

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

--President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove

Generations of scholars have studied the famous TV commercial that Lyndon Johnson ran once and once only against Barry Goldwater, and often the conclusion has been that it was unfair at the time to imply that Goldwater might have brought a happy trigger finger to the nuclear arms race. Many observers put this ad in the same category as Richard Drew's "Falling Man" photograph from 9/11--too disturbing to present to the general pyublic.

If you've never seen the LBJ ad, here's your YouTube chance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVn9k6d1og

"These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die." [--Voice-over quote from Johnson himself]

We can spend a long time agonizing over how Johnson went wrong in Vietnam, but he has to share credit with every president since Truman in keeping the H-Bomb an unused nightmare. And isn't that something we should expect, should demand from our next president as well? (Did you hear Palin discuss attacks on Iran? Have you heard McCain threaten Iran?)

Am I the only one disturbed by echoes of "Armageddon Days are Here (Again)" in this campaign? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wa-qOb8eI&feature=related

Am I the only person who fears McCain and Palin will be true believers in the White House, too quick to use force, too quick to accept that nothing's wrong with living in Tim LeHaye's last days?

Find a copy of Dr. Strangelove. http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Dr._Strangelove/60020009

Now ask yourself: does John McCain have "the judgment and the temperament" to be entrusted with our nuclear weaponry? Does Sarah Palin?

Johnson was right on target when he said "all of God's children." It's like that bumper sticker you've probably seen: "God bless everyone...no exceptions." Now which ticket is more likely to bring us that sort of mentality: Biden-Obama? Or McCain-Palin? I don't think it's a contest.

THESE are issues that underlie our economy, our worries about the Supreme Court, and our ennui in Iraq. So, so much is at stake this time. It's been at stake since 1945, of course, and no, it won't be going away--the atomic genie won't be put back in the bottle ever. And yet, we must keep it part of the calculus made by voters on November 4.

Obama-Biden is our best hope. Let's get the vote out!

The Way Our Race Looks from Overseas

Ruairi O'Murchu — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:59:09 EDT

Torie Clarke, a long-time McCain adviser and former Pentagon press secretary, wrote a book entitled, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game.

--from the RTE web page for 10 September 2008

Our friends overseas are watching the spat between Obama and McCain and concluding that our elections have come down to gender baiting and race baiting--confirmed over the phone for me last night by a journalist in Ireland who can be trusted to have that nation's pulse. "It's plain as day to us that McCain's argument has only two points: first, that the nation isn't ready to elect a man of color; second, that Palin is the American Idol contestant."

The RTE web page has its reporting completely up to date on the "lipstick on a pig" faux controversy:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0910/uselection.html

Truth Squad? Who are they kidding? We're watching Winston Smith in action, sitting in a cubicle rented by the McCain campaign, assigned only the task of snipping out the inconvenient truths from the past and replacing them with new myths masquerading as facts.

Keating Five anyone? $17,000 in per diem payments anyone?

My Irish journalist friend had one final comment: "It seems as if you're about to let the ee-jits decide your election."

Translation--the idiots who are still undecided (ee-jits) or the idiots who can't see substance through the smokescreen of style are on the brink of trumping every thoughtful voter (Democratic, Republican, or Independent) because the Republicans have gone to "Ludicrous Rove Speed" in this critcially important election campaign, pushing out onto the national stage lies, deceptions, canards, and repackaged garbage, insisting to all of us, in the bullying sort of way that pushes Matthews and Olberman off the election night coverage team, that they can do and say whatever they want.

Pretty simple really: we must seize the power we've had all along and get those millions of inspired voters to register and then to vote for TRUE change--not ad campaign change, not the kind of change that your local channel 5 offers when they put a pretty new face at the news anchor desk, and not the kind of change that pretends Republicans are just the ones to clean up the mess made by Republicans for the last eight years.

Fed up, but still ready to go,

--Ruairi O'Murchu

Sizzle or Steak?

Ruairi O'Murchu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:15:37 EDT

Steak au Poivre? No problem. A little kosher salt, a melange of whole peppercorns, maybe some Remy Martin cognac, and room in which to work. Add some delicate sensibilities and a willingness to risk expensive cuts of beef in the pursuit of excellence, and any chef worth her or his salt can put out a beautifully plated steak au poivre or a bistecca Fiorentina.

When it comes to tasting and digesting, all of that care over ingredients and all of that professional training is part of the mix. We all know that.

So what's John McCain trying to sell us with his pick for vice president? Whatever good qualities she may possess, Governor Palin is most assuredly NOT ready for head chef duties. With her all we're seeing right now is sizzle--clever attack lines written for her by Republican hack wordsmiths. No steak yet, not the kind, at least, that the American economy and the American people need. She's pro-oil, pro-gun, pro-life and not yet truly a pro in the governor's chair.

