The Heat and The Light

WELL, DOWN SOUTH today there's screaming headlines about "Glenn Beck claims his first scalp," and up here the gear up to the Toronto Film Fest is all about how a Director and a bunch of celebs have taken a bold stand for censorship in the face of a programming choice they don't like. The silly season continues into the fall it seems.

I don't want to talk about film directors or Van Jones. And I wrote as much today in an email to a friend who asked about the latter.

It seems to me that we've reached a point in history where the Internet rules have extended everywhere. It's important to say the nastiest thing you can as quickly as you can. If you can prove Godwin's law and work in a Nazi smear, so much the better.

But Internet rules should not apply to the public discourse. It cheapens us, and it fails us, and it celebrates our worst when the problems facing us demand our best. So here's what I wrote to my friend today about Van Jones:

There's no question to me that the problem we have now in the United States is that we have a "heat" party and a "heat and light" party. And the "heat" party got to where they are now -- a fading rump, because all they have left is heat -- having chased anyone who offered any light but Jesus out of their tent. The only shot they've got down there is that the "heat and light" party start finding a way to make the latter feel as substantial as the former. We have to demand our media start to sell the light.

So Van Jones wasn't a story until his resignation. So what? Maybe somebody should have vetted this guy earlier, or maybe it's blown up out of all proportion.

But really, as the right fulminates, where are the major policy ideas -- the new ones -- to face what the US needs faced right now? There are none. But there is Obama's birth certificate, and death panels instead of actual policy discussion, and the ridiculous notion that the President of the United States addressing school kids is controversial.

Nobody comes off well here. Nobody. So you can't tell me that what needed to be done was more coverage of Van Jones leading up to this. We need less. Less coverage of Michelle Bachman when she floats crazy conspiracy theories on the floor of the United States Congress. Daniel Inhofe wants to deny climate change? Fine. He shouldn't be reported on -- ever.

All that space devoted to the bullshit sideshow should go to actually explaining and informing the American people about things like health care, green initiatives in energy, etc.

What's happened now is that the worst of the United States media's lazy framing -- the who's up who's down horserace of the permanent campaign -- has become the default 24/7. It's sucking the air out of the room for every possible permutation of story. They say, about Obama, "the President hasn't made his case."

Well where was he supposed to make that case? How much airtime was spent on crazy people bringing guns to rallies and people who knew nothing shouting? Was he supposed to make his case there? As the papers reported dutifully for the last week that there were fears that the President's address to children was going to be something -- anything -- other than "work hard, stay in school," was it supposed to be there?

Jones resigning was the best thing he's probably done for the Obama administration. Try to smother the latest fire, so that the Glenn Beck Rush Limbaugh party can't run around like chickens with their heads cut off for another week -- and once again escape any kind of attention to the fact that their party is intellectually bankrupt, with no new ideas, and a failed passel of policies that they couldn't make work over the last eight years -- which shouldn't be a surprise, because they didn't really work when they tried them out under Reagan and Bush I either -- anything that stops that is good strategic politics. And if the left of Obama's party can't see that, then they should be ignored too. Enough. We have suffered too long because the party with the greater discipline is the one without any new ideas.

There was a brief, shining audacity of hope moment for me last year. I think of it even now, and seize upon it and hope that maybe, somehow we can see its like again.

That's when the whole Reverend Wright thing popped up. And the Right wing noise machine and the oh-not-really-we're-pretty-scared-actually so-called "Liberal" media suited up and got ready to go on the field and start calling all the old standbys from the Swift Boat, knock-em-down playbook...

..and then the Candidate stood up and gave one of the most remarkable speeches I've seen in my 35 years or so of paying attention to this kind of stuff. (And I can claim that, cause I stayed home sick from school at my Grandma's place to watch Carter's inaugural in 1977 -- I was a fairly serious eight year old.)

The way that Obama spoke truth about race that day, and the problems of framing how he subject of -- forgive me -- the subject of black and white was anything but... gave me hope. Because it was rational, and showed grace and forgiveness and understanding and sense, and a little bit of wisdom, too.

That flame of hope flickered brighter in the following days, when all the old plays seemed to come up short. They couldn't grab traction with Wright. They tried to trash how he talked about his Grandma, they tried to say that he hadn't gone far enough with Wright...The Pundits kept trying to say that Obama was still going to take a hit, still going to take a hit...

...and he didn't.

So, I don't want to talk about Van Jones. Not now. I simply do not care. I want to talk about getting those 50 million Americans covered. I want to talk about making it so that the pre-existing condition thing doesn't trap people in jobs, and that the whole sorry spectacle of U.S. insurance is whacked at the knees and made to heel for what's best for the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for a beleageured and oh-so-tired people.

And then I want to move on to the next thing. And the thing after that. And the thing after that. And I want the screaming from Rush and Glenn and all the rest to fade away in the rearview.

You want to know what I think about Van Jones? I think Al Franken. In many ways, this is the best piece of tape I've seen in weeks. It's the one that makes me feel just a little bit like how I felt when Obama gave that speech about race.

It's an elected official having a talk with some excited and angry citizens, primed with talking points. It's about speaking calmly, about what needs to be done and why. Leave it to the comedian to speak truth to the mob.

You give me Van Jones? No sale. I want more of this: