Hughes for America

Published on a Friday

My letter, quoted below, is in Friday's edition of The Post. Hopefully, it will generate a fruitful discussion. Here it is.

My letter to The Post

What follows is the full text of the letter I wrote to my alma mater's newspaper, The Post, concerning this story:

In recent years, my alma mater has given me far too little to be proud of. The latest black eye came when I read student Chris Uihlein's brave, yet terribly disappointing, letter in Tuesday's edition of The Post. For being secure in his identity as a gay man and for showing a willingness to reach out and become a more active member of the Ohio University community, he was rewarded with blatant homophobia that has no place at a university that likes to pride itself for its climate of diversity.

Suppose, for a moment, that Uihlein wasn't gay, but was an African American male who, upon signing up for a triple, began to hear excuse after excuse from his would-be roommates. What would we think if, after repeated efforts to build a rapport, the student was told, "We were just trying to be nice; we both just feel really uncomfortable living with a black person"? Or if their Facebook statuses stated that "X is a racist at 8:58 p.m." or that "X hates niggers at 9:21 p.m."?

We'd be rightly outraged, just as we should be - and many are - in this case. I'm sure the two students, in the above scenario, would face disciplinary action, just as one student did last June for his racially-motivated verbal attack on two women at Alden Library. That student was expelled and, upon hearing the news, President McDavis told The Post that "This is something we simply do not tolerate on our campus, now or ever."

What happened to Uihlein shouldn't be tolerated, either. And if my alma mater is so intent on fostering a climate of diversity, it must not back down in the ugly face of discrimination based on one's sexual orientation. Uihlein, it's clear, has far more courage and character than his would-be roommates, who deserve to be outed and punished for their disgraceful behavior. They don't belong at Ohio University.

Joseph Hughes
Ohio '01, '03

Ouch

Dana Milbank joined Team Clinton for the anticipation and aftermath of Tuesday's West Virginia primary and came away, well, you'll see. It starts with a headline of "This Is an Ex-Candidate" and goes from there. If stores like this aren't indications that the Clinton campaign hasn't reached Mike Huckabee-like levels of irrelevance ...

That said, I would love to see the media approach the McCain campaign with similar levels of scrutiny. We'll see if that ever happens, though.

Update on the below story

I sent a letter to The Post regarding what happened. If it doesn't get printed, I'll paste the text here.

I'm sad for my alma mater

This is tragically sad. A gay freshman at my alma mater, Ohio University, wanted to branch out after living in a single on campus and registered in a triple. Here's what happened:

Happily, I added the two as friends on Facebook and let them know who I am. The next day I received a message from one of them requesting that I find a different room because they had a friend they were hoping to get into the room. Not wanting to upset them, I told them that I didn’t mean to impose, that I couldn’t change rooms after I had already selected and that we ought to make the best of it.

The next day, as a sign of friendship, I offered to take them both to dinner so we might get to know one another before living together for a year. One of them e-mailed me back and insisted that I leave the room, to which I replied that I couldn’t and that if they wanted their friend in their room so badly they could have added him while they were registering.

That was when I found out their real motivation. “Listen, we do not have a friend moving in. We were just trying to be nice; we both just feel really uncomfortable living with a homosexual.” Now what am I to do? I can’t leave because I’m not allowed, and I can’t stay because I fear for my own safety.

I’ve been talking back and forth with them and they feel that I am obligated to leave because of their discomfort. I wonder if they realize mine — especially when I read their statuses on Facebook declaring X is a homophobe at 8:58 p.m., and X hates faggots at 9:21 p.m.

I wish the letter writer - someone with far more guts than his would-be roommates - would out the two worthless losers in question. They should be expelled immediately. They don't belong at Ohio University, it's that simple.

Welcome Shakers! Here is the letter I sent to my alma mater's paper, The Post, regarding this story. I'll paste the full text below the fold.

What I was talking about

When someone writes the following line in a MyDD diary titled "Primary Hijacked from Clinton" about superdelegates choosing Barack Obama, you've got a problem:

They are falling like European countries to Hitler.

Unbelievable.