There's a reason why Democrats rarely have "beauty queen" on their resume--Gloria Steinem being the notable exception. Being a beauty queen is all about sizzle. (And when you see a bumper sticker reading "Mac and Milf," it doesn't take much to see where part of her appeal is coming from.)

Joe Biden has done his time as sous chef. He's washed the dishes. He's experimented with cuisines traditional and modern. He's ready to walk into the kitchen of leadership. Sarah Palin is not.

It's time to get Barack Obama and Joe Biden elected. Now that's a dish we can dig into!

We Have a Pennant Race

Ruairi O'Murchu — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:01:23 EDT

Whether you grew up warmed by the memory of how the 1951 Giants caught the Dodgers in the sweltering heat of a New York City summer, or you're still trying to forget the way the Phillies collapsed in 1964, or you're excited as all get out about the Cubs being four games up on the Brewers while the White Sox are holding off the Twins, you're no doubt fully aware of what a pennant race feels like, smells like, and sounds like.

My friends in Obama Nation, we are in a pennant race and the crown for the next four years goes to the campaign that keeps its focus and does all the little things right:

Can we advance the runner? Whether it's door-to-door canvassing or knocking off fifty phone calls, the challenge is there.
Can we run the bases with intelligence? Know who needs to be registered, and get them registered. As Barack has said so many times, we've got to campaign block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
Can we get the pitching rotation right? Send Senator Clinton and Senator McCaskill to Florida and Missouri and Indiana. Send Governor Sebelius to Montana and California and Nevada and yes, Alaska. Get Joe Biden on a bus that never leaves Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan
Can we gut it out when the other team ties the score or goes ahead in the late innings? Check the latest Gallup numbers or the USA Today poll and you'll see we're there. No time to panic. The young voters--who have no landlines on which to poll them--are still the key, but we've got to get them registered and get them to the polls.
Can we bat around so Obama's up in the bottom of the ninth? Flood the media with your take on Sarh Palin or get the words out written by fellow Alaskan Anne Kilkenny: http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/a-letter-about-sarah-palin-from-anne-kilkenny/
Can we close out this seven game World Series? Obama told us at the convention that it's never really been about him so much as it's been about us. Are we ready to take back the power? Are we ready to bring change to Washington?

At this writing we have 57 days to glory. Tighten the laces on your gloves. Get the mud out of your spikes. Wear your lucky thong if you have to. It's time to bring this puppy home.

Fired up? Ready to go? --Ruairi (center field) O'Murchu

Wisdom from Governor Sebelius and Alaskan Anne Kilkenny

Ruairi O'Murchu — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:00:14 EDT

The night of the living Palin-drones is upon us. Before November 4th dawns, John McCain may become an afterthought for his own voters. We've got to be fighting back now, and we've got to have some ammunition that will work.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius is well situated for this fight. She has the credibility and the ability. She has spoken out before as a spokesperson for the Democratic Party and she must be put more and more into this fray. [Full disclosure: I love Joe Biden and have no trouble supporting our ticket, but Sebelius was always my first choice for the v.p. slot.]

This first link will give you a chance to see what Governor Sebelius has to say about Governor Palin's and Mayor Palin's experience, as opposed to her caustic rhetoric (written by Bushies for her to mouth at the convention).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/sebelius-accuses-palin-of_n_123883.html

Another woman offering thoughtful, on-the-site comments is Anne Kilkenny from Palin's hometown. She gives the Alaskan governor her due on several counts, but raises frightening alarms on a dozen fronts of vital importance to us. If you haven't read her open letter, here it is:

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/a-letter-about-sarah-palin-from-anne-kilkenny/#comment-8140

In less than a month voter registration ends in my state and in most other states. In less than two months we will decide who our next president will be. Now is our defining moment, now is when we must rise to the challenge and turn back the dismissive, self-serving smugness that is the McCain - Palin campaign.

Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? --Ruairi O'Muchu 7 September 2008

Notes from the Rally for Obama-Biden in Battle Creek, Michigan

Ruairi O'Murchu — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:02:02 EDT

Notes from the Rope Line In Battle Creek

We got there right around 4:00 p.m. and found volunteers crisscrossing the throng of supporters from multiple angles. Campaign volunteers with tickets were herded one way, those in the general public were politely herded another way. Congressional campaign staffers for Mark Schauer, the candidate in Michigan's 7th District, handed out yard signs and stickers to all who would take them. As our queue neared the security checkpoint, Bob Alexander approached each person in line and introduced himself as the Democratic candidate in the 8th District. Once inside the stadium, built to accommodate 6,000 minor league baseball fans, we caught a glimpse of Senator Debbie Stabenow shaking hands and exchanging laughs with voters. To this point, we found ourselves in a typical campaign event, the only surprise being the immense crowd outside the stadium.

