The Intelligent Independent

Racism is NOT the only reason Obama might lose

2008-08-26T12:21:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think Slate.com writers intentionally offer the most illogical, unsupported arguments imaginable, solely to increase their number of page views. Take this article from one Jacob Weisberg, arguing that racism is the only conceivable reason why Obama might lose the presidency.

Weisberg begins with the premise that Obama is the perfect choice that every non-racist would vote for. With such a ridiculous premise, of course the only logical answer that follows for his neck-and-neck standing in the polls is RACISM!

But the fact is, just because the country is sick of Bush policies doesn't mean they believe McCain will simply continue them. Despite the left wingers' cries of "Bush McCain," much evidence exists to suggest McCain is in fact his own man. People may prefer McCain's experience to Obama's lack thereof. People may still generally prefer conservative, small government principles, to liberal, big government principles.

In short, there are many reasons why McCain and Obama are neck and neck. Every intelligent independent realizes that they both offer good policies that appeal to conservatives and liberals, respectively. The country is roughly equally divided between conservatives and liberals. So we get tied poll numbers.

I am not arguing that racism doesn't exist. There is clearly a small percentage that would never vote for Obama because of his skin color. But that is absolutely not the main reason for the current poll numbers.

On Hoaxes, Performance Art, and Crazy Liberals

2008-04-20T16:32:00.007-04:00

A news article was recently making the rounds on the Internet. The news article concerned a senior undergraduate at Yale University who majored in art and who apparently has a penchant for causing a scene. The headline: "For Senior, Abortion a Medium for Art, Political Discourse." The article went on to discuss a girl whose senior art project was "a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself 'as often as possible' while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these of forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process."

Of course, the Intelligent Independent was absolutely disgusted and mortified that anyone would do this. We remembered from our undergraduate days that there are some fairly crazy, wacky liberals out there, but this absolutely took the cake. A friend emailed us: "I don't know what to say. That may well be one of the worst things I've ever heard. I think she's a vile human being, unfit for -- and undeserving of -- that title."

We forwarded the article around, and the expression of disgust was universal. Liberal or conservative, nobody could believe that she would do this, or that Yale University would allow a public exhibition of the project, as the newspaper article stated.

The Drudge Report picked up the student newspaper article, and from there it spread like wildfire. The Washington Post, CNN, the London Times, every major news outlet throughout the world picked it up. And so the shock and outrage spread internationally.

But something didn't quite sit right with the Intelligent Independent. After our initial emotion-fueled sadness and shock and anger, our rational side kicked in, and we sent the following e-mail to some colleagues:

I was thinking, and I cannot imagine this is real. This has to be a hoax. I cannot believe even Yale would okay a public installation of her blood and videos of her miscarriages. And I find it very hard to believe that she could successfully pull off these miscarriages (come on, let's call them what they are, abortion) multiple times with herbs, without either being unable to abort the child, or without causing major damage to herself.

"The to pull off a hoax, all she really had to do was trick the Yale student paper. From there all the other media would pick it up and it would take off with very little additional verification. She'd simply get some cohorts to corroborate it via e-mail, and Yale would be silent for a while as they tried to figure out what the truth was. If you look at the original Yale article, they weren't even able to talk to her adviser.

"She will probably justify the whole thing as performance art, or ' hoax art in cyberspace' or something.

"Then again I could just be rationalizing all this because I don't want to believe anyone is that evil."

Well, my friends, it appears our Bullshit Detector is functioning properly. Yale University later released a statement:

"Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguities surrounding form and function of a woman's body. She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art. Had these acts been a real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."

We are glad that we were right. It brings some level of satisfaction and even some vindication among friends who claimed that as much as they wished it were a hoax, they feared it was real. It also makes us feel relieved that such a horrible, heinous person does not exist in reality.

That said, Ms. Shvarts is still a vile human being. Not quite as vile as she was, but anyone who would purposely try to mislead the world about such a sensitive and delicate matter, and be so cavalier about the whole thing, all in the name of "her art," deserves only marginally more respect than one who would purposely and repeatedly impregnate and abort.

Moreover, we are dismayed that the Yale University office of public affairs is so quick to defend this woman, under the flimsy rationale that "she is an artist" and she has "the right to express herself through performance art." Calling oneself an artist does not give a free pass to act as irresponsibly and insensitively as one desires, all in the name of art. It does not free one from the bounds of civility and decency that characterize a healthy society.

