First, I’m handing out propers to Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida. The state has a law restricting polling places during early voting to being open only eight hours per day. This, of course, is stupid; people with regular nine-to-five jobs couldn’t get there for that, which defeats the purpose of early voting. So Crist did a little executive order thing, extending those hours to twelve per day (7-7). This was absolutely the right thing to do.
Many members of his own party hated it. They are afraid that more voters means a McCain loss in the state. It seems to me that if more people voting means your party will lose, you need to change your party, not the voting procedures. But it isn’t the GOP I’m angry with over this; I don’t expect much from them anyway, and they’re in full “the sky is falling” mode at this point. My problem is on the other side.
While most Democrats have been just happy with these developments, a few are running all over the place telling anyone who will listen that Crist did it to revenge himself upon the McCain campaign for picking Sarah Palin to be VP instead of him or whatever. Basically, they’re saying that he knows McCain is going to lose anyway, and he’s doing this for selfish reasons to make himself look good.
You know what? What Crist did was right. And he did make himself look good, and it’s fine that he looks good, because when you do the right thing you should look good. I don’t care what his rationale was. We want people to do the right thing, and you don’t have to be a member of a particular party, or subscribe to a particular political philosophy, to do that. We should be applauding him for actually protecting the rights of the people of his state; there has to be a reward for serving the public interest, or people will stop doing it. So, if you’re one of those on the left who has been questioning his motives today, shut up. You’re part of the problem.
Second, there’s Rashid Khalidi. The Palin, who still lacks both the competence and the vision to make the case for her own ticket, has been trying to scare people by talking him up (though she has not yet mastered the pronunciation of his name) and now the knuckleheads have taken up the chant that he’s some sort of radical anti-Semite.
Now, I’m not going to defend Khalidi. I don’t know much about him. He might well be anti-Zionist, which is a perfectly respectable political position to take. He might also be anti-Jew, which is not at all respectable. I have no idea. But he is NOT an anti-Semite. Khalidi is Palestinian, which of course makes him an Arab. That means, for the benefit of all the half-witted right-wing talking heads out there, that HE IS SEMITIC HIMSELF. To save them the trouble of looking up the word (a skill which they appear to lack) I offer this quick definition:
SEMITE—a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
The name Semite actually comes from the language group common in this part of the world (the Semitic languages), which includes both Hebrew and Arabic. It is regional, not ethnic. Yes, people in this country frequently use the word to mean anti-Jewish, but that isn’t its actual definition. I usually let it slide when someone is talking about, say, Pat Robertson, because it still basically makes sense in those circumstances. However, it absolutely does not make sense when you’re talking about an Arab.
What I’m saying is that Rashid Khalidi can no more be anti-Semitic than fire can be anti-heat, or I can be anti-cool. If the closed minds out there absolutely must use fancy words, they should at least take the trouble to find out what those words mean first.
Many members of his own party hated it. They are afraid that more voters means a McCain loss in the state. It seems to me that if more people voting means your party will lose, you need to change your party, not the voting procedures. But it isn’t the GOP I’m angry with over this; I don’t expect much from them anyway, and they’re in full “the sky is falling” mode at this point. My problem is on the other side.
While most Democrats have been just happy with these developments, a few are running all over the place telling anyone who will listen that Crist did it to revenge himself upon the McCain campaign for picking Sarah Palin to be VP instead of him or whatever. Basically, they’re saying that he knows McCain is going to lose anyway, and he’s doing this for selfish reasons to make himself look good.
You know what? What Crist did was right. And he did make himself look good, and it’s fine that he looks good, because when you do the right thing you should look good. I don’t care what his rationale was. We want people to do the right thing, and you don’t have to be a member of a particular party, or subscribe to a particular political philosophy, to do that. We should be applauding him for actually protecting the rights of the people of his state; there has to be a reward for serving the public interest, or people will stop doing it. So, if you’re one of those on the left who has been questioning his motives today, shut up. You’re part of the problem.
Second, there’s Rashid Khalidi. The Palin, who still lacks both the competence and the vision to make the case for her own ticket, has been trying to scare people by talking him up (though she has not yet mastered the pronunciation of his name) and now the knuckleheads have taken up the chant that he’s some sort of radical anti-Semite.
Now, I’m not going to defend Khalidi. I don’t know much about him. He might well be anti-Zionist, which is a perfectly respectable political position to take. He might also be anti-Jew, which is not at all respectable. I have no idea. But he is NOT an anti-Semite. Khalidi is Palestinian, which of course makes him an Arab. That means, for the benefit of all the half-witted right-wing talking heads out there, that HE IS SEMITIC HIMSELF. To save them the trouble of looking up the word (a skill which they appear to lack) I offer this quick definition:
SEMITE—a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
The name Semite actually comes from the language group common in this part of the world (the Semitic languages), which includes both Hebrew and Arabic. It is regional, not ethnic. Yes, people in this country frequently use the word to mean anti-Jewish, but that isn’t its actual definition. I usually let it slide when someone is talking about, say, Pat Robertson, because it still basically makes sense in those circumstances. However, it absolutely does not make sense when you’re talking about an Arab.
What I’m saying is that Rashid Khalidi can no more be anti-Semitic than fire can be anti-heat, or I can be anti-cool. If the closed minds out there absolutely must use fancy words, they should at least take the trouble to find out what those words mean first.
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