"Standing room only on the field, or seats in the stadium?" A young and very polite Obama campaign staffer gave us our choice as we came up to her.

"We'll go on the field and stand." And that we did, immediately taking up a spot fifteen yards from the podium and one person away from the rope line.

Any event I've ever attended in the past would have had "reserved" chairs set up on the infield, close to the podium. Senior elected officials and loyal donors would have been ushered to those seats. People like me would have been clawing for the nosebleed seats in the bleachers--and in the past, would have been happy to get such seats. This was not just any event from the past, however; this was a gathering of Obama Nation.

And so we stood, in 90° heat under a slanting afternoon sun, already packed shoulder to shoulder by the shared hope of being as close as possible to our candidate. My wife and I quickly met the people around us: a group of resident assistants from Wesley Hall at Albion College; a retired army sergeant with his wife, his mother, and his four children; a photographer from Fresh Fire AME Church in Kalamazoo; a group of seven young women from Gull Lake High School in Richland; and a man right on the rope line with his two year old daughter, a man who answered all questions about how he had obtained a ticket by jovially responding, "I was born with a ticket."

Two hours went by and one youngster fell out in the heat and had to be taken off by paramedics to receive fluids. Everyone was struggling to cope with the scorching heat, but tempers remained tamped down by the shared excitement. Sporadic call-and-response chants of "O" and "Bama" rippled through the crowd. The near seats in the stadium filled up, and auxiliary seating beyond the outfield filled up as well. Word went through the crowd via cell phone that 16,000 were on hand.

Local county commissioners and state senators spoke. Senator Debbie Stabenow spoke.

"Only two of the four people on the ballot get it," she exhorted the crowd. And finally Ray, an unemployed window washer and house painter from Battle Creek, spoke. "First my knees gave out and then my back," he told the crowd, "then I lost my health insurance." And then he did what he had been asked to do. He introduced "the next president of the United State of America, Barack Obama."

So we stood for the main event, a pair of speeches from Joe Biden and Barack Obama, knowing that nothing we had experienced at the rally had been anything like "business as usual." Good men like John Kerry and Al Gore never drew crowds like this, never inspired this kind of loyalty and dedication, never brought together young and old, black and white, rich and poor this way.

During his turn at the microphone, Joe Biden pounded away at the central themes of the campaign. He spoke without notes, and he spoke with passion. He urged us to turn the page on the failed Bush administration, urged us to help restore America's moral standing in the world. He looked us squarely in the eyes and said that he had taken Barack Obama's measure during 13 debates, had seen the man's basic character laid out for him in those early contests and had found that character to be strong. In the background, as he had done in Unity, New Hampshire, Barack sat on a tall stool and gave his full attention to his colleague and fellow senator. "Barack gets it", Biden said, echoing Senator Stabenow, while shouts of "Joe Biden gets it" rang out from the crowd. When he finished his rousing speech, Biden stepped into the background and warmly accepted spontaneous chants of "Joe! Joe! Joe!" from the audience.

Senator Obama, looking just as cool and collected and yet engaged as he always does on television, walked around the stage and looked into our faces. When he was finally allowed by the exhilarated crowd to begin his remarks, he paused to remind all of us that the people in the path of Hurricane Gustav needed our thoughts and prayers. Acknowledging that lessons had been learned and that all the evidence pointed toward better governmental response to a Gulf Coast hurricane this time around, Obama asked us to wonder aloud with him why it took a devastating hurricane to reorder our priorities. "There's a quiet storm surging across America," he said, "and our government has to be ready for that, has to be ready to help those who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their insurance."

For someone like me who has been listening to every Obama speech since the announcement of his candidacy on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois, there was not much that was truly new in what he said. And yet, for the first time I felt what it was like to be in a crowd of fired up and ready to go supporters, heard the cries coming from my own throat, and felt the tears welling up in my eyes as he appealed to all of us to come together in order to address America's needs and to restore America's good name in the community of nations. When he reached his closing benediction with that familiar promise that we could not only win this election but change this country and change this world, I was jumping up and down with toddlers, high schoolers, college students, veterans, and grandparents.

On the rope line I got to shake Barack's hand and felt a firm commitment in his clench of my hand. I got to shake Joe Biden's hand and tell him how touched I had been by his son's introduction of him at the convention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLSoXaP5E8c

I got to watch both men pick up and embrace that two year old girl who had waited more than five hours for her rendezvous with history. And I got to see the exhausted joy on the faces of everyone around me.