The Intelligent Independent is all for artistic expression, but pulling a massive hoax and calling it "performance art" meant to "draw attention" to the function of a woman's body is disgusting, and reminds me why we joined the conservative student newspaper while at college. Academia is a crazy place, and they believe some messed up things inside those ivory towers. We are glad to no longer be a part of that, but dismayed that the insanity continues.

Which punishment works best on the cruel and vicious?

2008-04-07T20:18:00.003-04:00

In law school, the Intelligent Independent learned the theories of punishment: what we, as a society, hope to accomplish by punishing people for crimes. I remembered the list with a handy little acronym I made up: "Criminals are DIRRD"

Deterrence, both specific (deterring the criminal from future crimes) and general (deterring society from criminal behavior)
Incapacitation (while they're locked up, they can't hurt anyone else)
Rehabilitation (might as well try to fix them while we've got 'em)
Retribution (Biblical punishment -- Old Testament style)
Denunciation (think Scarlett Letter -- most people don't want to be thought of as a criminal)

All five of those apply to the members of a high school cheer-leading squad who lured a girl to someone's house and then beat her senseless for a half hour while the video camera rolled.

The Intelligent Independent's position? Try these animals as adults.

We have no mercy for the cruel and the vicious. They'll likely get probation and lots of community service -- maybe a few days in jail. The Intelligent Independent would give them all jail time, and lock up the ringleaders until their 21st birthday.

Obama SHOULD have stuck to basketball

2008-04-05T11:39:00.013-04:00

Barack Obama is a worse bowler than we are. That is very sad. Also sad is that fairly innocuous statements by certain pundits are being criticized as terribly racist by the politically correct crowd.

On March 31, MSNBC's Chris Matthews noted that "the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody," but the fact that he has horrible bowling form "makes you wonder." Analyst Howard Fineman added, "He should have stuck to shooting hoops!" Leftist watch dogs got their panties in a bunch over these statement and cries of racism were heard throughout the Interwebs -- even Jon Stewart took the opportunity to criticize the comments as racist.

The statements were not racist. Let's look at this rationally, folks: First of all, would anybody really be surprised by the fact that a black man is good at basketball? Of course not! Lots of African-Americans are great at basketball -- and pointing that out does not make one racist.

African-Americans are not inherently good at B-ball, any more than Asians are inherently good at playing the violin. (I am going to get so much hate mail.) The fact remains, however, that different ethnic groups tend to enjoy different recreational pursuits. Why is it racist to state that black kids like to play basketball? As Mr. Matthews said, it might be an "ethnic" observation, and yes it's a stereotype, but sometimes stereotypes have a ring of truth. Just look around: basketball is a traditional recreational pursuit for many African-Americans. That is not a racist statement.

Barack Obama is a good basketball player, but not because he's black. Obama rocks at basketball because, like many African-Americans, Obama has played the game for years. On his high school basketball team, he was known as "Barry O'Bomber" for his kick-ass jump shot. At Harvard, he routinely played pick up games with friends, and even today he squeezes it in to unwind. As the New York Times reported last year:

“He didn’t know who he was until he found basketball. It was the first time he really met black people.”
Now, Mr. Obama’s friends say, basketball has been his escape from the sport of politics, but also a purer version of it, with no decorous speeches, no careful consensus — just unrestrained competition.

“He can be himself, it’s a safe haven, he can let his competitive juices flow and tease his buddies,” Mr. Nesbitt said. “It’s just a relaxing respite from the every-moment and every-word scrutinization that he gets.”

So, well-versed on Obama's basketball history, Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman made the comparison between his rancid bowling score (37??!!!) and his storied days as Barack O'Bomber, noted he "should have stuck to shooting hoops," and the Left instantly -- and wrongly -- called foul.

If the Intelligent Independent were wont to throw around the racist term, he might find it just a little racist in itself for the MediaMatters crowd to accuse white commentators of racism for simply pointing out that Obama was a better basketball player than a bowler. Intelligent Independents know that anyone who is so eager to cry Racist! has got some issues of their own. (And Intelligent Independents know that were black commentators to have made the remarks, no one would have had a problem with it.)

It just so happens that we happen to agree with Messrs. Matthews and Fineman: Obama should have stuck to basketball, or at least practiced before attempting to play a game which he had clearly hardly played in his life. Luckily, one's bowling score does not necessarily indicate the quality of one's leadership. That said, the Intelligent Independent would at least hope that, if he becomes president, Mr. Obama would practice on the White House bowling alley until his average score is at least as high as the number of presidents America has had. Is that too much to ask?

