30% America

A story has been emerging during the last couple days regarding a meeting the President of the United States had last Monday. On the same day as the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the President took 20 minutes to meet in the Oval Office with a Bill Thomas of Cove, TX. Mr. Thomas, a Vietnam Veteran, met with the President to award him a Purple Heart. Yes, you read that right:

WASHINGTON – Bill and Georgia Thomas reported they were elated Monday when they met in the Oval Office with President George W. Bush to present him with a Purple Heart.

"We were just absolutely bowled over. Without reservation, it was one of the highlights of our life. He was such a gracious host," Thomas said. "It was just an incredible, incredible experience."

The couple was able to meet with President Bush for about 20 minutes to present him with one of three Purple Hearts that Bill Thomas received during his service in Vietnam.

"He said he didn't feel like he had earned it," Thomas said, noting the president looked thinner in person than on television.

The Thomases also were able to meet Barney, the president's Scottish terrier, and tour the White House Rose Garden.

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office.

"We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds," Thomas said.

Of course, I'm struck by a lot in this story. The Thomases are members of what I'll call "30% America". These folks are obviously amongst those in the polls that still, after everything we've seen over the last 6 years, still approve of the job this President is doing.

What will it take for these people? After poisoning our political process, after Robin Hood in reverse, after the squandering, after the lies, after being responsible for killing more Americans than Bin Laden (and only God knows how many otherwise), after the incompetence, after abandoning our values, after showing contempt for our laws...Assuming we still have an America after his term, how long will it take these people to unlearn the myths about this President and come back to reality?

And what is a bigger force here: The President's need to feed his vainglory or the 30% Americans to give something important of themselves just so they can worship at the feet of their boy-god? That's a tough one, but I'll go with the former. I still can't believe that with all the time and energy it takes to mismanage two wars while leading the nation into the shitter, he took 20 minutes out from, on top of everything else, hearing reports from what's happening in Blacksburg, VA to accept something he clearly has no business accepting. What a needy little man.

UPDATE: Laura Bush unloads a 30% Americanism this morning: "no one is suffers more than their President and I do."

In Praise of Austin King

Photo courtesy of Phil Ejercito at his flickr page.

Brenda Konkel has a very good post this week about the Wisconsin State Journal's treatment of my boy (and our Acting-Mayor), Austin.

There's not too much to add to that. But while the has-beens and never-will-bes in the WSJ Editorial Department and on the AM Dial and in the righty cheddarsphere bury Caesar, I'm going to praise him and explain to you why people like Austin King are important. And to do that, I'm going to go back to a time before he was born.

1975

Earlier this week, the Capital Times ran a story about the 25th Anniversary of the signing of the first civil rights law for gays and lesbians. That happened in Wisconsin. Our state did that and we should be proud of that (I prefer feeling pride in that to the shame I feel over our recent history). In 1982, it was a big deal for Wisconsin to write a MANDATE into law against discriminating against gays and lesbians. Well, it was a big deal if you didn't live in Madison. The Common Council passed and then-Mayor Paul Soglin signed an anti-discrimination MANDATE seven years earlier.

Throughout Madison's history, there are stories of city government getting ahead of the rest of the state and society and passing legislation that everybody else catches up to.

And that's a part of a bigger point I made during my campaign - Madison does best when it's a leader, when it's not afraid to take risks to better society. It does best when it isn't afraid to be an island sometimes when it's the right thing to do.

Now, I haven't been the biggest fan all of Austin's ideas - and have seriously disagreed with some of them. But he put the hammer on the head a few times during his four years on the Common Council like nobody else. His work on the minimum wage had fantastic results for all of Wisconsin - even this guy agrees. And I thought the sick leave ordinance was an idea that's time will come soon enough. I even failed a political purity test over agreeing with Austin.

And over the last four years, Austin has built up more political capital than most of his peers have during longer durations. And he's behaved as a political venture capitalist - sometimes failing, but winning big when he does win. MEMO TO THE NEWBIES ON THE COMMON COUNCIL: Roll big like Austin did. Think big. Don't be afraid to make risks. Don't hoard your political capital. That's how great things get done in Madison.