Walking back to where we had parked our car at Verona Elementary School, an underfunded public school half a mile up the road from the stadium grounds, we met a small group of elderly women standing along busy Capital Avenue. They looked as if Joe Biden's mother would fit right in with them. When we asked if we could help them in any way, they answered, "No, we came for the rally and now we're just waiting for the bus to pick us back up," one of them told us.

Our whole nation, it seems to me, is standing and waiting for a bus to pick us all up and take us to our destination. Please, there is so much at stake. Hop on the Obama-Biden line!

News of Interest to all in the Irish-American Community

Ruairi O'Murchu — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:23:48 EDT

Here, verbatim, is a recent news release from the Irish American Information Service. (Some of you, no doubt, will have seen it already.) While I loved the very presidential way in which Senator Obama handled his visits to the Middle East and Europe, I wish he had taken one more day to land in Ireland! Be informed and knowledgeable when people bring up this topic and suggest that McCain is a better fit than Obama when it comes to our issues.

Slán go foill, --Ruairi O'Murchu

______________________________________________________________________

McCAIN'S HERITAGE LINKED TO BATTLE OF THE BOYNE 08/09/08 08:52 EST
ervice
A Northern Ireland newspaper today uncovered an ancestral
link between US presidential candidate John McCain and an
officer in King William of Orange's army who fought against
Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne.

Belfast's Irish News suggested it was a Freudian slip when
presidential candidate John McCain dubbed a bus trip to
promote his chances of getting into the White House the ‘No
Surrender’ tour.

The slogan was intended to reflect his views on the Iraq war
but a historian has claimed the Republican candidate’s
ancestral roots can be traced back to the unlikeliest of
places – the Orange Order.

He said documents show Senator McCain’s
great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Captain
Dixie Coddington, fought with William of Orange to defeat
King James II in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne.

Not only did he fight the battle but documents unearthed
show another relative, John Coddington, later acquired the
Oldbridge Estate in Co Meath which contains the battle site.

University College Dublin genealogist Sean Murphy said he
discovered the link after researching the relationship
between Vietnam war veteran Senator McCain and the
Coddington family.

“I took the American research by William Addams Reitwiesner,
who publicised the fact that one of McCain’s five times
great grandfathers was a Dixie Coddington born in Skerries,
Dublin,” he said.

“I went a bit deeper and found that Dixie’s father, Captain
Dixie, had served with King William. I was very surprised
when I came across this link.”

He said the Coddingtons are understood to have been
originally from England but moved to Ireland in the
seventeenth century.

The Irish ancestry of Democrat candidate Barack Obama has
already been traced back to a shoemaker in the village of
Moneygall in Co Offaly.

When it was discovered by a Church of Ireland minister, a
song entitled There’s No-one as Irish as Barack O’Bama was
recorded in a humorous tribute.

But Mr Murphy said Senator McCain’s links to Ireland are
even more interesting.

“Prior to now it was Obama that had the interesting
connection but now it seems McCain has pushed ahead at this
point,” he said.

“Obama’s ancestor was a shoemaker whereas McCain’s was an
officer serving with King William."

“An Obama visit to Offaly in the company of a taoiseach born
in that county would be a newsworthy event indeed. Yet the
symbolism of a McCain visit to the site of the Battle of the
Boyne where an ancestor fought and relatives resided would
be even more remarkable.”

Senator McCain (71) has been popular with some
Irish-American voters for his support for immigrants’
rights and was once given a standing ovation to renditions
of The Fields of Athenry.

It remains to be seen how the Irish-American community, with
its extremely long memories, will react to the news that
Senator McCain is directly related to one of the very first
Orangemen.

Drew Nelson, grand secretary of the Orange Order, said he
was “delighted” about the link.

“I think it’s a very interesting development and it
underscores the fact that the majority of Americans who come
from Irish descent come from Protestant backgrounds,” he said.

“I don’t know if his forefathers were members of the Orange
Order but certainly we do have lodges in America and anyone
who qualifies to join is very welcome.”
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization
providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your
tax-deductible contributions to IAIS at 505 S East St, Culpeper VA 22701
You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

First Fridays

Ruairi O'Murchu — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:04:58 EDT

                                "Tho' I'm no Catholic
                                I listen hard when the bells
                                in the yellow-brick tower
                                of their new church

                                ring down the leaves
                                ring in the frost upon them
                                and the death of the flowers .."

--William Carlos Williams

For those of us who are Catholic, by birth or by cultural heritage or by conscious and ongoing choice, rituals matter. Bells ringing out from yellow-brick towers, incense hanging in the air, water sprinkled on us, ashes smudged onto our foreheads. We are a community of faith in which human touch matters, in which a direct appeal to the senses matters.