I have been meaning for a while to talk about Hillary Clinton's now infamous misstatement that she had to run from an airport 12 years ago under sniper fire. Of course, this was later proven untrue -- damn those CBS news cameras! -- and Hillary chalked it up to "a misstatement."

It is hard to imagine how anyone could make a misstatement of such proportions. It is equivalent to me claiming that, when I landed in Tel Aviv after a 13 hour plane ride in 1992, I had to run from the plane to the tarmac while dodging suicide bombers. As exciting and adventurous as my Israeli bar mitzvah was, I'm afraid the only dodging I did was from overzealous vendors in one of Israel's many outdoor markets. ("You would look marvelous in this hijab! Please, please, just come here and we can try it on. And please, taste my hummus! You will love my hummus!")

It appears to the Intelligent Independent observer that Hillary Clinton was, if not outright lying, then at the very least playing fast and loose with the facts. It reminds me of another famous prevaricator, the brilliant William Jefferson Clinton. The difference is that Bill was much better at spinning yarns.

On the campaign trail, he often told stories of his youth -- complete fabrications -- meant to get the audience to shed tears as they empathized with him. Not only was Bill Clinton far more adept at deception, but also, he had the good fortune of not having been videotaped for the last several years. There is something about the cold, hard light of archival footage that tends to get in the way of exhilarating yet fabricated stories.

Charles Krauthammer had an interesting column in the Washington Post yesterday discussing Hillary's gaffe. Like me, he finds this less of a moment of "confabulation" -- the phenomenon of actually believing the stories we tell -- and more outright "pathological" lying on a "Clintonian scale."

Whether or not Hillary's half-truths will become as prevalent and frequent as Bill's remains to be seen. Regardless, if Hillary wants to have a chance of unseating front-runner Obama, she will have to be incredibly careful with what she says, now that everyone is on the lookout for fudging. This is difficult enough for a scrupulous politician. I cannot imagine how difficult it might be for a Clinton.

(NB: Intelligent Independence does not mean refraining from pointing out the foibles of any particular side; on the contrary, it requires you to do so of all sides.)

Breaking News: Many Americans are Ignorant

2008-04-01T00:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently these days writing a New York Times column requires little more than A) reporting the obvious and B) hurling insults about Dubya's intelligence. (Wait, was the previous sentence redundant? Hmm...)

Anyway, Nicholas Kristoff has taken it upon himself to set the record straight: "conspiracy theories and irrationality aren’t a black problem. They are an American problem." According to Kristoff, it's not just African-Americans who believe silly things like government creation of HIV to destroy the black community, or deliberately opening the levees to wipe New Orleans minorities off the map. Nope, apparently Americans of all colors think the government had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, and a majority of Americans do not believe in evolution.

As much as the Intelligent Independent wants to disbelieve Kristoff's statistics, they're probably fairly accurate. But we disagree with Kristoff's closing words: "Maybe, just maybe, this cycle has run its course, for the last seven years perhaps have discredited the anti-intellectualism movement. President Bush, after all, is the movement’s epitome — and its fruit."

Say what you want about Dubya's anti-intellectual tendencies; even after the man leaves office, I highly doubt the trend of blatant ignorance will subside anytime soon.

ON THE OTHER END of the intellectualism scale, the NY Times magazine ran a piece this weekend that looks at the phenomenon of dumping somebody because of the kinds of books they read. Instead of backwoods country-bumpkins thinking evolution is a scam, or White House country-bumpkins thinking evolution is a scam, we now examine yuppie intellectuals who cannot be with someone because they have never heard of Pushkin, who Wikipedia assures me is one of the greatest Russian poets ever to have lived. I've never read him. (Intelligent Independents know that you needn't have read Pushkin to be intelligent.) In fact, at the risk of sounding like a poor steward for this blog, I must admit that I too would have been dumped by the breathless girl in the opening paragraph.

I find it fairly pretentious that some people would reject others based on their taste in books. (NB: This appears to be more of a female hang-up, according to the article.) But I do understand that one's taste in books is often a proxy for deeper beliefs and compatibility issues -- such as the importance one places on reading in the first place.