Just a reminder

This advice, I suppose, has myriad applications: If you want to win, be ready to work. No one owes you anything. Entitlement is not a substitute for strategy. How you start is great, but it's how you finish that counts. Character counts, too. Losing with your pride and dignity intact is often a more rewarding experience than winning by sacrificing your beliefs and abandoning your principals. Being against something is much, much easier than being for anything. Act like you've been there before. Win by building a successful team greater than the sum of its parts. Learn from your mistakes. Be ready to take a punch and even more ready to punch back, harder, but not with cheap shots. Don't let anyone disparage your belief that tomorrow can and should be better than today. Ignore those whose last resort is to drag you into the mud. Rise above. There is no such thing as luck. Arrogance doesn't look good on winners or losers. Remember where you came from. Respect yourself and respect those who believe in you. Fight with all you've got, but know when to stop fighting. Lead by example. Win well, but lose well, too. And always enjoy the ride.

This race and the blogosphere

One of the most interesting aspects of the Democratic primary, at least to me, has been the effect the protracted battle has had on the progressive blogosphere. For the most part, I've found that the overwhelmingly pro-Obama and pro-Clinton sites have only hardened in their ways. That said, a similar divergence and hardening of opinion seems to be occurring  within the pro-Clinton blogosphere. As the finality and certainty of this primary - Obama is going to be the nominee - dawns on everyone, two things are happening.

One, some Clinton supporters are softening to the presumptive Democratic nominee and are taking the first steps toward getting to work in taking down John McCain. But two, some Clinton supporters have gone in the complete opposite direction and, honestly, have departed the reality-based community. Squint your eyes on visits to MyDD and Taylor Marsh these days and you'd think George W. Bush changed his name to Barack Obama. Browse the comment threads at either site and gaze, as I do, in amazement at some of the assertions being made in the face of overwhelming, cold fact.

Just as, on the right, every piece of news seems to be good for the Republicans and bad for the Democrats, every update from the Democratic primary - on these sites - is good for Clinton and bad for Obama. Her losses can be explained away. His wins, too. His supporters, as a group, are low-information, elitist, cultish, sexist newbies, while hers are principled, true Democrats. He's a two-faced opportunist willing to sell the party down the river for a vote, while she's a crusader interested in protecting the vote*. And on and on. You get the idea.

Again, this race is over. It just is. And with all of the chatter about the importance of how Clinton finishes the race - gracefully or guns blazing - should come the realization that many progressives are going to have long memories when it comes to this race. Some bloggers, therefore, should really take a look at the manner at which they approach the final stages of the primary. This is hardly a threat - the days of my illusions of influence are long gone, if they ever arrived. No, I just mean that the party - and our progressive ideals - are far more important than any one candidate. And at what cost are some willing to advocate for a candidate by trying to destroy the presumptive nominee? This election is too important. The threat of a third Bush term is too real.

I'm sure what I've said brands me as a sexist, anti-democratic elitist. But it is what it is.

* Never mind the fact that the Clinton campaign knew the rules and agreed to them beforehand.

Let the Internets convergence continue

I'm posting this little update from within Facebook on the TypePad application Blog It. On paper - or at least on my end of the series of tubes - it appears like a great idea and an application sure to make blogging even easier to do. We'll see, but, so far, I like the concept quite a bit.

Mother Earth will thank you

We've just gotten our hands on a new Sunlawn reel mower ... and love it! For a relatively low cost - especially considering the rising price of gasoline - these people-powered mowers are the perfect solution for taming your wild lawn as summer approaches. So do your conscience (and the environment) a huge solid and get your hands on one of these. You won't regret it.

It's all your fault

Some people simply have no idea about which they speak. Take this individual, for instance, who blames incidences of women receiving ugly comments based on their appearance ... on the women themselves. Right, and in other news, the rape victim totally asked for it. My old college student paper seems intent on giving me a headache every time I read it.

Asked & Answered

Q: What could possibly be better than holing up at HfA campaign headquarters, watching wall-to-wall coverage of the Pennsylvania primary, armed with a new laptop and tons of blogging energy?

A: Seeing The New Pornographers in concert in Cleveland.

This has been the latest edition of Asked & Answered.