And while ten beads told through the fingers speak powerfully of what it means to be Catholic, so do a series of other routines: the forty days of lent, the advent calendar, the palms tucked freshly each year behind the crucifix in the home.

Yesterday I transferred a little of my Catholic heritage to the Obama campaign. On the First Friday in June, I made a donation to the campaign. And on ever Friday from now until February, I will do the same thing. That should take us to the election, to the transtition team, to the Inauguration, and into the first 40 days of the new administration.

A novena of donations? Only because such a thing resonates with me, and because it expresses my faith in this candidacy.

If many of us do this, or do something similar, we'll surely catch the ear of others, the way William Carlos Williams found his attention being caught by Catholic devotional practices despite his not being Catholic.

Will you join me? First Fridays, First Saturdays--whatever promotes your devotion to this secular cause! Our Catholicism calls on us to be the leaven in the dough, the light in the darkness. As St. Teresa of Avila reminds us, ours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion is to look out onto the world in our own day.

The widow's mite, or the benefactor's maximum...make it a First Friday practice.

Slán agus beannacht,

7 June 2008 / --Ruairi O'Murchu

Mum's the Word During a No-No----Right Sen. Clinton?

Ruairi O'Murchu — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:03:12 EDT

Unwritten rules attach themselves to every major sport. Soccer players know when to kick the ball out of play if an opponent lies injured on the ground. Basketball players understand if they're on the receiving end of a hard foul. And baseball players know that they simply cannot talk about a no-hitter while the no-hitter is still in progress.

American politicians have their own unwritten rules. Ronald Reagan actually articulated one when he talked about his "Eleventh Commandment"--thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.

No unwritten rule of American politics has been more important than the one that forbids any candidate in any campaign from uttering the word "assassination."

Senator Clinton has been around far too long for any of us to buy the story that she meant no offense. She clearly knows that a candidate cannot ever say such a thing, whether it's an historically accurate observation or not. The comments made in South Dakota do not belong in any campaign.

What would you do to a teammate who greeted your starting pitcher after the seventh inning with a comment like, "Hey, only six more outs and you've got the no-hitter!"

Exactly. And that's what me must now call on Democrats everywhere to do to Senator Clinton: show her the clubhouse door. This contest is not going to extra innings.

Grasping at the "Precious"--Why the Nomination is Obama's

Ruairi O'Murchu — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:32:11 EDT

"Don't... tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine."

--Gandalf to Frodo in THE LORD OF THE RINGS

The campaign has reached a point at which we must indulge in mythic speculation, in literary interpretation. Senator Clinton so clutches to the chance at a nomination that we can almost hear her hiss "p-r-e-c-i-o-u-s" each time she discusses her tortuous path to the nomination.

The man whom Gerald Ford called "a sex addict" must have had an interesting conversation with his wife after the full squalor of the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Did he, in those troubled days when impeachment hung over his head, make a solemn promise to get his wife elected if she but stood by him in this darkest hour?

Has she carried with her since then a sense of entitlement and payback, a sense that the White House was owed to her as payment for putting up with such garbage? How else can one explain the near maniacal manipulation of the math and the rules by one who helped set the numbers and the guidelines into place?

If the nomination has become her "precious," her ring of power to be gained at all costs, can we not conclude that she feels the universe owes her a colossal scandal or a calamity falling deux ex machina-like from the sky?

The comments in South Dakota did not come out of a vacuum. They were spoken by someone who must have felt for some time now that the nomination and the White House itself would be hers if for no other reason than from a sense of vindication and atonement.

Chelsea spoke the truth when she answered the reporter's question, averring that her mother would make the better president. Her mother feels, can't we now assume, that to lose her chance to show up the cretin who preceded her as the first "President Clinton" will be to lose her chance to make all things right, to wipe clean the slate on which her personal honor was so publicly besmirched by her own husband.

Obama can go a long way to winning back the ardent women who have supported Clinton by naming Sebelius or McCaskill as a running mate. But no action can make whole the dream Hillary has so obviously carried in her heart since the Lewinsky mess. With her, it's personal. Bill owes her, big time; and by extension, in her mind at least, she must feel the country owes her.

It's the only way to explain a person of formidable talents squandering her legacy in the fading days of a campaign already lost.

The credit here goes to Obama for giving her the space to redeem all of this, or--if she chooses--to let it all go to hell in a handbasket.

So far, not much redemption is going on. And the nomination is Obama's.

Man U vs. Chelsea.....Obama by 1 delegate is still the Nominee

Ruairi O'Murchu — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:05:03 EDT

Some out there are River Plate diehards who vie for glory with Boca Juniors, and some have their blood boiling when AC Milan goes against Inter in the San Siro, and some live only for Real Madrid going up against Barcelona.