For instance, the Intelligent Independent once dated a girl who was fun and perky and possessed many of the qualities prized by the Superficial Man. However, as you will see, the mental connection wasn't all there. One day in an online chat I engaged her in a dialog about her favorite book. Luckily for Intelligent Independent readers, her responses left me so shocked, so incredulous, that I saved that little snippet of chat for posterity. Now I will share it with you:

Intelligent Independent: what's your favorite book?
Lindsay: y
II: I'm trying to get to know you
II: We have little to talk about because we don't know each other
II: And we don't have a base of experiences to talk about
Lindsay: i dont read
II: I don't read either. But I have a favorite book. Have you ever read a book you enjoy?
Lindsay: no
II: You've got to be joking
Lindsay: nope
II: has everything you HAVE read been for class?
Lindsay: yes
II: and i take it none of that has been interesting. 1984?
Lindsay: whats 1984?

That was the last time we spoke.

So in conclusion, rejecting someone based on their different taste in books? Pretentious and small-minded. Rejecting someone based on their complete ignorance of the written word? An intelligent move!

On Justice, Terrorism, and American Hypocrisy

2008-03-31T00:00:00.007-04:00

The Intelligent Independent watched the 60 Minutes report Sunday about a German national being held as a terrorist in Guantanamo, and we are having an extremely hard time controlling our anger. Murat Kurnaz told 60 Minutes about the years he had to spend in the infamous U.S. detention facility, where he was beaten, drowned, chained and hung from his arms for days on end, forced to go weeks without sleep, and generally having things done to him that, if true, all meet the dictionary definition (if not the "legal" definition) of "torture."

Mr. Kurnaz had never been associated with Al Qaeda, had never made any threats against the United States, and was just your average citizen of Germany, who simply happened to be interested in learning about Islam around the same time September 11 happened. Bad timing, for in the weeks and months after the attacks, everyone was on heightened alert. Security forces singled him out, took him from Pakistan, where he had been studying, to a detention camp in Afghanistan, and tried to beat information out of him. Problem is, he didn't have any information. He didn't even know what Al Qaeda was.

Unable to get anything out of him in Afghanistan, the United States -- the beacon of freedom throughout the world -- flew him to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There, he was mixed in with enemy combatants that were found on the field of battle. He became "Number 53," and he was stripped of all human dignity.

The United States government, chiefly commanded by President George W. Bush, did everything you might expect an of an Angry Superpower. As Dick Cheney said in a Meet the Press interview just after September 11, 2001, America would soon have to go into "the shadows," to "work the dark side... using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies."

Much of America condones using "any means at our disposal," as the vice president said, to wring information out of terrorists in our midst. Unfortunately, most people don't stop to think that perhaps the people we have rounded up have absolutely nothing to do with terror. The Intelligent Independent is confident that most people in our fine nation would feel as disgusted, as revolted as we do, to hear that our country routinely tortures innocent people.

After Mr. Kurnaz had been in Guantanamo for over a year, United States security forces determined that he was not a threat, and that he had never made any anti-American statements or actions. They promised the Germans his release in 6-8 weeks.

He remained locked up for the next 3 1/2 years. His story is not a unique one.

If these allegations are true -- and there is much corroborating evidence and testimony from others, including American soldiers -- then the Intelligent Independent cannot express to you the rage that is filling up within us. Perhaps it is our legal training -- we studied law at Georgetown, where we learned about such American fundamentals as due process and a system of jurisprudential oversight and habeas corpus rights -- but our emotional side, upon seeing that 60 minutes segment, almost wants to hold President Bush and the rest of the administration accountable for war crimes, and put them on trial in The Hague. Look at history: people have gone on trial for less.

At least in the Hague, our administration's head honchos would have more rights afforded to them then the thousands of people American soldiers swept up in their antiterrorist hysteria, who were then hidden away in detention centers around the world which courts could not reach.

THESE ARE THE TACTICS of Soviet Russia under Stalin. These are not the tactics of a country founded upon freedom and the rule of law and the idea that all people are blessed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. All people, not just those who were born in the United States.

The Intelligent Independent must apologize: he is thinking with his heart. He is actually letting his thought processes be informed by a sense of moral outrage. Moral outrage is good, but we should all strive to dissect the issues and allegations calmly and rationally.

Mr. Kurnaz may have been innocent, but he was acting in a fairly suspicious manner -- he was a foreigner in Pakistan who had recently become interested in Islam, grown a massive beard, and studied at a madrasah. The Intelligent Independent would definitely have characterized him as a "person of interest."

The Intelligent Independent would have questioned him. We would have held him in custody for days, maybe even weeks. (Not to give up our belief in procedural due process, but this was right after September 11, and we were trying to get information about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and sometimes due process must be temporarily suspended during times of war and emergency.)