I donated today

I donated to Barack Obama's campaign today, in part because of the race the candidate has run, but mostly I donated because of last night. I donated today because last night represented the most embarrassing manifestation of what has rapidly become - thanks to the petty, high school tactics of the mainstream media and, in no small part, to the Clinton campaign - a race to the bottom. A race that has allowed well-heeled members of the media to sidestep the issues facing actual, reality-based Americans and instead focus on the latest "gotcha" attack, last night's exemplar being a particularly idiotic line of questioning inspired, in part, by right-wing water-carriers like Sean Hannity.

It's bad when you've got Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos doing battle to see who could ask - or introduce via video - the dumbest set of questions seen so far in this campaign. Hey, guys, when you get the privilege of interviewing the next president about the most pressing issues facing everyday Americans, let me clue you in on something: Everything you talked about last night for the first 40 or so minutes will never scratch the Top 100 of those issues. Questions about "bitter", about flag pins, about pastors, about loose acquaintances aren't important. The economy is. Getting out of Iraq is. Providing healthcare for all Americans is. This isn't a game. You shouldn't be happy with what you did, just like some moron shouldn't be happy about what he just left in the toilet.

Leaving Charlie and George, who just can't help it, alone for a moment, let me address someone who can - Hillary Clinton. Welcome to the absolute bottom of the barrel, Senator. Here's a tip: When you help engage in the sort of distracting, tabloid-style attacks that plagued - to your often-vocal dismay - your husband's administration, you become no better than those slinging the mud. I don't care whether or not the Republicans will resort to gutter politics this fall; I know they will. What's up to you is whether or not you will. The answer, only reinforced last night, is clear. You will. And you have.

Hiding behind the excuse that "the Republicans will do it later" isn't a justification for doing it yourself now. Watching Clinton, who managed to hit some soft notes for this hardened Obama supporter last night and who seemed at first to be willing to rise above, play tag-team, low-rent attack machine with Gibson and Stephanopoulos was sad to see for someone who had a great deal of respect and admiration for the former First Lady. I've seen her speak twice, during the 1992 and 1996 race, and she was a brilliant, forward-thinking leader. Fast-forward to last night, when she seemed all-too-happy to join in the needless distraction. I'm left to think she either believes what she said or is otherwise simply desperate to win the nomination. Times have most certainly changed.

It's clear there are two campaigns being waged right now: The real one facing real Americans. And the fake one, the game, being played purely for the entertainment of the Beltway insider set. Thanks for the latter, we're unable to take part in the former. But we're smarter than that, no matter what the insiders think. It's a shame they're not giving you the credit for being willing to rise above. Something, clearly, they're unable to do. The question pestering me most of late has been "At what cost?" At what cost to the party is Clinton willing to take the nomination? At what cost are we willing to take part in the distractions? At what cost are the media willing to trade access and influence for honesty and integrity? The sooner we end up on the right side of those questions, the sooner we can focus on the fall and taking this country back.

Last night wasn't a great night for America. Last night we saw the ugliness that has sullied what should be a campaign about the issues. Last night two seemingly capable anchors did John McCain's dirty work for him. But last night was last night. And today is new. Today is fresh. Today we begin again. And I started today by donating to Barack Obama, because while today is important, tomorrow is crucial.

What Ezra said

At the end a story about how Hillary Clinton is treating the "bitter" non-flap, a tongue-in-cheek Ezra Klein wrote the following:

And yes, yes, I'm just writing this because I'm a misogynist who hates Hillary and loves Obama. There's absolutely no way decent progressives could find any of this worrying.

Spot on. I see the response he's only partly joking about offered by too many so-called progressives around the so-called progressive blogosphere. It needs to stop.

Yeah, right.

Nothing is funnier than seeing well-off pundits who have never lived check-to-check a day in their lives tell the real working people who have what they should and shouldn't be angry about. When you, wealthy, white pundit, have your seemingly delicate sensibilities offended about Barack Obama rightly pointing out the frustrations of working Americans, yet so many of those working Americans are yawning at the faux outrage, you begin to realize something: That these pundits consider this race nothing more than their little ant farm, a game and a fun distraction with no real repercussions. But those actually facing the actual repercussions aren't laughing. They're mad, and, in many cases, bitter. Which is exactly what Obama was talking about. You can bitch and moan about what he said, but doing so only makes you appear as out-of-touch as the next limousine pundit. It's time for people to get real.