What we all know is that John Terry, for all his valiant play (the header save that kept his team in the match), abides by the rules of the game. PK's are a ludicrously cruel way to decide something that's gone on for 120 minutes--ask Roberto Baggio. But Terry and all the other players in blue knew that the rules called for such a tie-breaker.

So, cruel or not, Manchester United wins the Champions League final and Chelsea walks off the pitch a noble but defeated squad.

Isn't it time for Hillary Clinton and her supporters to acknowledge that the popular vote was never in the mix when the rules were finalized? This is a contest for delegates, and our man needs only a few dozen more. When he hits that mark, it will be well past time for Clinton to shut it down, to stop wishing for different rules, to stop lobbying the referees for a do-over.

Yes, it's been a close contest. But someone always emerges as a winner....and this time it's Barack.

Open Letter to Mark Brewer and the MDP

Ruairi O'Murchu — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:46:24 EDT

"LANSING—The executive committee of the Michigan Democratic Party yesterday overwhelmingly approved the proposal set forth by the Delegate Working Group of Sen. Carl Levin, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, Debbie Dingell, and Ron Gettelfinger.

The proposal allocates Michigan's 128 elected delegates 69 Clinton, 59 Obama. This splits the difference between the January 15th results supported by the Clinton Campaign, which would create a delegates allocation of 73-55, and the 50-50 split supported by the Obama campaign, which would create a 64-64 allocation of the delegates."

http://www.michigandems.com/050808prs.html

The word on the street tells the tale this way: When it became apparent that this young upstart from Illinois, the junior senator with the last name full of vowels, might actually steal a few votes from the Clinton Steamroller, a war council was convened by Mark Brewer and the leading Democrats in the state of Michigan. Let's push the primary up as early as we can get away with, they reasoned amongst themselves, lest Obama's vote totals grow any larger.

Governor Granholm, who shared the spotlight in the Breslin Center when Bill Clinton came to the Michigan State University campus in the final month of his presidency, owed the Clinton machine for that star turn. Senators Levin and Stabenow owed the Clinton machine for multiple favors exchanged during the two Clinton terms in the White House. As the case has been in nearly every other state, Michigan's core Democratic leadership group lined up behind the veteran campaigner, the woman whose turn had finally come: Hillary Clinton.

What was not part of those calculations was leaving the door fully open to the public for them to have their say. It was assumed that Clinton would take Michigan and then quickly ascend to the nomination. Party loyalty could have it no other way.

Now we are engaged in a great national display of endgame strategies. Anna Quindlen is warning Hillary not to tarnish her legacy by playing this phase in all-out attack mode, as if the ends could every fully justify the means. And the people of Michigan are waiting to see how their state party apparatus will handle this drawn-out denouement.

For those of us who staggered out in the cold to mark "undecided" or to plunk down a vote for Dennis Kucinich, and especially for all of those who felt so disenfranchised that they simply stayed home on the day of Michigan's "meaningless" primary, it is difficult not to remember those comments when the ballot was finalized. "Oh, Hillary meant to withdraw her name, but she missed the deadline,' said some. "This vote won't really count, so it doesn't matter who's on the ballot," said others.

So what was that event back in January? Woody Allen's main character in Bananas said it best:

"It [was] a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham."

The thought that the Michigan results might actually matter, that they might tip the scales one way or another in the end, has haunted some of us for these last four months. (The call log at the MDP and at the NDP will show that many of us voiced these concerns immediately!)

A 69-59 split? I can live with that. Fair enough. But then the popular vote totals must also reflect that split, because last night in Louisville our "mockery of a sham" primary was being used to support bogus claims about "leading in the popular vote."

It was a calculated set-up from the start, that 2008 Michigan Primary. It must not become a calculated ploy to be used here in the final days, not if the union leaders and politicians and executive committee members of this state want the White House to change hands this time around. Too much is at stake now for game playing.

Obama did what the Clinton machine used to call for, at least publicly: To work hard and to play by the rules. It's time for Mark Brewer, for Governor Granholm, for Senator Levin, and for Senator Stabenow to insist that Hillary Clinton play by the rules we all agreed upon before this nomination contest began. It's time to seat Michigan's delegation and it's time to recalculate the popular vote in Michigan. It is most assuredly NOT time to reward the candidate who would rewrite the rules at every turn whenever it benefits her alone.

The trouble has been brewing since January 15th. It's time to take that pot off the stove.

posted by Ruairi O'Murchu on 21 May 2008

Catholic Participation in a Pluralistic Society

Ruairi O'Murchu — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:10:44 EDT

"The Catholic public official lives the political truth that most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful. I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to be a Jew, or a Protestant, or a nonbeliever, or anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our belief on others is that they might someday force their belief on us."