That is where the Intelligent Independent would have veered away from the current administration's actions. We would not have beaten him. We would not have tortured him. We are one of those sentimental individuals who believes that human dignity is a universal right. If Mr. Kurnaz was firing at us across a battlefield, that is one thing. But he was picked up off a bus by Pakistani soldiers who claimed that we had paid them a bounty for "suspicious foreigners," and he was taken to a camp and beaten.

It is important right now to note that the American military has completely denied all allegations of mistreating the man. They claim his story is ridiculous and does not hold up to even the slightest hint of scrutiny. The Intelligent Independent tends to disbelieve the American military in this instance. There is too much corroborating evidence in the form of statements of others who experienced or witnessed similar actions and events. But even if we accepted as truth the American military's denial of any mistreatment, the fact remains that they have never explained why we kept Mr. Kurnaz imprisoned after military investigators had determined his innocence.

IT IS IMPORTANT to defend one's country from enemies intent on attacking us. It is important to be proactive in seeking out individuals who may have connections to terrorists. And it is important that, while we are doing these things, we stand by our principles and act as a model for the world. How would we feel if American citizens were swept up by, say, China, as it was looking for enemies and dissidents? How would we react if they simply took our citizens hostage, locking them up in secret prisons, denying them basic rights and torturing them for information? Touchy diplomatic issues aside, we would call for the heads of their leaders. Quite simply, we would demand justice. We would argue with Beautiful Rhetorical Flourishes that human dignity and fundamental due process rights apply to Americans throughout the world, no matter what government is holding them, no matter what crime they are accused of.

It is so easy for an American patriot to rationalize our actions. We are under attack! There are people around the world who want to kill us! The masterminds of the September 11 attacks will not rest, and we must seek out and find anyone who has information that can stop the next attack. Yes, some people's rights may be trampled upon, but we can not give every enemy soldier a lawyer just because we want to satisfy our own inconsequential ethical dilemmas. We can be idealistic, but we must be realistic: America must do what it needs to in order to secure the safety of all of its citizens.

It is so easy to rationalize, to treat others as potential enemies, as anti-American threats, as mere vessels that, with enough pressure, might give up some information that could help us. As Dick Cheney admitted admitted over six years ago, it is so easy to "work the dark side."

But we mustn't. America is above that. Other countries work the dark side. America was supposed to be a shining city on a hill. We were supposed to be a beacon of justice, a paragon of virtue for the rest of the world to look to and emulate.

Sometimes the ideal of freedom is hard to live up to, even for the country that preaches it most fervently. But if we cannot strive to live up to our own ideals, how can we expect that from any other country?

McCain: The Original Intelligent Independent?

2008-03-28T12:00:00.004-04:00

The Left likes to vilify Senator John McCain as a right-wing nut whose goal, like Bush, is to forcibly spread freedom and democracy throughout the world, at whatever cost, by any means necessary. Intelligent Independents know that forced democracy is a contraction in terms.

In a bit of word play so transparent as to be laughable, the MoveOn crowd likes to refer to McCain not as "McCain," but as "McCain-Bush." Their goal, ostensibly, is to ascribe Bush's evil and heavy-handed foreign policy to McCain. Intelligent Independents do not fall for this, any more than we fall for the Right emphasizing Barack Hussein Obama's middle name in order to try to spread anti-Muslim fear, or calling him Osama as a stupid scare tactic. (NB: McCain doesn't fall for this either.)

Some on the Left go even further, not just linking McCain and Bush semantically, but in the case of the Huffington Post (which continues its long and rabid slide into irrelevancy), overlaying headshots of 4,000 dead American soldiers onto a picture of McCain and Bush laughing. Intelligent Independents know that such a perverse mural simply disrespects the lives of these soldiers in a cheap and offensive political stunt to attempt to connect John McCain to Bush to senseless death.

Yet McCain is not a right-wing nut. McCain does not share Bush's approach to foreign policy. Their ultimate goal of freedom and democracy and peace throughout the world might be the same (isn't that everyone's goal?), but their plans for carrying that out are fairly different.

(Oh wait, the Intelligent Independent just remembered that peace throughout the world is not everyone's goal. In our idealism, we sometimes momentarily forget that some people hate America, distort a religion whose name means "peace," and are trying to kill us.)

(Sorry, we get testy sometimes.)