Mike Leon is Alive!

And he's blogging. Despite the fact that he once called me "Scott Basford" in print, I've always found his views interesting. So go check him out at MAL Contends.

Hey look! I'm YouTubing!

I visited my family for Easter today. My mom gave us a toy for Sage and this is her with it.

Madison Election Post-Mortem

When I was younger, I used to say that Election Night in Madison was like Christmas and the Super Bowl smashed together with free beer. But these days, the beer is not free anymore, and more often than not teams I don't like are playing and I'm getting nothing but socks and underwear.

But last night's results have a lot for us to talk about. So while the coffee's brewing and I'm waiting for the aspirin to work its magic, let's go over the known knowns learned last night:

- The person who sacrificed a goat to the Politics Gods on Progressive Dane's behalf is owed big-time today. In 1999, PD hit the high-water mark of eight seats. They've gone between six and seven since then and now are at six seats. It could have been much worse. They came within 306 votes of winding up at an all-time low of 3 seats.

- Wayne Bigelow should have sacrificed a goat. There are now six Democratic Party of Dane County-endorsed candidates on the Council and a candidate he personally backed (Eli Judge) did knock off a PD candidate in a PD seat. But he came within 44 votes of taking another PD seat (Tim Gruber) and putting in an extra Dem-Endorsed candidate (Gary Poulson).

- It's a crying shame that Poulson, Lauren Woods and Vicky Selkowe lost last night. Those three would have vastly improved the Council.

- It's official: Larry Palm is a bad man. Way to elevate the level of discourse, Lar...

- What's also official is that Mark Deadman is a class act. During the entire election, I was watching and waiting for him to spring a lit piece that would cause my eyeballs to burn and melt out of their sockets like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But instead he kept it clean. Sure, he spun some things on his opponent (and my alder-elect), but it was all above-the-board and I want to make sure people know how much I appreciated that.

- What's also official is that the Smoking Ban as an issue is over. Move along angry people...

- We came within 13 votes of having the first all-white Council since before I was born. I don't like what that says about our political power structures in this town.

- Lost in all the discussion about what groups won what seats is the idea of the power dynamics between the Mayor and the Council. "What are you talking about, Mike?" you ask? Do you remember Paul Soglin? Remember back to when he was Mayor. Did anybody really care about the makeup of the Council back in those days? Absolutely not - because the Mayor was Paul Fucking Soglin and he was going to do whatever he wanted to do and all these groups knew that and didn't pay the Council much mind. That's the best example of the Strong-Mayor/Weak-Council dynamic. Remember Sue Bauman? During her term Ringling Brothers couldn't come up with a circus that topped what happened every two weeks in the Council chambers as the Council acted like she didn't exist. That's an example of a Weak-Mayor/Strong-Council dynamic. Mayor Dave started his term in 2003 on even footing with the Council and has been strengthening his hand ever since. His mandate from last night, coupled with all the new alders on the Council, will strengthen it further.

- Now, when I talk about Mayor Dave's mandate, it doesn't include trolleys. I think this election, and the electorate's response to the trolley idea, proved that point.

- And my friend Brenda Konkel won't admit to it, but with all the 10-10 votes looming, I'm sure she feels a bit of relief that the Mayor can operate from a bit of a position of strength.

- When I was running, I would often talk about how horrible it was that the Dane County Board only needed three-four hours to pass a half-billion dollar budget, but the Council took over four days to pass a budget due to all the grandstanding. Those will soon be referred to as "The Good Ol' Days". Memo to all the alders: Don't make travel plans for Thanksgiving.

- One more thing fellow babies: Quieto!!!

Briefly Noting

I will be posting double tomorrow with the Spin City Endorsements and Baseball Season Opener Super Special.

But tonight, we welcome another spirit into the circle: Ann Elizabeth McDonell was born this afternoon around 2PM to proud parents Scott and Megin. Congratulations and best wishes to the McDonell family.