--Mario Cuomo at Notre Dame, September 1984

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariocuomoreligiousbelief.htm

While the media hoists up before us a strawman named "the Catholic vote," we have the chance to rally around a candidate whose basic decency is raising the bar for American politics and pointing all of us in a new, inspiring direction. If John Edwards believes that Obama is capable of forging a united America from the chaotic aftermath of the Bush years, then we should be among the very first marching behind such a banner.

Our Catholic values put us, irrevocably, on the side of life and against death-dealing negativism and division. We ought to embrace a candidate whose push for health care focuses first and foremost on pregnant mothers and young children. We ought to embrace a call to national service as being fully consistent with our values. We cannot but support a candidate who wants to use diplomacy and tact and good common sense to avoid the sort of disastrous foreign policy blunders that have typified the Bush years and will surely be a part of the McCain campaign. We ought to be grateful to have a candidate speaking out forcefully against torture of detainees ( the same sort of torture used by the British in Northern Ireland against prisoners held without a writ of habeas corpus, prisoners who were overwhelmingly Catholic).

If we allow ourselves to squabble and name-call over the pro-life agenda, we will allow ourselves to AGAIN be co-opted by the calculating Republican strategists who take our votes to the ballot box but who never carry our broader concerns to the halls of power. What has Bush done to protect the women who find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy? What has he done to put the power of the nation behind doing the corporal works of mercy? What has he done to advance the common good? If you're a Catholic for whom the pro-life movement is a central part of your set of convictions, then join us and work toward ending unwanted pregnancies and work toward caring for the newly born in a fully compassionate way and work toward driving the debate on abortion forward so that all of us can benefit from that national discussion. If you're a Catholic, like Cuomo, who is pro-choice, then join us in working to end capital punishment, to end senseless warfare, to end corporate irresponsibility in a global economy where the common good includes the health of our planet, and join us in helping to end unwanted pregnancies and in providing prenatal care and postnatal care to both mother and child. Enter the debate, but do not let yourself be driven away into the arms of Republicans who care little for our agenda other than the votes we can bring.

Ours is a God who is always on the side of hope. While we respect all of those who share this pluralistic society with us, we must lead the way in embracing hope. And this time, that means lining up behind the one candidate who represents a change, a pivoting from despair to hope: Senator Barack Obama. Can we, as faithful Catholics, embrace such a nominee? Yes we can.

Fair Play in Campaign 2008

Ruairi O'Murchu — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:54:38 EDT

"People who have judged my career say I was always fair. This statement makes
me happier than all the goals I ever scored." -- Pele

All of us can summon up the image of someone who played the game all-out but never studs-up, someone who made an impact without disrespecting the beautiful game: Pele, Sir Stanley Matthews, Roberto Baggio, Kristine Lilly.

Do we understand in this political campaign that our candidate is advancing the ball into the final third without having picked up a single card?

Obama has been playing possession throughout March and April without losing the lead. He has tired the other side with skill and intelligence. He has not resorted to rough play, nor has he blamed the refereeing media. In response to brutal fouls, he has redoubled his work rate.

We're all but in stoppage time now. Can we tack on an insurance goal? Can we get Obama to the final whistle not only intact but ready to go in the November Finals?

A candidate of this caliber comes along only once in a generation, but he needs stalwart teammates, men and women willing to do the hard work of getting back on defense and making the extra runs and sprinting for 50-50 chances.

Pick up the phone. Donate online or write a check. Contact superdelegates. Inform the media of where you stand. Go door to door.

Let's finish this contest in the same classy way our candidate has conducted it from the start. Then we can carry him off the pitch and get him ready for the championship match.

For the good of the campaign.... --Ruairi O'Murchu

Getting out the Louise Vote

Ruairi O'Murchu — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:18:52 EDT

We all have a Louise in our lives. Mine is 95, a retired educator, a relentlessly active member of the League of Women Voters, a community activist with roots in the WPA and fingerprints on the creation of Head Start. I cannot imagine being who I am without the influence of Louise on my life.

My Louise was 7 years old when women won the right to vote in the 19th Amendment. She fought her way through the Depression as a young working woman and filled the gap in the American economy during the years of World War II by generating income and by taking on serious responsibilities. She disagreed with Margaret Chase Smith on almost everything, but she was proud to see her in the Senate. Louise can still quote Eleanor Roosevelt with the best of them:

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." Eleanor Roosevelt

Louise backed Shirley Chisholm and she proudly stayed with Geraldine Ferraro even when her husband let her down.

And this morning Louise is still backing Hillary Clinton.