As I was saying, painted as a Bushie by the Left, and derided by many on the right, McCain is actually one of us. In a foreign policy speech this week, McCain not only expressed his utter distaste for war and his desire for peace throughout the word, but also declared that "America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model," and went on to channel the words of one wise prophet, Uncle Ben, who taught us that with great power comes great responsibility.

Before anyone tries to connect McCain to Bush again, you might want to take a look at this snippet of McCain's speech:

Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

Truer words have never been spoken. Those are words you might expect out of the mouth of the so-called "uniter," Barack Obama (who, Intelligent Independents have realized with scrunched brows, has the most liberal record in the U.S. Senate -- not exactly someone who appears willing to compromise with ideological adversaries). Definitely not the kind of thing you'd hear from the Texan.

Surprised? Don't be. McCain regularly earns the scorn of his party when he jumps across the aisle for a senate bill he believes in. Unlike many politicians, McCain's actions and words are actually one and the same.

But wait, it gets better:

We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society. We can't torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.

There is such a thing as international good citizenship. We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren.

God, no wonder the Right hates McCain. Can you imagine those words (garbled or otherwise) ever coming out of the mouth of Dubya?

The Intelligent Independent is thrilled that the confirmed Republican candidate for president shows such a willingness to be thoughtful, to be a good world citizen, to hold true to values and yet remain open to being proved wrong. That is the mark of a True Intelligent Independent. Senator McCain, we commend you!

The Perils of Political Independence

2008-03-26T22:48:00.000-04:00

It's not easy being a political independent during an election year. Everything you say ends up pissing somebody off. Most years, we can drift from group to group, pleasantly agreeing with what the extremists say because, after all, we are reasonable and we can usually find a grain of truth in even the most out-there arguments. More important, even the extremists are laid back during off years, and they don’t get too indignant when we say something that might otherwise infuriate them.

Election years change all that.

Take Barack Obama. The good senator gave a marvelous speech last week. He elucidated the problems of many minorities in this country, the resentments of many in the “majority” (NB: aren’t white people a plurality these days?), and he did his best to deflect attention from the ultra-incendiary Reverend Wright by imploring that the American public engage in a true dialogue. Imagine that! A true dialogue -- every Independent’s dream!

When I told my friends I loved Obama’s speech, I got two basic responses:

“Obama is a brilliant man and he is the one who can restore America’s dignity throughout the world. I'm so glad you are on our side!”
“You actually fell for that speech? Sure, Obama knows how to give a good speech, but the fact is he embraces a racist minister. I can’t believe you fell for that snake oil. Obama doesn’t care about change, and he doesn’t care about a true racial dialogue; he just wants to take the attention offered his own race problems.”

The first response was clearly given by Obama supporters. No surprise there. The second response is slightly more surprising: sure, conservatives were shocked that I had been hoodwinked. But Hillary supporters were equally, if not more angry at Obama’s words.

Here is a direct quote from a chat I had last week with an ardent Hillary supporter:

“The man promotes tolerance of another man who has basically advocated the overthrow of the government — I hardly think Obama’s speech was enough. I just think that if Obama were the Uniter he claims to be, he would have disassociated himself with that church and that crazy preacher a long time ago. And it makes me question his judgment. Some of you Obama people are maniacs and deluded.”

I had to remind my friend that I am a registered independent and not necessarily an “Obama supporter.” But when we independents express support for anything — any position, any candidate’s speech, any progressive or conservative idea — we’re guaranteed to be attacked by one of the extremes.

Especially during a vitriolic presidential campaign year. Nowhere is safe! The Left and Right hurl their talking point bombs at each other, everyone dodges each other’s points instead of listening and debating… and here we are, stuck in the middle, getting pelted by both sides.

Nobody wants to listen. Nobody wants to engage in a dialogue. Nobody, that is, except Independents.

That’s why I created IntelligentIndependent.com. There are plenty of sites out there aimed at crazy conservatives, and plenty aimed at crazy liberals — but where are the sites for all us crazy independents?

This will be a site for the oddball who is not only passionate about politics, but passionate about lively, spirited debate — and passionate about solutions, no matter which side introduces them.

Conservatives are right: sometimes the free market is the answer. Sometimes government intrusion is the problem.

And liberals are right: Sometimes corporate greed is harmful. Sometimes government assistance is the answer.

Politically independent doesn’t mean politically boring. Politically independent does not necessarily mean politically moderate. Politically independent means politically thoughtful. It means listening to all sides of an argument, exploring the length of the political spectrum, and only then making an informed decision.

Political independence means political intelligence. Let the intelligent independent discussion begin.