Where’s the Fear?

Maybe I’m more aware of this now that I have kids, but do politicians always sound like kids’ cartoons? In the movie Beauty and the Beast, the character Gaston says “you’re either with us or against us.” Sarah Palin sounds like the squirrel from Higglytown Heroes, ya betcha. And of course, Barack Obama channels Bob the Builder with “Yes we can.” Election 2008, kids shows

Muslim constituents repeatedly challenged Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) at an emotional town hall meeting in Charlotte Thursday, with Myrick scrambling to distance herself from the Islam-bashing co-author of the book Muslim Mafia, whose foreword was written by the congresswoman herself. Myrick has had a tense relationship with her district’s Muslim community for many years, but it’s been aggravated recently by her campaign to investigate undercover Muslim intern “spies” on Capitol Hill. That effort arose from purported revelations in Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America, written by Paul Sperry and David Gaubatz, with a foreword by…

My friend Moushumi has a piece up on how immigrants should enter the American discourse on race. I think it’s a good message for the first-generation, but my feeling is that if the second-plus generation doesn’t get it now, they aren’t going to. Election 2008, race