The fact is that I love and admire Louise. Always will. And this morning Barack Obama must begin thinking, with our help, about how to get Louise's vote in the fall.

Four names must now come to the fore, as quickly as possible:

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano

Those are listed in my order of preference, but all of them are acceptable to me as vice-presidential candidates. And I am pretty sure they would be acceptable to Louise.

In the past the common assumption has been that a nominee chooses a running mate to balance the ticket geographically or ideologically.

Today begins the new politics created by the Obama movement.

For every Louise out there who hungers to see the fulfillment of the women's movement, and for every Obama supporter who has stood up to be counted in the march toward positive, lasting change, the time has come to put a qualified woman on the ticket. I do not believe that Senator Clinton fits well on an Obama ticket, but Governors Sibelius and Napolitano would, and Senators McCaskill and Klobuchar would.

My wonderfully dear friend Louise will know in her heart that an Obama - Webb ticket will represent sensible politicking. But an Obama - Sibelius ticket will get her out of the house to vote in November. And that's important for her, for me, and for all of us.

Let's start the serious evaluation of these vice-presidential candidates today.

Time to End the Reign of the Have's and the Have-More's

Ruairi O'Murchu — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:09:26 EDT

Many of you are aware of the ground-breaking journalism done during the Clinton years by Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. For a quick update entitled "Who Revoked the Dream," check out their site: http://www.barlettandsteele.com/journalism/philainq.php

Our candidate has been paying attention, for he referenced the shameless utterance of George W. Bush in discussing the core of the Republican party: the have's and the have-more's. Pull up the text from Barack's fiery speech two nights ago in Indianapolis, and you'll see that he has not forgotten George W. Bush's pathetic attempt at humor.

The American Dream is not going to be restored with a Gas Tax Holiday, is it? We have to place our faith in the voters of North Carolina and the voters of Indiana today. Surely they can see through the cheap trick, the "Shell game" that Obama called out yesterday.

Only Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfield, and McCain could have plunged us into a five-year war without ever once having the courage or sense to ask us to sacrifice anything.

And the scary woman offering a nuclear umbrella of protection to the United Arab Emirates, the superhawk character threatening to obliterate Iran, what is she asking of the American people. Only that they elect her.

What makes Obama different is that he truly, truly gets it. He knows the contours of the American Dream because both he and Michelle have lived it. He knows that nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice because he has also made significant sacrifices to be where he is. And he knows that class warfare has been quietly waged for nearly thirty years in this country. Reagan turned back the Carter initiatives on solar energy and alternative fuels. Clinton gave away jobs in the name of profitable free trade, enriching stock portfolios and depleting the ranks of the unions. At a moment when we had the sympathy and support of the entire world, Bush gave away our moral legitimacy to grab at the Iraqi oil fields.

In Obama we have a candidate who will serve the nation by challenging all of us to be better, to do more, to reach higher. No ketchupy vegetables for poor kids who have to take free hot lunches. No evasive and self-serving answers on issues of personal accountability in the Oval Office. No sweetheart deals for Blackwater.

The commonplace wisdom is that a nation usually ends up with the leader it deserves. Please do whatever you can in the coming days--phone calls, donations, superdelegate contacts, interactions with the media--to hold up our end of that bargain. Let's be the kind of nation that is deserving of a leader such as this.

Politics didn't lead him to the working class; the working class led him to politics. He is who we are and we must be who he is. Act now. Because together we CAN get this country fired up!

Jackie Robinson and Jack Kennedy in Obama of 2008

Ruairi O'Murchu — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:36:18 EDT

For the Hardball enthusiasts out there who have not quite thought through the concept of "whatever it takes," now is the time to appreciate the uniqueness of Obama's run for the nomination.

Obama's campaign is a modern, inspiring miracle precisely because it is not founded on the notion that "the ends justify the means." (Isn't that the ethic that got us into Iraq, the ethic that prompted George W. Bush to accost the press and anyone else who questioned him--"would you want Sadaam Hussein to still be in power?" --as if that easy bromide put to rest all questions about doing due diligence BEFORE the nation rushed off to invade a sovereign state that had done us no direct harm?)

See the campaign from a new perspective. Obama is crossing "the color line" just as Jackie Robinson did and crossing the generational divide just as Jack Kennedy did, and he's doing so with a clear-eyed sense of how important this election is. Unlike his opponent, he is NOT willing to "do whatever it takes" to win if doing such equates to unethical campaigning. Obama has, at every turn, refused to take the bait put before him by his opponents. He has NOT gone savagely, unfairly negative, and has instead insisted that we, the Americans whom he hopes to serve, are smart enough and moral enough to keep our eyes on the prize.

Now that is leadership. posted on Cinco de Mayo / Ruairi O'Murchu