Bitter? You bet.

So Barack Obama is catching some flack for these comments:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Obama's response (more here) to the criticism was pitch perfect:

This is for you, dad

Turn up your speakers, Cleveland ... and Come on Cavs!

Here's some backstory, too. I dare anyone to tell me that's not the best NBA team theme song ever. Ever.

This election is giving me a headache, Pt. 2

I'm convinced Hillary Clinton is an intelligent, decent person committed to improving her nation for the better. I'm also convinced she's fiercely loyal to the most incompetent, divisive, underhanded set of advisors this side of the Republican Party I can remember. All we've learned in recent months from Sen. Clinton's campaign is that:

• States where Clinton doesn't win don't matter.

• States holding caucuses don't matter.

• States not big enough don't matter.

• States that feature a large enough racial voting bloc don't matter.

• States that broke the rules shouldn't face the consequences for breaking those rules.

• The states that Barack Obama has won won't necessarily be Democratic wins this fall, yet the ones that Clinton won will only be Democratic wins if and only if Clinton is the nominee.

• John McCain is qualified to be president, while Obama is not.

• Obama, though he's not qualified to be president, is apparently qualified enough to be vice president, meaning in some small way that he is qualified to be president.

• Obama, though ahead in pledged delegates, popular vote and states won should consider taking the second slot on the ticket.

• Obama is an affirmative action hire, and he's only this successful because he's black. (Tell that to Presidents Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun.)

• Obama may not be a Muslim, but he might be lying.

• Obama may be a Christian, but his pastor is a crazy, an anti-Semite, an America hater.

• Obama is being two-faced on NAFTA, despite the fact that the opposite is actually the case.

• Obama has sleazy business dealings, though you're acting like a Republican if you inquire about Clinton's.

• Those supporting Obama are cult-like adherents to "a concept" and "one speech".

This small list doesn't even scratch the surface, nor does it contain the even more overblown arguments I've heard from some sectors of Clinton supporters. And yet people wonder why I support Obama. I'd like to know some people can consider themselves true progressives and yet sign on to this kind of gutter politics. We're supposed to be better than this, remember?

The longer this drags on, the worse it gets for the party. The more the Clinton campaign drags Obama through the mud, the more they give McCain's team ammunition heading into the general. The more the Clinton campaign disparages the Democratic party and its many constituencies, the harder they make it for their candidate to get the help she needs from the base this fall should she pull this thing out.

Why can't anyone just admit that the Clinton campaign, one at first centered around experience, political skill, and inevitability has veered completely off course thanks to those perceived strengths? Experience should have prepared the Clinton campaign for a motivated, people-powered candidate. Political skill should have enabled the Clinton campaign to prepare for a post-Super Tuesday climate decidedly pro-Obama. Inevitability should have given the Clinton campaign the opportunity to rise above it all and try to fight this campaign on the issues.

Instead, none of these things have happened, and we're instead faced with a campaign that has decided that the only true path to victory includes permanently driving a wedge between party elites and the party faithful, potentially alienating an entire bloc of first-time and young voters, doing the Republicans' dirty work against the likely nominee for them, and, should their candidate overcome all of these obstacles to secure the nomination, doing so at the very likely price of losing the general election to a bona fide crazy old idiot, giving a party that shouldn't have been in power for the last eight years four more years to fuck things up for the rest of us.

Bra-vo. Brilliant fucking strategy.

Big Media Bill

What do Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd and my friend and periodic guest contributor William Bogan have in common? All three appear in the New York Times. Yes, you can now call Bill "Big Media Bill", as he took part in an audio interview of Texas and Ohio voters as part of the Times's "Voices of the Voters" series. To hear Bill's take on the important issues facing the electorate, scroll down and over until you find "Bill Hogan". Now, we all know Hogan isn't Bill's last name, so I'm guessing that Judith Miller was told by "senior administration officials" that that was how you spelled it. Or it could just be a typo. Anyway, don't let that get in the way of some good analysis. Congrats, Bill!

Pure design nerdery

I've finally gotten around to adding some of my favorite design sites to the ever-growing blogroll on this site (see "The Design World", left). Feel free to check them out and have your mind blowned. And then write me with suggestions as to anything I've missed. Designers of the world, unite!